Review of Deep Coaching, from CoastViews, August 2007 (p. 24)
Deep Coaching: Using the Enneagram as a Catalyst for Profound Change by Roxanne Howe-Murphy, Ed.D Enneagram Press; El Granada, CA 263 pp; $49.95
Reviewed by Bob Walch
It was over three years in development but those who read Deep Coaching will appreciate the time and effort that went into this informative guide.
The founder of Life Wise Learning Institute, Roxanne Howe-Murphy shows how the Enneagram personality system combined with deep coaching can be used as a tool to support transformation and life shifts in one’s everyday existence.
As used in this text, the term “deep coaching” focuses attention on the challenges, the opportunities, the capacities, and the responsibility professionals have to elicit the strengths that come from the depth of the client. Howe-Murphy says, “By getting to the heart of the matter, we can help our clients become free from core operating principles that no longer serve them. They can become free to live from a place of expansiveness and potential.”
The author goes on to explain that this book shows how the Enneagram supports deep coaching by providing a knowledge base that offers a unique awareness of the client’s experience and allows for the creation of easy rapport.
“In deep coaching, we use the Enneagram to honor the mystery of human development and evolution,” she writes in the preface. “Simultaneously, coaching with the Enneagram requires us to call upon our own depths.”
To this end, Deep Coaching provides the user with the support he or she needs in understanding, appreciating, and using the Enneagram. Although written in the language of coaches and those in related professions, this trade paperback will be helpful for anyone interested in translating the Enneagram into psychological and spiritual development processes.
The book is divided into three sections plus an extensive appendix that features additional useful material. Part One features a basic introduction to the Enneagram from a coaching perspective. The first chapter provides a foundation on the nature of personality and underscores the purpose and benefits that accompany using this system. A Deep Coaching Model follows, along with an overview of the Enneagram system as a path for individual change.
Part Two contains four chapters that describe the nine Enneagram types along with case studies and typespecific coaching considerations. An important element of this section is the discussion of the Iceberg Model which offers a shorthand visual for capturing the information on each type.
The final section brings the reader into deeper contact with Enneagrambased coaching principles and strategies. While one chapter looks at the ways for a coach to increase his or her sense of presence and help the client do the same, another chapter offers guidance on the use of specific coaching tools.
Chapter 9 introduces a more refined coaching level, based on the recognition of the three centers of intelligence. The reader is shown how to use a deeper understanding of the Enneagram to fashion powerful coaching questions and metaphors.
In the concluding chapter, Howe-Murphy looks at coaching as an inner practice and invites her audience to call upon their own mastery. “It is my deep wish that this book will inspire you to engage in it with an increased sense of presence, heartfulness, and curiosity,” she writes. “Every time you open the book, I hope you will gain new insights, compassion, and encouragement for your own inner work, and for the development that you support in others.”
This reader-friendly guide also uses special boxes to highlight coaching clues, quotes, metaphors, exercises and graphics. Numerous case studies are not only interesting but also very helpful.
