In this episode host Claire Bown talks with Beth Clare McManus, a coaching psychologist, artist and researcher based in Manchester, UK.

Beth's work as a coach and supervisor aims to support people to be happy and well in their professional practice.

Listen in as Beth shares how museum and gallery spaces offer unique potential for coaching - creating softer, more reflective environments where the space itself becomes part of the coaching process.

If you're interested in exploring innovative ways of using museum spaces for arts-based coaching, or want to enhance your understanding of how public spaces can foster reflection and growth, listen to this episode.

The Art Engager is written and presented by Claire Bown. Editing is by Matt Jacobs and Claire Bown. Music by Richard Bown. Support the show on Patreon.

Episode Links

• Website: https://bethclaremc.com
• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/bethclaremc
• Email: hi@bethclaremc.com
• Book chapter referenced in this episode (pre-order available from 2nd December 2024) Arts-based Coaching Book: https://www.routledge.com/Arts-Based-Coaching-Using-Creative-Tools-to-Promote-Better-Self-Expression/GiraldezHayes-Max/p/book/9781032591902
• Illustrated guide to working ethically with creativity: Available to download from https://bethclaremc.com/ethics
• Journal articles:
• Exploring music and mark-making in coaching supervision (inspired by MAG) https://philosophyofcoaching.org/v6i2/03.pdf
• Using arts-based approaches to support 'reflethical practice' https://philosophyofcoaching.org/v9i1/02.pdf

Links

'The Art Engager: Reimagining Guided Experiences in Museums' is now available worldwide through your favourite online platforms and retailers. Buy it here on Amazon.com: https://tinyurl.com/buytheartengager

The Art Engager book website: https://www.theartengager.com/

Support the show with a simple monthly subscription on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/TheArtEngager

Hello and welcome to a new episode of The Art Engager podcast.

Today I'm chatting with Beth Clare McManus, a coaching psychologist,

artist and researcher based in the UK.

But before our chat, if you haven't already, do go back and listen to the

last episode with Jessica Hartshorn about engaging visitors through drawing.

And do also listen to my two recent solo episodes created to celebrate the

launch of my book, The Art Engager.

Episode 136 explores what questioning practices are, why I created

them, and how they can help you to create engaging museum experiences.

And episode 137 does a deep dive on one of the key questioning practices

from my book, The Universal.

So listen in to discover how the Universal came about and how you can use

it with art and objects in the museum.

And please help me to spread the word about my book.

You can do this in a number of ways.

You can give a rating or write a short review of The Art Engager on Amazon,

Goodreads or your favourite book platform.

You can also post a photo or video on social media with The

Art Engager in its new home.

And don't forget to tag me in.

So back to today's guest, Beth Clare McManus.

So Beth's work as a coach and supervisor aims to support people to be happy and

well in their professional practice.

In this episode, Beth shares her background in organizational and

coaching psychology and how her core values of authenticity, fairness

and integrity shape her work.

She also talks about how she rediscovered her creativity later in life and how it

now plays a key role in her coaching.

We explore the unique potential of museum and gallery spaces for coaching and how

the space itself can become part of the coaching process, creating a softer,

more reflective environment for clients.

We explore the ethical considerations of coaching in public spaces, such as

confidentiality and managing emotional responses, and compare how coaching

clients and coaches in supervision respond differently to these spaces.

If you're looking to explore innovative ways of using museum spaces for coaching,

or enhance your understanding of how public spaces can foster reflection

and growth, this episode is for you.

Hi Beth, and welcome to The Art Engager podcast.

Hi Claire, nice to be here with

you.

So Beth, can you tell our listeners who you are and what you do?

Yes, so I am Beth Clare McManus.

I live in the UK in Manchester and I am a coaching psychologist, artist

and experimenter, I suppose is why I'm here talking to you, thinking

about my practice as a whole.

Usually through the medium of academic research, but also a bit of

experimental practice in there as well.

And can you tell us a little bit about the values that inform and guide your work?

Yeah, I think this is a really interesting question because I think I

have a really strong sense of what my personal values are, and it's only when

I was considering are these the same values that drive my work that I think

there's definitely crossover because I'm a self employed one person band.

And the, there is a whole thing there about who I am is how I work

and how I coach and how I research.

But I think there's some slight differences.

I think my personal values are typically around authenticity and

fairness and integrity, and I would say they definitely show up in my work.

But actually, and I don't know if you would call this a value it's a, oh I think

it is a value and it's a core strength of mine, but love is really the driving force

of my work in a way that probably, as a person, it's less explicit or intentional.

So that's love for my work, love for my profession, but most importantly love

for other people and their experience.

I'm very driven as a whole, my background is actually I came to coaching psychology

through organizational psychology.

And the kind of heart of my work is trying to make work better for people or

enable people to have happy working lives.

So I would say love is the value in my work that is more

intentional and explicit.

I think it's my biggest strength, so it's part of me but I wouldn't say

that I lead with an intention of love in my, day to day existence, but it's

definitely an intentional part of my work.

And I was taking a look at your website before we started the recording,

this morning, and I was struck by something you said about You bring

the person you are to how you coach.

