Invited Paper: Constructivist coaching and COVID-19: Reconstruing what we cannot deny
Jelena Pavlović
Constructivist coaching is based on the metaphor of person as scientist, who formulates and tests his or her own hypotheses in everyday social experiments. The role of the coach is to partner with the coachee in improving the design of these experiments, which would lead to improving our implicit theories about the self and others. Constructivist coaching offers a comprehensive theory of preconditions of change before revision of our personal theories can take place. Five preconditions of change include the following: (1) Verbalizing hypotheses or theories; (2) Dispersion of dependencies; (3) Tightening one’s core constructs; (4) Increasing permeability of constructs; and (5) Promoting propositional construing. COVID-19 has put a huge challenge in front of the many in our ability to formulate and test new hypotheses about our functioning in many domains. The logic of reconstruction as a type of change in constructivist coaching is illustrated on some of the challenges that have emerged with COVID-19.
Dr Jelena Pavlović is Assistant Professor of Organizational Development and Change, University of Belgrade and Honorary Research Fellow at the ISCP International Centre for Coaching Psychology Research. She is Associate Editor Journal of Constructivist Psychology