Towards a greater understanding of resilience within the professional practice of a coach

Career resilience is a concept that since the 1990’s has been associated within career coaching practice, as a proactive set of behaviours which provide protection against the vicissitudes of the employment market. Revisiting the concept at a time of economic downturn, the author critiques the limitations of the protection model of resilience when working with individuals who have lost access to their own resilience as a result of career setback and disappointment. It also acknowledged that the recent attention given to developing resilience capacity in order to prevent loss of resilience has ignored the issue of recovery from loss of resilience. A comparative case study of 2 executives, who recognised their own loss of resilience, was conducted through narrative methodology. Data was collected through a combination of repeated written narratives and 10 hours of individual coaching. The materials generated were thematically analysed. The results of that analysis are potential models relating to the process of change in the construction of a new narrative, the role of the coach within that process, and the systemic relationship between the two. The value of written narrative and the limitations of the use of narrative are explored, along with consideration of the value to the study of the writings of the researcher in exploring her own resilience.