Life Coaching Skills

`Life Coaching Skills by Dr Richard Nelson-Jones is an excellent introduction to this rapidly expanding field of work. I can thoroughly recommend this book for both experienced and neophyte coaches. Practitioners from other professions and the layperson may also find the skills useful′ - Professor Stephen Palmer, Coaching Psychology Unit, City University

`This book provides a wealth of information and expertise founded on tried and tested interventions and cannot fail to improve the skill level of existing coaches as well as those entering the Life Coaching arena′ - Gladeana McMahon, Head of Coaching Fairplace plc, Co-Director, Centre for Coaching

Life coaching is a rapidly growing area with more and more people seeking help to lead satisfying and successful lives. Life Coaching Skills provides a practical introduction to the skills needed to be an effective life coach and incorporates a wide range of practical activities for coaches to use to help their clients develop self-coaching skills.

Written by leading skills expert, Richard Nelson-Jones, the book presents a four stage life coaching model based around the core concepts of relating, understanding, changing and client self-coaching. It explores the central skills of coaching used within the model including: establishing the coaching relationship; assessment and goal setting; presentation; demonstration, and consolidation.

The main focus of the book is on one-to-one life coaching particularly concerning relationship, work, and health issues. The specific skills needed for working with groups are also discussed and ethical issues and dilemmas related to coaching are explored. Life Coaching Skills is ideal for anyone interested in becoming a life coach and for use in training.

Richard Nelson-Jones was born in London in 1936. Having spent five years in California as a Second World War refugee, he returned in the 1960s to obtain a Masters and Ph.D from Stanford University. In 1970, he was appointed a lecturer in the Department of Education at the University of Aston to establish a Diploma in Counselling in Educational Settings, which started enrolling students in 1971. During the 1970s, he was helped by having three Fulbright Professors from the United States, each for a year, who both taught students and improved his skills. During this period he broadened out from a predominantly client-centred orientation to becoming much more cognitive-behavioural. He also wrote numerous articles and the first edition of what is now The Theory and Practice of Counselling and Therapy, which was published in 1982. In addition, he chaired the British Psychological Society′s Working Party on Counselling and, in1982, became the first chairperson of the BPS Counselling Psychology Section. In 1984, he took up a position as a counselling and later counselling psychology trainer at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, where he became an Associate Professor. He continued writing research articles, articles on professional issues and books, which were published in London and Sydney. As when he worked at Aston University, he also counselled clients to keep up his skills. In 1997, he retired from RMIT and moved to Chiang Mai in Thailand. There, as well as doing some counselling and teaching, he has continued as an author of counselling and counselling psychology textbooks. A British and Australian citizen, he now divides his time between Chiang Mai and London and regularly visits Australia.