You're a very creative person and you bring a lot of creativity

and you're interested in arts based approaches to coaching.

So can you tell us a little bit about that?

yeah, I definitely subscribe to the notion of, if I think

specifically about my coaching work, who you are is how you coach.

And also increasingly noticing that I think some of who you

are is who you coach, that might seem obvious just to some people.

I've been a late arrival at that revelation noticing that the people

who want to work with me, want to work with me because of who I am and

that informing my practice, but also that there are threads of commonality

with the people I'm working with that draw them to me in the first place.

So there's a really interesting exploration that, you know, for another

day there around our identity, our sense of self, and then the work that we do

and who that leads us to working with.

But in terms of that creative identity piece, creativity is something that

it's something I was very connected to as a young person and then as, as

typically happens for lots of people school and the kind of regimented art

education space took my creativity away and also teenage shame and ego

and wanting to be cool and not wanting to be in a choir anymore or play the

violin anymore and all of those other parts of my kind of creative expression.

But yeah, I did GCSE art and really struggled with kind of replicating

other people's work and other people's style of work and equated, I think,

my creative self with art very firmly.

And as I've got older, into my 30s I reconnected with drawing.

I started doing some illustration and found that actually it was

there all along, this ability to express myself creatively.

And so over the last few years, I've been really sitting with that and trying

to figure out what does that mean.

And for me, creativity is such an innate part of me that it's there even

when I'm not drawing or embroidering or making ceramics or whatever kind

of arts based exploration I'm doing.

It's in the way that I think, it's in the way that I talk,

it's in the way that I show up.

It's in the way that I listen, it's in the way that I interpret information.

It's yeah it's moving that sensation of creativity as something you do

to being a quality about how we are and how we show up in the world.

So it's probably quite a long winded way of saying that.

Often when people come to me to work with me, if the creativity is the draw,

there's a bit of an assumption that means we're going to be doing loads

of experimental, arts based things, and that isn't necessarily the case.

Most of the work that I do is like this, like a dialogue, like a conversation

between two people, but the creativity is kind of part of the process.

It's in the room with us, if you like, because it's in me and it's also outside

of me and everywhere without getting too existential, but Yeah, it's a

part of my work as well as part of me.

And following on from that interest in exploring your creativity has led

you into your work, exploring the potential and you also use the word

the 'edges', which I really love the edges and potential of using creativity

and arts based coaching approaches.

And that is one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you on this podcast,

because you have in experimenting with using museum and gallery spaces for

coaching and coaching supervision.

And I'd love you to tell our listeners how you first became interested

in using these spaces, these very particular environments for coaching.

Yeah, it's a great question to ponder.

How did I arrive here?

Because it feels like I've now done it and doing it and writing about it.

So it's been nice to revisit what was it particularly that took me there.

I think there's a kind of an environmental or contextual element which is that

when I first started inviting people to join me in gallery spaces it was

just coming off the back of lockdown and so where everything had moved

online and there was a real draw for people to want to do things in person.

The idea of replacing someone's home backdrop, and all of it's for those

who share it, some people obviously blur their backgrounds or put

other backgrounds on, that's okay.

But for those who share a little slice of their home, to move from that into,

bookable meeting rooms that are typically very sterile, white boxes with, really

uncomfortable chairs and a kind of probably oversized table that feels

like it's getting in between you and the person that you're trying to work with.

And there are other spaces available to book, I'm exaggerating there, but it

just didn't feel like the right thing.

So I think when I was thinking about, well, if I was to move back to, or

move some of my practice back to being in person what does that look like?

What's the potential there?

And I, a lot of the ideas that I have in my work are typically things that

originate in my own practice, my own reflective practice particularly.

So Introducing arts based approaches to coaching is not my idea at all.

But in my practice, my arts based approaches have originated

in things that I do for myself.

So illustration emerged when I was 30 as a means of reflecting.

It was a way of processing what was happening to me and

what I'd been doing in the day.

And similarly, I have always, even in the years where I've described not

having a connection to creativity at all, like intentionally have gone to

gallery spaces, usually on my own, as a really restorative space of kind of

calm potential to think things through.

So when I'm feeling a bit stuck or a bit lost or a bit overwhelmed,

I just need a bit of a reset.

I need a bit of a pause, a bit of a slowing down.

Then gallery spaces have been a really beautiful space.

and I should say at this point, because I'm very conscious that I'm saying

galleries, I believe that collectively in the cultural sector we talk about

museums, but I'm not from that world.

And so for me, there is a real distinction between art galleries and museum spaces.

Although they are museums containing different types of collections.

For me, Art galleries, specifically, are.

The spaces that I have used and therefore I don't think that's the edge of the

opportunity, but it's the edge of what I've been experimenting with so far.

So yeah, because I'd been drawn there in my own reflection, it

felt like a really nice space.

There's also a part about it being accessible about it being free.

I invited everyone that I work with to make a donation to the space as a thank

you and I hold membership, so I'm a friend of the galleries that I worked

in, that felt really important that although it's a free space that doesn't

mean I'm extracting from it, I'm working in that space, I'm really using it to

its full potential in lots of ways, there is an exchange, but it is free.

