ABSTRACT
Sometimes a coachee’s emotional reaction to an event can seem disproportionate, occasionally greatly so, to what actually occurred. For example, Janet, a highly regarded projects manager, presented an idea at a meeting and a colleague commented that ‘It hadn’t been thought through clearly enough’. Janet felt angry – ‘He’s insulted, demeaned me’ – but didn’t express it. That evening she brooded for several hours on his comment, went obsessively over her notes to try and find the weaknesses in her arguments, and only slept for a few hours. In the coaching session, Janet agreed that she’d overreacted to his comment: ‘Everybody’s ideas at the meetings get a going over, so why didn’t I take it in my stride?’ Such overreactions usually point to the presence of deeper beliefs that have been activated.
