著者

西垣 悦代

出版者

一般社団法人 日本支援対話学会

雑誌

支援対話研究 (ISSN:21882177)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.1, pp.7-22, 2013

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This article examines the origin, history, development, definition, and issues of health coaching in Japan and in western countries, and discusses the potential to develop evidence-based health coaching in Japan.As there is no suitable Japanese translation for 'coach' and 'coaching', these terms have been adopted using similar Japanese pronunciation 'koochi' and 'koochingu'. The etymology of the English word 'coach' is mentioned in many Japanese books and articles regarding coaching: it is derived from a Hungarian word kocsi, originally meaning a vehicle driven by horses, and later, private tutor. Some describe the English meaning of the word as escorting an important person to the place where he/she wishes to go, but this definition is not correct. It was not until the 1980s when psychological theories entered the practice of sport coaching in Japan. Griffith, who is called the father of sport psychology, was the first to apply psychological theories to sport training in the 1920s. However, these theories were not widely acknowledged until the 1960s. Given that Griffith's book was not translated into Japanese, sports and psychology did not interface with each other until Takeda, K., a clinical psychologist trained in the United States who was also a well-known college football manager, first wrote a book entitled "Psychology of Coaching" in 1982 in Japanese. Unfortunately, his ideas were not widespread in the field of sport management in Japan.The Human Potential Movement (HPM) in the United States, which initiated various self-awareness training programs, also had an influence on Japan. There were many self-awareness training companies in Japan in the 1970s and 1980s. The first Japanese coaching company was established in 1997 and licensed by the Coach University (Coach U) founded by Leonard, T.. The founder of this company, Ito, M., also ran a self-awareness training company since 1980. In 1990, Ghosn, C., the CEO of Nissan, an automobile company, successfully incorporated a coaching program into managerial training in his company. This attempt shed light on the potential of applying coaching to the business field in Japan.Bachkirova, T. pointed out that the definition and objectives of coaching are not clear enough to distinguish it from mentoring and counseling. Many coaching companies in Japan adapted the definition of professional coaching according to the International Coach Federation (ICF), which states that professional coaching is a partnership between a coach and client that focuses on setting goals, creating outcomes and managing personal change. However, the majority of Japanese coaching books targeting non-professional readers define coaching as simply a collection of communication skills. Health coaching is very popular among Japanese health professionals, in particular, among nurses. There are currently about 40 health-related coaching books written in Japanese, as well as almost 600 academic articles about coaching in the health and medical fields. However, there are no theory-oriented books, and only 8 academic articles relate to clinical trials with control groups.Psychologists are now contributing to make coaching more theory-oriented and evidence-based. Some countries have academic societies for coaching psychology, and conferences are held internationally. However, the commitment to this emerging field among Japanese psychologists is still very limited. In the future, cooperation between Japanese psychologists and coaching psychologists in western countries should be encouraged to accelerate the spread of more evidence-based coaching in Japan.