Like you could take someone there and not incur a cost, which kind

of increases the accessibility.

And also I think people are really drawn to things like coaching with

cards or other things that they can look at and interact with.

So it just felt like, well, let's again, like, you've drawn

out that word about 'edges'.

Like I always like to think about potential as having edges and I

always like to push against them.

I don't want to go past.

I always want to find like, what is the limit of my practice?

What is the limit of the possibility here?

And yeah, they just felt like spaces that offered a lot of potential.

And the one other thing to add, the other space that I was really drawn to and still

haven't done anything in I was interested in doing some coaching in a library.

because I think that the social convention of the space is also interesting.

So in art galleries you can be quite anonymous, you can wander

around, you can talk, you can converse, you can return to things.

In libraries there's not as much movement and there's also a sense

of stillness, silence and other different qualities in that space.

So it's not that you can't have a conversation and I'm not suggesting that

we would be having a full blown, full volume dialogue while everyone else is

trying to study or read or Whatever other brilliant activities are happening in the

library, but I was interested in, well, what if you had part of your coaching

session, maybe outside the library, and then you sat in silence together for 20

minutes, half an hour, in the library.

Almost used that as a bit of a pause.

And you might be sat looking at each other a bit Marina Abramovich, just holding eye

contact and then moved back outside to see, like, what's happened in that time.

And there's something about the pause, for sure, but there's also something

about what is the space lending to the person, to the client, to the

coach, to the coaching in that.

space.

So that's definitely a more at the edges of practice that I may or may not return

to, but I was having a similar idea and art galleries just felt a bit less a bit

less of a hard sell to potential clients.

Yeah, that's super interesting as well, because museum professionals,

when we, Think about the way people behave in museums and art galleries and

how they might modify their behavior.

So in particular spaces if the environment is perhaps quite imposing

or very impressive, or this huge architecture, people modify their

behavior in response to that.

So similar to being in a library, you suddenly hear people

talking outside in full voice.

And then when they enter the space.

their behaviour changes and they start whispering.

So Is it the space itself that's interesting for you, or is it,

the things within the space?

I think it's both.

I think that the objects within the space.

are easier perhaps to connect with for people.

And that's almost when I talk about the kind of library idea being a hard

sell, this feels like it's an easy sell because people are used to or may have

experimented with cards with photographs or imagery, like digital imagery, things

like that in their coaching work before.

So you'd need to ask some of the people who came, but my understanding from

some of our conversations is that, yeah, there'll be lots of nice paintings

and sculptures and, things for me to look at and maybe one or two of those

will provide me with some inspiration.

And typically, there are objects within the gallery space that people

interact with and find meaning from.

For me as a practitioner and the person experimenting, if you like,

with my practice in this way.

The space is almost more interesting to me than the objects within it, how we move

around it, what it might be able to offer.

And I talk a little bit in my book chapter about this, about when I'm

coaching, I typically use a metaphor of giving the client arriving with

a ball of wool or string, whichever feels more comfortable for them.

And that does feel important somehow to say it doesn't have to be wool.

I don't know why, could be wool, could be string, but

basically the idea of a thread.

And for some people that's incredibly tangled and knotty, for other

people it might be a bit looser, but there might be one or two big

knots hanging around in there.

And I use the metaphor, or the analogy of I'm just holding one end of that

thread so that they can more easily untangle everything that's there.

And I think when I'm working in the, when I've been working in the art galleries, I

would say that I'm just pinning the end of that thread to the wall for a little bit.

I'm letting the space do the work that I would be doing as

coach, so I'm letting the space.

space holds the person and their question or their stuckness, the thing

that they're thinking about, is being held by the whole gallery rather than

by one person that they're speaking to.

So I know that might be a little abstract, but for me the space is more

interesting in the same way that I think I could pick that I could pick

that conversation up and drop it in the library, or drop it in a historical

museum, or drop it in a public park, or wherever, and it would be different

because of the space that we're in.

So the space itself for me is a big part of the process in working in this way.

If the space becomes the coach what is the coach's role within the conversation?

for me, in all coaching the coach should be, the least

important person in the equation.

And so way that it shows up for me when I'm inviting the space

to be coach and doing so really intentionally by leaving the space.

It's about actually the space creating softness.

there's less intensity for me.

When I am the vessel of coaching, I think that it's quite an intense dialogue,

I'm holding presence, attention, an intention of kindness and love towards

somebody whilst also listening to them deeply and really seeing them.

seeking to understand and help them to understand what's happening for them.

When I leave the space, and the way that I would do this is that typically we

will spend 10 or 15 minutes in one part of the gallery, usually sitting down, to

get to what would be a typical coaching session intention or question So I'd

say one sentence, one question, that kind of thing, we get there together.

And I leave the gallery, if it's raining, which it is typically in

Manchester, I go in the gift shop.

But sometimes I do go and stand outside for 10 15 minutes.

My intention in that moment is to release some of that intensity, almost.

diffuse the essence of coaching into the walls of the gallery so that

there's so much more freedom for the client in terms of their thinking,

because they're not in an intense, Scrutinized interpreted conversation.

