Past Events

In his final talk as operational CEO of Animas Centre for Coaching, and as he enters a new phase of life, Nick Bolton will share a message he believes all coaches need to hear and understand.

For many training as a coach, there is a belief that the coaching journey starts on day one of their course and ends with certification and a vague notion that after this come clients.

They are soon disabused of this by real life and as they rush headlong into trying to build a substantial coaching practice they are left frustrated, wondering what they’re doing wrong and even sheepishly letting it fall by the wayside.

For Nick, this essentially a fatal misunderstanding of how a life in coaching unfolds. When the truth is understood, the reality can be seen to be far more rewarding, meaningful and life-affirming.

Moving away from his recent focus on transformational dialogue, Nick will take a broader view of the profession and make an impassioned appeal for coaches to take a longer-term view of their emerging career, business and life as a coach and to bring patience, curiosity and joy to every aspect of the journey.

After 10 years running a coaching school and 18 years as a coach, Nick has seen countless coaching journeys unfold and has witnessed which core mindsets, behaviours and strategies lead to sustainable success as a coach.

He’ll describe what he has seen as the archetypal roadmap that, over many years, and almost like clockwork, enables the rise of the successful coach.

He’ll share how understanding this will ease the frustration, disillusionment and even resentment born from misunderstanding the stages and essential nature of an enduring coaching practice.

And he’ll lay out the core behaviours, habits and commitments that will bring you the coaching practice you want, which will last you a lifetime and reward you time and again with opportunities for growth, surprise and delight.

This is Nick’s most personal speech to date. He will use this as a time to share what needs to change in the minds and hearts of all coaches if they truly believe in the work they do and the difference they can make.

He will argue that only when we embrace a lifelong journey of mastery and impact, can we justly step into a place of power as a coach.

There’s no denying the success of mindfulness in recent years.

It’s used and promoted from the boardroom to the birthing room, and the classroom to the changing room, with business, health, education and sport all enthusiastically adopting it to help with wellness, stress-management, focus, performance and more.

But what does it mean for us as coaches? How can we use it, where and with whom? And, indeed, how does it fit with traditional, non-advisory coaching?

How can it help us to coach more effectively when facing clients struggling with stress, overwhelm, perfectionism and other common coaching issues? And how can it help us manage ourselves better in the coaching space?

That’s where this two-day course comes in!

You will be immersed in the theory and practice of mindfulness for coaching, emerging with powerful new tools and the confidence to use them.

As has been experienced by both coaches and clients alike, mindfulness in coaching offers new ways to increase client insight, self-awareness and creativity, as well as tools and approaches to deal with challenging emotions, anxiety, hidden assumptions and stress.

More importantly however, it will help you to manage your own presence and emotions in coaching, offering ways to approach your coaching with a beginner’s mind and free yourself from distractions and assumptions.

Whilst this course has been designed primarily for coaches who are new to mindfulness and who want to bring this to their coaching practice, those with experience of mindfulness are also welcome as the course will help explore how mindfulness can fit alongside coaching.

The course has been recognised by the International Coach Federation as providing 12 hours of Continuing Coach Education and so can be used for coaches renewing their ICF credentials.

Through a rich mix of trainer-led sessions, peer practice and experiential exercises, you’ll learn:

• The 7 Mindful Attitudes that will underpin your practice
• How to use meditation and mindful moments in coaching
• How to use mindfulness skills to coach around difficult emotions
• Ways to employ mindfulness to enhance client creativity and awareness
• To teach easy-to-follow mindfulness methods to clients
• To manage your own presence and emotions with mindfulness

We are delighted to announce Bronwyn Nash; Animas Trainer and founder of Magic Roundabout Coaching, as the speaker for our next lecture – The Magic of Metaphors and Creative Imagery in Coaching

Metaphors are used in every language; often several times a minute, and we are hardwired as humans to use and understand them.  When we begin working with our clients’ metaphors we can feel like “a kid in a sweet shop” – there’s just so much rich material to work with, whatever the client is facing, exploring or experiencing.

These symbolic representations give a unique perspective into how someone thinks, feels and experiences their world, helping our clients to sidestep cognitive blocks, access their subconscious resources and unlock new perspectives, in creative and transformational ways.

