With Farrelly’s support and guidance over the years, Nick Kemp, a U.K.-based NLP practitioner and Frank’s long-time friend and colleague, adapted Frank’s work into his own approach, the Provocative Change Works™or PCW model2. Kemp describes his model as “being able to work in a conversational provocative manner to produce accelerated and lasting results for the client” (nlpacademie.nl). Workshops, trainings, and Master Classes on the PCW model are offered worldwide (there is even a Japanese PCW website). In my own mission to learn more about provocative coaching, I participated in one of Kemp’s trainings, which I will discuss later in this article. Kemp is also the Founder of The Association of Provocative Therapy (ASPT), and has been the “safekeeper” of Frank Farrelly’s rich collection of audiotapes and writings since Farrelly’s death.
Dr. Jaap Hollander (indeed, based in The Netherlands), author of one of the only books written on the subject (besides Farrelly’s), “Provocative Coaching: Making things better by making them worse”3 is a clinical psychologist, NLP trainer and co-founder of the Institute of Eclectic Psychology. Hollander was an early “Frank” disciple as well (Farrelly gives Hollander’s book a “thumbs up”, noting that “…most people get the confrontational aspect of Provocative Therapy but Jaap is one of the few who also understands how important humor is.”) Hollander’s book – largely composed of provocative sessions taken from various seminars and trainings across Europe – is an entertaining and valuable resource for understanding how provocative therapy can be applied within a coaching session. At first glance, the conversational style of each session (which is scripted in dialogue, as in a play) is quite coach-dominated and almost off putting. In the interest of reader efficiency in this article, I will refrain from including the abundance of interesting dialogue in Hollander’s book or in Kemp’s videos (which I will discuss below). The first page of Hollander’s Introduction, however, includes the following conversation (a small excerpt):
Coach Jaap (touching client’s shoulder): So, tell me, what’s the problem?
Client/Student: I have become a total monomaniac…I do one thing only. Well, maybe a
few other little things, but mostly I do only one thing.
Coach Jaap: And we all know what that is, don’t we?
Client/Student (chuckling): You do?
Coach Jaap: Yes, but I don’t want to embarrass you with sexual disclosures.
I was mortified, shut the book, afraid of what I may encounter next. I bravely continued reading, and although I found myself warming up slightly to the use of humor and playful provocation, I never quite became comfortable with the way in which Coach Jaap communicated with his client. The above conversation resolved – after some intense provocation back and forth – with the client proclaiming stubbornly that he will most definitely find a way to spend more time on his hobby of playing the flute. I concluded this would be considered a “win”. To be honest, it was pretty much at this point that I began scanning Hollander’s book for anything I thought might redeem provocative coaching. And there was…
I began to identify the obvious differences between traditional coaching and provocative coaching. On page 136 of his book, Hollander compares both models in the following table:
The information I had gathered thus far regarding the methods used in provocative coaching was incongruent with most of what I had learned at ICA, and ironically, I felt myself clinging to the traditional model. Was this journey into Provocative Coaching provoking me to give traditional coaching another chance?
I decided to forge ahead, to investigate with an open mind, to find the most useful nuggets within this truly radical model of coaching, if only to add new tools to my skills bag. I was especially concerned with how one applies provocative coaching safely in the “real world”, what does it actually “look” like, and how provocative can/does a coach get? Most of all, how do “real world” clients experience provocative coaching? After all, the “clients” in Hollander’s book are all seminar participants, who have paid to learn how to coach provocatively for their own practices and have volunteered as ‘client’ during demonstrations. I was interested in actual client applications.
I was encouraged to find I might have most of my questions answered, by participating in a three-month pilot-program Nick Kemp offers 4. Provocative coaching is introduced to coaches, NLP practitioners, and therapists by analyzing video footage of live sessions, reviewing observations related to the practitioner and the client’s responses. In addition, Nick is available for three individual (One on One) Skype interactions. The timing and price was right, I signed up.