Like I often use that phrase for coaching is like you're trying to help someone

interpret what's going on for them and make it simpler to understand what

their choices are, what they might want to do about what's happening for them.

Yeah, so the space becomes a really spacious playground for the person

to, and when I say to move around in, sometimes people don't, sometimes

people stay exactly where we had the conversation and they don't move.

And it's fascinating to me how differently people respond in this

space, but, the potential to move is there, the choice to stay is a choice.

So me leaving and allowing the whole building to be the coach gives them

freedom of Their visual sense is receiving different stimulation than my face.

So that can only be a good thing, I think, in terms of helping them think through

their challenge or their stuckness.

Yeah, it's something we think about in museum education as well,

that the invisible facilitator.

So you're with a group, you may be with a group of people, whether it's

a small group or a large group of people, and, It's almost as though

you're seamlessly guiding the process.

You want to be able to make the process participant centered, and you want

to give as much agency to the people who are in that group as possible,

so that they can use the space for whatever the goals of the session are.

there's a really interesting point in the book chapter when you talk about

you're about to leave the client and you can see that there's a group of

school children that have entered the gallery space where you've left them.

And a moment flashes through your mind.

You think, should I go back and, interact with them, tell them to go somewhere else.

Could you talk us through your thinking at that point?

I thought that was super interesting.

Yeah.

Obviously these are public spaces, which means that they are not private.

you're not there in isolation and also you have no control whatsoever

over who else is in the space.

So it's something that, I spent a lot of time thinking about different scenarios.

And actually I found it more helpful to just be responsive in the moment,

to notice what was going on in the space and to think about it.

I guess the prior thoughtfulness meant that I didn't panic at any

point in any of these experimental pilot sessions, if you like.

But the instructions that I leave the client with when we've finished our

initial dialogue and I'm going to leave the building, and leave them to it.

And part of leaving, as well, is that I think people behave differently

when they think they're being watched or they think they're being judged,

now I need to be absolutely crystal clear to the person, like if you.

sit on your phone for the next 10 minutes.

I wouldn't know.

I hope that you don't.

I hope that you do, use this time as it's intended as part of the coaching process.

But if you want to go and chat to that bloke over there, or lie on the floor,

or whatever you want to do is up to you.

And if you choose to tell me what you did, that's also up to you.

I never ask, I never invite that question of, right, so tell me what

you've been doing while I've been gone.

So there's a real handing over of responsibility for the session to

the client on what they want to do.

And the example that you referenced from the chapter I usually start in one space

and then walk the client to a second space and the invitation there is, I'm going to

leave you in this space, I'm going to meet you back at the entrance to this space in

15 minutes, but if you want to stay here or go somewhere else that's up to you.

And so I'd left this client in a room and the thought process behind that

bit is usually It was an adjacent space to where we are that isn't too busy.

there's no correlation between their content and the space, and then this

gaggle of very exuberant Schoolchildren as I was walking down the corridor away from

where I just left the client were coming.

And I did have a second of, 'Oh, have I made it explicit enough that,

you don't need to stay in a space?

And also some of my own stuff, which was would be my worst nightmare if I was in

that space now, and doing some reflection.

I'd want to leave.

I think I'd also had a bit of an incident, with one of my previous clients in the

gallery space where a school teacher with some young school children came

into the room where we were having our initial conversation and was pretty

much shouting down my ear at one point, so we had to get up and relocate.

So I think I was hyper conscious of how disruptive this might be.

Ultimately, my belief is that the coaching belongs to the client, the session belongs

to them, and that I was really secure in my contracting with them around, you

go where you want to go, you can stay here, you can move around, you can do

nothing, you can leave if you want, I mean you'll see me outside, it's your space.

So I stopped in my tracks and just thought, actually,

I've been really explicit.

Also, who am I to say, maybe the sound of 30, Excited, noisy children is a

really good stimulus for some thinking.

It turns out it wasn't, and they left, they went somewhere else.

But who am I to judge that I wouldn't want that?

I would find that too distracting and disruptive, therefore I must rescue.

Like, no, the person has complete agency, and in that piece around the

space as coach, part of the space is noisy children in one of the rooms.

You can choose whether you are interested in what that might generate

for you, or you can move away from it.

And I'd be curious even about the choice to move away.

What does that tell you?

Because it's not quite as simple, I don't think, as, well, I needed a quieter space.

I think that's part of it, but also, well, all the decisions that you made in that

10, 15 minutes when you were alone in the space, and the space was serving as, you

as a container for you, as coach for you.

Those choices are as interesting to me as the thoughts that they generate.

So In your writing and also in in your practice, you feel that there's something

particularly unique about these spaces.

What are some of the potentials for using museum and gallery spaces as

opposed to perhaps other public spaces?

So

I think that the objects are definitely part of it for lots of the clients.

They might land on a particular painting or piece of work or

artist who really, speaks to them.