Join Bronwyn in this fascinating and interactive exploration of metaphors, visualisation and imagery in coaching, how these approaches work and their practical application.

There’s one thing all clients have in common (as do we). They are all human.

And being human isn’t easy. We are beset by inescapable conditions – and we’re aware of them! Mortality, sense of individual selfhood, responsibility of choice, uncertainty, fluid meaning.

Combined, these conditions can leave us with a sense of existential angst as we question how to live well as a human. We might even find ourselves asking questions such as “What is the point?” or “What is the meaning of my life?”

There’s no doubt that such big questions are often at the heart of coaching but how do you identify when a client is dealing with them and work with them on something that seems unsolvable?

Join Sasha Van-Deurzen Smith, existential coach and academic registrar at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling as she explores the teachings of renowned philosophers such as Sartre, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and shares new ideas on how to coach around this enigmatic topic.

This two-day course for qualified coaches opens the door for existential work and will set you on a journey to deepen your work and widen your scope.

Existential coaching works with a variety of universal issues such as freedom, responsibility, meaning and authenticity as well as the fundamental understanding of the subjective nature of each unique human experience.

You will immerse yourself in a rich combination of theory and practice, developing new and refreshing dimensions to help clients to explore existential dilemmas. You’ll gain insight into how the dynamics around a particular issue might be simply a microcosm for the way the client experiences and sees themselves in the world, and in relation to others.

Emerging from existential psychotherapy, this approach is grounded in a highly relational, thoughtful and dynamic ethos that empowers clients to face up to the challenges of being human.

Though aimed at practitioners or aspiring practitioners who would like to move away from tricks and tools towards a more relational and reflective approach, This course is suitable for anyone who wants to find new ways of working that are client-centred and rooted in thinking about life in an open and philosophical manner. It will help you to connect with clients on a human level, with a focus on ‘being with’ rather than ‘doing to’.

The workshop comprises additional personal exercises to help you to understand how existential ideas relate to your own personal life, Including illustrative case studies to help ground the learning in real life scenarios.

The course has been recognised by the International Coach Federation as providing 12 hours of Continuing Coach Education and so can be used for coaches renewing their ICF credentials.

Through a rich mix of trainer-led sessions, peer practice and experiential exercises, you’ll learn:

• Philosophical ideas from thinkers such as Sartre, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche
• Ideas from Existential Practitioners van Deurzen and Yalom
• How to apply phenomenology in your coaching practice
• The 4 Worlds model and how to employ this in coaching
• How to think about coaching issues with greater depth.
• Personal exercises to gain a greater understanding of how existential ideas relate to your own life

Watch Sasha’s Animas lecture here

We are delighted to announce a unique evening workshop on Gender, Identity and Coaching with Yael Nevo, a gender consultant and researcher.

Gender dynamics are all around us.  They influence everything from our most intimate choices to global events. Society is changing and gender norms are being challenged more than ever, demanding a need and readiness for a paradigm shift on gender relations.

Research and analysis conducted by Yael reveals that gender is a complicated social system. To put it simply, it is a way to organise society according to roles. Gender influences a wide range of social aspects from the most intimate individual identity and sexuality to big political world events.

Join Yael, as she explores how we can stay ahead of the curve and formulate ideas to navigate this ever more fluid field. In this workshop, Yael will share with us her understanding of what gender influences there are, terms to label them and how to identify if a client is having challenges around this topic.

Together you will explore “Gender discourse”- how gender is different from our biological sex and the impact this has on both coaches and clients.

This workshop is aimed at coaches who are in-training or have qualified and want to gain an understanding of how gender may be affecting their clients and their own perceptions and biases.

Using three key models, this interactive workshop will help coaches to have a deeper understanding of how gender affects both themselves and their clients.  You’ll learn:

• Gender glossary
• Gendered values
• Gendered story-telling

With these three models as your guide, you’ll explore:

• How to explore patterns of behaviour, perception and self-identity unconsciously shaped by gender and the social assumptions around gender
• A range of terms to assist in identifying and explaining when a client is facing issues around gender
• What “gender values” are and how values, often labelled “masculine” and “feminine”, influence everyday life and how these may be showing up for clients
• How “gender discourse” might increasingly form part of your coaching journeys and how you might approach this with your client
• The ability to use gender as a self-reflective tool, giving you an additional layer of self-awareness and an ability to notice when your own unconscious gender biases are at play.

