Coaching in Mental Health Service Settings and Beyond: Practical Applications—Practical Applications, Jenny Forge

The text offers eighteen well-constructed short chapters, set out in three broad parts, plus a conclusion. The first part sets the scene with chapters on context, models of coaching and how coaching relates to other types of intervention. Part 2 has six separate chapters elaborating on different elements of skills and knowledge which are necessary to develop good coaching conversations. Part 3 moves the focus onto clinical care and mental health settings. The author begins with the observation that ‘in the twenty first century it seems, coaches are everywhere we look’. She acknowledges and addresses at the outset some of the criticisms that have come with the apparent ubiquity of coaching and notes that she is sympathetic to some of the critics of the coaching zeitgeist. Throughout the text, the author uses her dual experiences of twenty-five years as a practising psychiatrist, and years of experience as a coach, to good effect. She constructs a narrative that provides the reader with a clear understanding of the principles of coaching, the current evidence to support it and then the impact that it can have, via well-selected case studies.