And obviously some exhibitions are temporary, so this isn't always the

case, but the idea that for some, for a period of time, you can revisit that

object or painting or space within the gallery is a really important part of

this, that again takes it outside of me being the coach in that space that I've

supported someone to do some thinking and then an object or part of the space

has furthered that thinking and the person can then return to keep doing that

thinking in that space if it's helpful.

So to give an example, one of the spaces that I left, I think I might mention

this in the chapter, but one of the spaces that I left somebody in was loads

of kind of Dutch old masters paintings.

And when I came back to meet them, they were coming down from upstairs

where there was a Derek Jarman exhibition, which was a very different

vibe, very different artwork.

And there was lots of noise and other things going on upstairs.

And when I spoke to them about it, they said, Oh, I've just felt like When in

that first room, I was being really judged by the eyes of the past, and I

needed a fresh perspective, and they'd gone upstairs and actually it was

quite a simplistic painting, and they'd done a sketch of it in their notebook.

It was just lines with different colours, and so they didn't necessarily need to

revisit The objects, because they had a picture of it in their mind's eye

and they'd done a representation of it.

But the fact that they could go back there and definitely some people have returned

to revisit some of these things that have prompted new thinking for them to

see What other potential is here for me?

What else is going on?

So the space isn't, although it does change.

And you could go one day then go the following week.

And actually the space is completely different.

But again.

I think there's so much potential for reflection in that around if you notice

that there's sadness about something being gone well like what was it that was

there before that was really speaking to you and that sense of loss is intriguing

and also what's there in its place and what response are you having to that and

does that offer you something different you know we're not always in control of

everything that happens in our life so the changeable Nature of the space is also

something in parallel, like it's a really interesting point of exploration, I think.

And aside from The objects within the space, the collections, the artworks,

the things that we know can give people insights on our programs that

we facilitate as museum educators as well, people making connections they

hadn't even dreamed of with artworks, spending a huge amount of time looking

and discovering new details in artworks that perhaps they thought they knew

really well, all of this we know.

But what about the building itself?

What about Have people remarked to you that the space itself was enlightening,

that being in that environment was conducive to new thoughts, new thinking?

Yeah, there was a few people who, some people were drawn to the

opportunity because they are regular art gallery and museum visitors, right?

So it's part of something that they already do and therefore it's a space

where they feel really comfortable and they're oh, well, I go there

anyway, so I'm intrigued to see.

There were other people who, like, one person said to me, I haven't set foot

in an art gallery in like 15 years.

And they worked over the road from the gallery that we were in, like

literally walk, like two minutes walking distance from the gallery.

And I think their reflection as part of their process was like, I don't

know why I don't come here because it's enabled me to be really calm.

And The coaching process itself and the coaching dialogue is

facilitating part of that, sure.

But the idea that they'd come feeling so cluttered and overwhelmed with what was

happening for them, and that just being in a beautiful, building, surrounded

by beautiful objects, and also the kind of transience of other visitors coming

in and out but not ever joining you, like not necessarily sitting with you

or conversing with you, that there's a comfort factor of other people being

around but doing their own thing.

I think it's maybe what people are trying to replicate in like shared

workspaces I don't think it works in that environment because we're all too

busy on calls and, engaging with our own very important admin and various other

things in that space, whereas I think in the gallery, the ambience of other

people being around is really comforting.

So you feel, or I'll speak for myself rather than projecting this onto

everybody, I feel less alone but solitary in a gallery space when I visit on my own.

Like it's very much a solo endeavor but there is a comfort factor of other

people being around and yeah, certainly people spoke about I think it's easier

for those who hadn't been in a gallery space for a long time to connect with

the space, those who, weren't typically in those spaces, were more aware of what

the space was giving to them, as well as what the things within it were offering.

Yeah, I think that idea of being in a calm, relatively quiet, space,

and it's like there's a muted nature to how people are and how

people are conversing in that space.

Even in the cafe, like I notice in the cafe the museum, there's a different

energy, it's livelier, but it's still not at the kind of crescendo of other

cafes and places of meeting for people.

I think there's a quality of calm and that muted nature that I think really lends

itself well to thinking and reflection.

And bearing all of that in mind and you mentioning there that, You'd had someone

who worked opposite a gallery but hadn't been in there for a number of years.

I was wondering about some of the ethical considerations that people

should think about before taking coaching practice into a museum space.

we talk about quite often as museum professionals the threshold fear that

a lot of people have crossing over into the space, into a museum, whether that

might be a barrier for some to stifle their creativity rather than open it

up, and how you might work through that.

What other considerations do we need to think about?

Yeah, something that felt really important was that I met my clients

outside and we walked into the space together and, That wasn't necessarily,

I wouldn't have known the terminology or even really probably given much

thought to that kind of threshold fear.

But it did feel important to enter the space together.

particularly because I want to give the client full agency to use

the space how they would like to.

So I would always have one or two spaces in mind that might be suitable

where I thought, It's reasonably quiet, there's a, there's somewhere to sit.

But I would still invite the client as part of that, do you want to just go into

the first room and find somewhere to sit?

Are you feeling drawn to going upstairs?

Like where would you like to start this conversation?