We are sent links to four video clips, each of which highlighted Nick as coach with a client/student: the first, “Clifford, who ‘doesn’t like himself’; second, “Neil”, who wants to “be brave enough to become self-employed”, and third, a student in India who has a fear of public speaking. The fourth video features Frank Farrelly with client/student, Amanda, who feels like smoking when she’s out with friends, despite having quit smoking years ago. Nick provides a “Provocative Stances” poster, which he has developed to illustrate the verbal and nonverbal cues (stances) used during his sessions. These stances include speeding up, deliberately misunderstanding the client, mimicking the client, interrupting the client, blaming everything and everyone else for the problem, feigning disbelief, speaking louder, feigning boredom, exaggerating everything, and more. We are asked to observe how provocation is used to change client beliefs, which provocative stances are used and why, what nonverbal language is being used, and how metaphors and storytelling are used to shift clients from one state to another.
I will provide a short excerpt here from the video with Frank Farrelly and Amanda, Session on Death and Smoking, simply to give my thoughts on provocative coaching some context:
Frank and Amanda are seated in comfortable chairs on the stage, with a small table between them. They are both sitting in a relaxed manner.
FF: We begin.
FF: Amanda, what’s the problem?
A: The problem is, I’m an athletic person, I do a lot of sport, do a lot of running, raise a lot of money for charity, love that part of my life. And used to be a big smoker. Gave all that up, and now I notice what’s happening is when I see people I haven’t seen for a long time, but I used to smoke with, I want to smoke.
FF: Yeah (he shrugs).
A: And, it’s a pain the arse, because I’m not that kind of person anymore. I’m an athlete…
FF: I know but…well, you’re an athlete? You call yourself one…You won any races?
A: (smiling) No..
FF: Well, then, you’re not an athlete, you’re just a dabbler, an amateur dabbler claiming some facet of your identity which you wish you had, but you don’t. So go ahead and smoke! (Amanda and FF laugh)
FF: Well, Edgar Casey says you can smoke six cigarettes a day with no harm…just a normal
cigarette..
A: But, if I was to do that, I would feel it the next day when I went running.
FF: Well, then you could kick yourself, you know, high steps…can you kick yourself in the butt when you’re running?
A: I haven’t tried that yet.
FF: Well, then give it a whirl. I mean, or you can mutter implications as you go along about
yourself. You know, ‘you don’t show any discipline’…How old are you?
A: 43
FF: 43? Holy cow! You don’t look a day over 39. Well…okay, 43. Are you mistaken for younger?
A: Depends on the time of day.
FF: Yeah, and the intensity of the lighting…Willie Nelson sings “All the girls get prettier at closing time” (in a bar)…laughing….Hello there you, young woman, you…you know, this type of thing.”
A: Mmm…
FF: Do your friends say ‘oh, she’s so athletic!’ and that kind of stuff?
A: (thoughtfully…) What do my friends say?
FF: Well, probably not much if you…
A: They actually don’t say very much.
FF: Oh, right. So they don’t give a rat’s ass.
A: They don’t really care.
FF: No! No!
A: Cause I’m 43, you know. It’s my choice.
FF: (leaning forward) You’re what?
A: It’s my choice.
FF: What did you say right before that?
A: Cause I’m 43.
FF: Oh, 43. I thought you said 14, I went, what?
A: No, not 14.
FF: Not 14. All right then…everybody dies of somethin’ sometimes. And some ex-athletes, gawd, they die with their lungs in shreds. What? You don’t believe that? Their heart’s gotten too big, pops, just blew out, you know?
A: (staring at him,with a smile) Because they’re exercising too much…
FF: Yeah, exactly.
This session continues another fifteen minutes, circling chaotically around the idea of dying, that it’s inevitable, etc.
At one point, almost at the end, Frank asks Amanda, “How long do you think it’s going to be before you take your next cigarette?” Amanda thinks and replies, “Probably..” Frank says, “Now, honestly…well….” Amanda, “Well, it depends. Tonight I’m going out with two friends who don’t smoke, so it probably won’t happen.” Frank: “Then, YOU can smoke!” and while Frank continues to interrupt her, Amanda says, “I don’t want to. No, I don’t want to. It’s antisocial, it’s…”
It is about here that the timer stops the session, and Amanda is asked to offer her feedback. She reflects and shares (after being interrupted by Frank several times) that the session somehow allowed her to relax around the issue, that it felt like it wasn’t a confining decision.
Rather than delving deeper into the workings of these provocative sessions and since the main purpose of my Thought Leadership article is to determine 1) if provocative coaching might be a better “fit” for me as a coach than traditional coaching and, 2) which elements, if any, I might consider using as a tool in my own coaching, I will now offer my thoughts, expanding on those aspects of provocative coaching that are relevant to these questions.