ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses four of the limitations with traditional notions of formulation and its tendency to: privilege professional expertise; over-emphasize the past; simplify causality; take a mechanistic view. It focuses on formulation as a dynamic, ongoing, and mutual process of discovering what seems true and workable in coaching conversations as a platform for change. The goal is to attend more fully to the coachee's contributions to formulation, their story about what is going on and what to do about it. As coachees are more able to work with the elements of their own stories, they can more readily recognize and take advantage of openings for change. A narrative approach to coaching is predicated on a trusting container in which coachees are free to fully narrate their experience and work with the resulting material in service of their goals. Coaches must take the lead in consciously engaging the coachee and the situation in creating a shared and dynamic formulation.