And so I think there's something in there about really firmly locating the space

as belonging to the client and the agency and choices belonging to the client from

even before you set foot in the building,

But, from that first step in itself, right, we're going to go, I have some

spaces that are probably suitable.

I've got a couple in mind.

I've probably been the day before, the week before to

scope out where we might go.

And if we get disrupted, where we might move to, like what's

a secondary or third space.

But that feels really important to allow the clients to have ownership of where

they go and how they are in the space.

Obviously, as we've mentioned, there's other people to consider.

So there's a huge ethical consideration if you're having a coaching or other kind

of supportive conversation, there's a huge piece to consider around confidentiality.

And my view on that is that I contract around that, that other people might

be around, that they might be sitting very near us or moving very near

us, and therefore it's up to the client, their kind of comfort factor.

of what they want to share when.

But however, as coach, there is an unspoken power imbalance.

Like I'm there as the professional supporting the person, therefore

I don't lose accountability.

So even if the client was kind of midstream, have they noticed that

someone has sat behind them on the bench?

Are they aware that there's people around, like, because when we're in our

own thoughts, we can get lost in them.

So I still retain a level of accountability.

And so there are times where I've had to check in or gently interrupt

to say, 'I just want to check.

We've got a few people have joined us.

Are you happy to proceed here?

Would you like to move to a different space?

Or do you want to just wait for a minute?'

So almost that piece of yes, other people are going to be around and

yes, You can trust that the client will choose when it doesn't feel okay.

But I've had interruptions from other people whilst I'm in conversation.

And I think it would be easy to get into a mindset of, well we're clearly having

a private conversation, like why are you leaning over me trying to take a

photograph of the thing behind me when there's a big space behind me where

you could stand and not be in my face.

However, we're in a public building and other people are having conversations,

so how would somebody else know this is a confidential, like we're doing

it in a public space, it's open to everyone, so all of that stuff is

really important, and I think working in coaching full stop can surface emotions

and it can surface our subconscious.

Working with creative and arts based stimulation can accelerate that process.

So I've had coaching where.

I've said something and I've been caught by surprise by it.

I didn't know that I was holding that in my subconscious.

So the coach had no chance whatsoever of feeling prepared for the kind of

acknowledgement that I made, which actually was something that I then

said, right, actually that feels really important, but I think I need

to take that to a therapeutic space.

So working in this way, even without all of the complexity of being in a

public space, can accelerate or really surface things that people don't

know they're holding, or maybe don't want to surface, like our emotional

experience can sometimes be suppressed.

There's that piece as well, which is so important to contract.

I always say in any of my coaching coaching sessions,

emotions are incredibly welcome.

They're data for us.

They're telling us that something is important.

But when an emotion, a strong emotion arises, and it might be upset and

crying, it could be anger, it could be intense joy, it could be anything.

It's my job to check in with the client, like, do you want to stay

in this emotion and explore it?

Do you want to just be in this emotion for a couple of minutes in silence and just be

in it and then we can see where you are?

Do you want to stop the session completely?

And that was always an option for, well, for any coaching client to be

fair, but in these gallery sessions, it was always an option that we stopped.

We could get five minutes in and be like, actually, I feel really uncomfortable.

There's too many people around, Like, it would be just as valid for me to

know, actually, some people really cannot work in this space in this

way, or it's too exposing, they're too vulnerable, things are surfacing for them.

Almost the purpose of doing that has to be for the client's benefit, and

the moment that it stops being for the client's benefit, it finishes.

I think there's all of those bits that are wrapped up in working in a public space,

but also one that has so much creative stimulus, because That is a gateway.

It's like an express train sometimes, not for everybody, but it can be.

And that potential, again, is the thing that we need to be

thoughtful about and prepared for.

Yeah.

And I think preparedness is so important here.

Preparedness on the part of the coach.

And yes, as you say, trying to scope out the space, but preparing the coachee

so that they know what to expect and that they're able to have that agency.

But also thinking about perhaps when this might be introduced

into a coaching relationship and when that might be appropriate,

it's interesting because people that I've spoken to about

this, tend to hold that view.

All of the people that I worked with in galleries in order to understand the

potential and the edge of that process and to write my chapter in the case

study were one off coaching sessions.

So I met them once for the first time to work together in a gallery space.

I do think it's a little different if it's an enduring relationship,

coaching relationship with a client.

There's nothing to suggest that you couldn't or shouldn't do your first

session of an enduring relationship in a gallery, but there is some really

explicit upfront contracting around that would be needed in my view.

Everyone who signed up to come and have a coaching session with me in

an art gallery signed up to that.

experience that I didn't say, would you like to have some coaching with me?

And then it was, surprise we're in the Whitworth.

It was, I'm interested in these spaces.

It's, this is the exchange.

90 minutes of my time for free for you to come with something real.

We held an exploration call online before we met at the gallery space.

There was time to withdraw between that exploration call and us

meeting up, and then there was an explicit part of the contracting

happened in person in the space.

It was quite contained.

It was, as advertised, if you like, that's what people signed

up to do and then came and did it.

When it's within a relationship, I think it's the question has to

be, always with anything that we introduce, like, who is this for?

