ABSTRACT
In the second phase of the research into critical moments in coaching, we asked 75 coaches with at least eight years’ experience to answer the same question about their critical moments. Analysis of these coach descriptions of critical moments yielded mainly various anxieties. The following differences emerge from a comparison of the critical moments of inexperienced and experienced coaches.
Less experienced coaches appear to have more doubts during coaching, including doubts about their own suitability for the role of coach.
More experienced coaches still struggle with their critical moments, but do so with more self-confidence and more awareness for underlying transference.
More experienced coaches appear to have a different sort of self-awareness that is more linked to the desire to show that they are doing a good job.
It was possible to describe all of the extended accounts of the 47 critical moments from in-depth interviews in just nine relational phases, which kept recurring in different orders. It also emerged that all moments with a favourable outcome, a deepening and/or a change, contained a phase of shared reflection prior to that outcome. Moreover, almost all of the moments that ended in a breakdown lacked such a stage of shared reflection.