Yael Nevo has been engaged in gender-related work and study for over fifteen years and holds an MSc in Gender and Human Rights. She is also Co-Founder of Genderscope – an award-winning gender consultancy.

We are delighted to announce Peter Hyson as the guest speaker for our next lecture – From Great to Greatest – Coaching with Meaning and Spirituality.

Over the past decade, people are increasingly looking for something beyond just improving themselves and trying to be all they can be! This focus on the self has shifted as people explore how to connect to something greater than themselves whilst not having to find it exclusively within organised religion.

Join Peter as he shares how we can move our clients from “Great” – self-actualisation – to “Greatest” which he terms self-transcendence. Sharing ideas from his book “Coaching with Meaning and Spirituality” Peter will show us practical tools to use with our clients and ideas on how we can highlight our blind spots as coaches.

There’s no denying the success of mindfulness in recent years.

It’s used and promoted from the boardroom to the birthing room, and the classroom to the changing room, with business, health, education and sport all enthusiastically adopting it to help with wellness, stress-management, focus, performance and more.

But what does it mean for us as coaches? How can we use it, where and with whom? And, indeed, how does it fit with traditional, non-advisory coaching?

How can it help us to coach more effectively when facing clients struggling with stress, overwhelm, perfectionism and other common coaching issues? And how can it help us manage ourselves better in the coaching space?

That’s where this two-day course comes in!

You will be immersed in the theory and practice of mindfulness for coaching, emerging with powerful new tools and the confidence to use them.

As has been experienced by both coaches and clients alike, mindfulness in coaching offers new ways to increase client insight, self-awareness and creativity, as well as tools and approaches to deal with challenging emotions, anxiety, hidden assumptions and stress.

More importantly however, it will help you to manage your own presence and emotions in coaching, offering ways to approach your coaching with a beginner’s mind and free yourself from distractions and assumptions.

Whilst this course has been designed primarily for coaches who are new to mindfulness and who want to bring this to their coaching practice, those with experience of mindfulness are also welcome as the course will help explore how mindfulness can fit alongside coaching.

The course has been recognised by the International Coach Federation as providing 12 hours of Continuing Coach Education and so can be used for coaches renewing their ICF credentials.

Through a rich mix of trainer-led sessions, peer practice and experiential exercises, you’ll learn:

• The 7 Mindful Attitudes that will underpin your practice
• How to use meditation and mindful moments in coaching
• How to use mindfulness skills to coach around difficult emotions
• Ways to employ mindfulness to enhance client creativity and awareness
• To teach easy-to-follow mindfulness methods to clients
• To manage your own presence and emotions with mindfulness

We are delighted to announce Professor Christian van Nieuwerburgh as the guest speaker for our next lecture – Paradoxes and Complexity: Exploring Advanced Coaching Practice.

Join Christian in an exploratory and emergent session that will centre itself around what ‘advanced practice’ is within coaching, how we can identify it and the positive difference it can make to our coaching conversations. Based around his current literary project entitled Advanced Coaching Practice, and supported by real coaching sessions and video clips, this hands-on lecture provides a great opportunity to explore the concept of ‘advanced practice’ in coaching in depth. Participants will decide on the topics of discussion, enabling you to consider how to apply aspects of ‘advanced practice’ to your own coaching sessions.

Expand your impact from one-to-one to one-to-many with group coaching skills.

According to the influential Ridler Report, the demand for group coaching is growing exponentially, and for good reason: it works.  Group coaching is time and cost-effective for sponsors and participants, transformative for the group, and rewarding for the coach.

This course will equip you to take your coaching into a group dynamic with confidence using a set of new skills and practices that bring group work to life.

Whether you wish to offer action learning sets for senior management, a mastermind experience for entrepreneurs, or a large facilitated session for a whole organisation, group coaching can be used in countless contexts.

The skills needed for group coaching differ significantly from individual coaching. In a group the exploratory space the coach creates for everyone to share their challenges, ideas and wisdom with the other participants is paramount.