And I was really explicit in that opportunity with the

people who came to help me do my thinking and write my chapter.

I'm interested in this, so I'd really welcome people that can

come and help me explore it.

If I was taking a client who I'm working with over a longer period

of time to a gallery, you It cannot be because I think, 'oh, I'd really

like to take you to an art gallery'.

It's because I may be thinking, right, we meet in the same space or you're

in your house having this coaching and there is a sense of stuckness that maybe

a different perspective might offer, whether that is a Outdoors, whether

it's let's turn our cameras off and just have audio, whether it's let's go

to a gallery, whatever it might be it's because there's a sense of actually we're

getting stuck, we're in Groundhog Day, we're feeling a bit in the quicksand, if

you like, so let's change something and the environment is one of those things

that we might change and therefore within that exploration a gallery might be the

most appropriate space for that person.

And there's all sorts of factors, like if you live near to them

and there's a gallery and they've expressed an interest in arts and

creativity, great, take them there.

It should never be because you as the coach think, oh, Unless you're

explicitly contracting, I'm interested in this, can you help me understand it?

Like, in our relationships, it should always be, I think this might help you.

I think this is in service of you and the work that you're doing.

It's not, and I'd like a day out to go and have a look at some nice paintings.

You can do that on your own time.

Absolutely.

And there are so many factors to really take into consideration here,

but at the same time, I really don't feel you can plan for everything.

And this is the same in our work in museum education as well.

go into the museum with the best plans in mind and an idea of who our participants

are and who we're going to be meeting and what we're going to be talking about and

things crop up so we can take all of this into account but we also must be able

to think on our feet fast when things do arise that are out of the ordinary

because we're in a public space, right?

Yeah,

absolutely.

I think that's the piece with this.

If you're thinking about whether it's formalized coaching or whether it's

actually just, can I invite a colleague, a friend appear into a reflective

dialogue where we're going to use the space as part of that process.

The preparation and thoughtfulness behind that is always, is this person and am

I safe to have this conversation here?

And that is, physical, but also emotional, spiritual safety.

There's different levels of things that, even in our own home, we can be disrupted.

We can have the postman arriving when we're in the middle of a session, or

the cats, like my cats are actually, I don't know why I'm saying this out

loud, because they'll probably come and be really rambunctious now, but

they're usually floating around in the background and, sometimes hanging

off things on the wall behind me.

There's interruptions and kind of other life existing around us wherever we

are, even in a more kind of contained environment, but absolutely the potential

of these spaces is huge, but the cost, the risk potential is also bigger, and

we need to be really aware, like there's a heightened level of awareness of the

surroundings, of the potential of other people and what's going on in the space,

that, we would maybe like to give 100 percent of our focus to the client.

I don't know if that's entirely possible in a public building.

I think you have to have maybe 80 percent focus on the client.

20 percent peripheral and unexpected, like ready to evolve.

And that almost big red stop button has to almost be, metaphorically

between you at all times.

And that the conversation, with no questions asked, that the

conversation can just stop if it needs to be, if it's not safe.

And you've been investigating this in your PhD research on arts based supervision.

So tell me How what differences you observe between working with

coaching clients and working with coaches, practitioners in

supervision in these spaces?

What are the differences?

Yeah, great question.

And if I just talk more broadly, both coaching and supervision, coaches are In

theory, already reflective practitioners, it's part of their training, it's part

of their way of being in their work.

And I often talk to coaching clients about what I'm trying to do over time

is to build their reflective capacity, to build their reflective muscle to a

point where they no longer need me to be a partner in that reflection, like

they're strengthening their own process.

And so coaches arrive with that muscle already quite strong most of the time.

The downside of that actually is that In my experience can be that

the coach is less aware of the risk of emotion or harm coming to them

because their capacity to take on information and knowing and stimulus

from their surroundings is heightened.

So the impact of being in the space, thinking of one person in particular who

came to a coaching session, but wasn't an experienced coach, had an incredibly

strong, almost immediate reaction to being in the space and was quite

emotional throughout our conversation.

The positive side of that, if you like that, because they're used to

being in their emotion and they're used to Just being in, in that kind

of heightened sense of reflection, they didn't want to, or feel the

need to shut down the conversation.

They were able to contain, they were emotional and upset and

crying actually at one point in the space, but That's an emotional

space that they've been in before.

They've accessed that level of reflective practice before.

And so being in a public environment, we're all different.

They felt comfortable to be a bit tear stained and a bit snotty.

with other people around them.

And so they were able to almost acknowledge that emotion had risen

and move past it to be able to do some really transformative thinking about

what, what is going on for me there.

Whereas when I was working with non coaches in the space, if emotions surface,

And again, it's an individual experience, but I would say typically that comes with

a lot more shame around it or a lot more embarrassment of like, Oh my God, I can't

believe that I'm having this really strong reaction and a desire to suppress it.

So the role of the coach is to really help that person to both

embrace the emotion, but also make a decision about whether we stay there.

And I think coaches in coaching and supervision are used to supporting

other people in that way and they're used to doing that level

of reflection for themselves but

I think non coaches are better at acknowledging I feel really vulnerable

and withdrawing slightly and that feels a bit safer than I'm just here, I'm going

to let it all out and abandon all sense of convention of what's going on around me.

