Thank you for your thoughtful reply and questions.
When I started in the coaching field, it was dominated by I.O.P's (Industrial and Organizational Psychologists) I was trained by these folks.
As the field evolved it became multi-disciplinary, a good thing -- we have practitioners with advanced business degrees and deep business backgrounds, inter-culturalists (generally Ph.D's), clinical psychologists, organization development specialists.
Enter the International Coach Federation. In theory, one could achieve the ICF's highest accreditation level, w/o benefit of a college degree. They have created their own universe of credentials. More worrying is that they promote 'technologies' such as NLP, and NVC, and strongly urge their coaches to employ these methods with their clients, and without benefit of much research regarding their use in these contexts.
They have no way to monitor the quality of delivery, and this is especially so in Asia. We have ICF coaches in Japan and China who do not understand the difference between coaching and NLP, who think NLP is coaching, and, who presumably use their clients as guinea pigs.
Additionally, the ICF approved as its chapter presidents a number of individuals who had no background in the field, or even a related professional discipline. They were just looking for people with large social networks -- this is where some of the MLM scheme aspects are evident.
I have protested this, as have heard a number of clinical psychologists.
Another thing I should explain is that owing mostly to the ICF's lobbying, the field of coaching is now self-regulating. I can recall even a few years ago when executive coaches needed to carry professional liability insurance. This is all gone.
Unfortunately, many corporate buyers believe an ICF credential is an indication of a competent and ethical practitioner, REALLY NOT THE CASE, though.
Yes, there are red flags all over the place! Yes, the ICF culture is cult-like and coercive.
When I started in the coaching field, it was dominated by I.O.P's (Industrial and Organizational Psychologists) I was trained by these folks.
As the field evolved it became multi-disciplinary, a good thing -- we have practitioners with advanced business degrees and deep business backgrounds, inter-culturalists (generally Ph.D's), clinical psychologists, organization development specialists.
Enter the International Coach Federation. In theory, one could achieve the ICF's highest accreditation level, w/o benefit of a college degree. They have created their own universe of credentials. More worrying is that they promote 'technologies' such as NLP, and NVC, and strongly urge their coaches to employ these methods with their clients, and without benefit of much research regarding their use in these contexts.
They have no way to monitor the quality of delivery, and this is especially so in Asia. We have ICF coaches in Japan and China who do not understand the difference between coaching and NLP, who think NLP is coaching, and, who presumably use their clients as guinea pigs.
Additionally, the ICF approved as its chapter presidents a number of individuals who had no background in the field, or even a related professional discipline. They were just looking for people with large social networks -- this is where some of the MLM scheme aspects are evident.
I have protested this, as have heard a number of clinical psychologists.
Another thing I should explain is that owing mostly to the ICF's lobbying, the field of coaching is now self-regulating. I can recall even a few years ago when executive coaches needed to carry professional liability insurance. This is all gone.
Unfortunately, many corporate buyers believe an ICF credential is an indication of a competent and ethical practitioner, REALLY NOT THE CASE, though.
Yes, there are red flags all over the place! Yes, the ICF culture is cult-like and coercive.