As a coach, you might still make direct interventions but you’ll also be calling upon your ability to facilitate participation, manage and harness dynamics and remain sensitive to the constant flow of energy and connection in the room.

Our Certificate in Group Coaching will give you the skills and knowledge to work dynamically with groups and sets you on a path of creative group work that will only deepen and become richer over time.

To help you get the most from the specialist topics covered course, we dive straight into the specific content without revisiting the core tenets of coaching. This ensures that the full two days are focused on the specialist skills, knowledge and concepts which add to your existing coaching skills.

Over the course of two days you’ll enjoy a blend of learning approaches to give you the best foundation for mastering the skills you learn.

You will explore:

• The Psychology of Groups
• Becoming attuned to, and working with, group dynamics and their meaning
• A number of key frameworks to understand and analyse groups
• Creating and facilitating Action Learning for focused inquiry
• Creating and facilitating Balint groups for generative conversation
• Running World Cafe sessions for large group creative discussion
• Running Open Space sessions for large group, self-directed exploration
• How to turn group coaching into an effective part of your business

As with all Animas training, the course is both instructional and experiential and includes:

• Trainer led teaching
• Collaborative group work exercises
• Practice sessions in small and large groups
• Discussion time to explore ideas and questions

We are very excited to welcome new faculty member Mia O’Gorman as the guest speaker for our upcoming lecture – Adventures in Corporate Coaching: from Performance to Identity, and Beyond!

Join Mia as she shares insights from her own journey as an internal and external coach, coaching skills trainer, leadership development consultant and coaching supervisor to some of the world’s most renowned businesses. Discover whether corporate coaching could be the right path for you and hear Mia’s suggestions for building your credibility to enter the corporate coaching market, leveraging your background and expertise.

An independent coach and coach supervisor through her own business Coaching with Mia, and senior partner at next-generation leadership development firm Fourthpath, Mia will explore:

• How to locate your practice in theory and in conversation
• Common structures of corporate coaching assignments and programmes
• Navigating the organisation; including contracting, multiple relationships and evaluation
• The challenges and joys of corporate coaching; from boardroom beasts to proud promotions
• The coachee’s experience; from the shock of awareness to the clarity of vision and purpose
• Case studies of her most difficult and most rewarding assignments
• The value of supervision for surviving and thriving as a corporate coach
• Ways you can work towards becoming a corporate coach

We are very excited to welcome Sasha van Deurzen-Smith as the guest speaker for our upcoming Animas Lecture: Existential Coaching- Working with Values, Imagery and Narratives. 

Join Sasha as she explores the way in which existential practice can not only help to illuminate our values, but identify the often concealed impact that they have on our choices.

An existential coach and academic registrar at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling, Sasha will consider how to work with a client’s personal narrative, and how working existentially with imagery can help to uncover tacit knowledge, in turn aiding clients to move forward with renewed energy and vigour.

In his first public talk on the concept of Transformational Dialogue, Nick Bolton, founder and CEO of Animas Centre for Coaching, will share the principles and practices of this emerging field of work that is redefining coaching.

Sitting between traditional coaching and classic talking therapies, Transformational Dialogue creates a space for a truly collaborative enquiry on what it is to be human and to live one’s life with all its paradoxes, tensions and complexities.

Transformational Dialogue is a courageous, challenging, compassionate, provocative, humorous and wholly authentic way of engaging in change work.

Themes to be explored include:

• Compassionate courage
• Facing uncomfortable realities
• Naming the unspoken truth
• What is and what might be
• Questioning with vs questioning of
• Provoaction, humour and radical challenge
• Embodied unknowing
• Unattached wisdom and intuition
• Authenticity over “techne”
• Embracing the full scope of dialogue

Many of these themes will be familiar to coaches and therapists alike and yet each will find something that “feels” a little different, that pushes them to embrace a truer more fully collaborative approach to the person and dialogue in their work.

Where coaching has traditionally lent itself to focused journeys around outcomes, therapy to healing and counselling to unburdening and being heard, Transformational Dialogue sets out to explore how people are making sense of their life and circumstances with its truest end being courageous self-awareness and choice.