So yeah, Not everyone gets emotional, but I would say that feels like the biggest

distinction for me between coaches and non coaches who are using this space.

I ran a workshop for some coaches with EMCC UK at Manchester Art Gallery, and

again, very quickly, lots of them had really strong emotional responses to

things in the building and in the space.

So the connection is probably a little quicker because we're open to it, we're

used to trying to reflect and think things through it at depth, but the risk is

therefore a bit increased I would say.

That's so interesting.

And where is your research taking you next?

Yeah, my, my PhD research is really interested in arts based approaches in

coaching supervision and how they might influence or impact our professional

development and sense of professional identity as coach practitioners.

The research that I did before I was experimenting in galleries was using

music and mark making and the kind of overall trend, if you like, of my

research is, almost having a creative or arts based interruption in dialogue.

So the format that I've given an overview here and talked to in the

chapter of dialogue, creative pause, if you like, back to dialogue,

is a pervasive thing in my work.

I'm interested in The power of almost a short burst of creativity or arts to

interrupt our cognitive processing and get us into more of a felt embodied spiritual

sense of what's going on for me, whatever other knowledge and wisdom is available

to us outside of our overthinking brains.

So the research that I'm going to be doing, I'm just doing a systematic

review to understand what do we know about the links between supervision and

development and identity so that I can be really clear what's the difference

with the, that the art space bit makes, because otherwise it's you could say

well this might happen anyway without the art space bit, how do you know?

So yeah, I'm laying the groundwork, I use the analogy, I'm

preparing the soil at the moment.

And then my studies, I'm going to do two studies, and one will be

group supervision most likely, I'm just finalizing the design using

different arts based interventions.

So I'm quite interested in an extension of the work in galleries,

of actually taking that out to the built environment as a whole.

In a group setting, unless we're meeting in person, that will most likely mean

field recording, photography, fragments or aspects of the built environment around

people that they can capture and bring as a kind of part of their reflection.

But I'm also really interested in introducing portraiture, so could we

If someone is one of the coaches in the group is bringing a client to life and

talking about them as a bit of a case study that they want to think about,

could the other members of the group try and draw a portrait of this client as

they're hearing them being described and would that offer us a different lens?

Are they sad?

Are they happy?

Have they got a giant head?

Like, what is it that, however we've drawn them?

And I'm also doing a course at the moment on deep listening.

So kind of Pauline Oliveros the pioneer in that space, but I'm also

really interested in the central concept of that is to listen to

everything all the time, all at once.

So I'm really interested in using sound I'd love to be a musician,

but I don't possess musical ability so I live vicariously.

I love music, it's a really big influence in my life.

And I'm extending that out into sound, because in the same way that

saying, draw something to someone who thinks they can't draw is a barrier.

Music feels like, the zenith, like the end goal of creating

sound, like we can all make sound.

In some way, whether it's vocal, whether it's drumming on the desk,

whether it's, recording sounds from elsewhere and replaying them.

So I think that sound is a space that I'm really drawn

to and would like to bring in.

So yeah, there's some physical and environmental

things I'd like to introduce.

And then there's some other more, more traditional arts based playing around that

I want to do, but the end goal really is to support people to understand that these

approaches are accessible to everyone, but that they're also powerful, and

therefore they might not be appropriate for everyone's practice, whether that's

because we're brand new to coaching, and actually for me This is a mature,

advanced practice because of all of the complexity that sits with it, because of

the risk of speeding up that surfacing process, and because of all of the ethical

implications that kind of sit around it.

But that doesn't mean that you can't ever use them in your work

or that you shouldn't because you're not a creative person.

So I'm trying to find, the edges of what's possible and then maybe some people will

be working at the edges and other people might use a more diluted version of

some of this thinking in their own work.

But I think there is a barrier for people.

There is a bit of a rhetoric of you're either a creative coach or you're not.

And for me, it's well, it's innate in all of us to some extent.

So why not find what's possible here, evidence it, and then allow

people to make their own, conclusion about what that looks like for them

if it enters their practice at all.

Such important work you're doing to add to the conversation,

add to the research on this.

There's not a lot out there, as you say, that it's been

very limited in scope to date.

We need to wrap up our conversation.

How can people find out more about you and your work?

So

the place where I am most active is LinkedIn.

And yeah, I can share the link with you for the show notes.

And my website as well, you can find my contact details and email me from there.

But yeah, LinkedIn is unfortunately the place where you will most

often find me posting about the things that I'm doing and bits of

research that I'm interested in.

And also, who knows, maybe opportunities to come and have some coaching with

me in a different space or in a different modality depending on where

I land up in my own experiments.

Brilliant.

Thank you so much for coming to talk to me today.

Beth, it's been a pleasure.

Thank you so much.

It's been gorgeous talking to you.

So a huge thank you to Beth for joining me on the podcast today.

Be sure to check out the show notes to find out more about her work.

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That's it for this episode.

Thank you so much for tuning in.

I'll see you next time.