Marilyn Macik-Frey

Behind the mask coaching through deep interpersonal communication

Executive coaching can focus on personal behavior change, enhancing leadership effectiveness, fostering stronger relationships, personal development, and/or work–family integration or specific performance issues on the job. K. M. Wasylyshyn (2003a) and H. Levinson (personal communication, 2003) suggested that executive coaching reaches for a deeper level of clinical and therapeutic intervention. The authors propose a health-enhancing, developmental model of coaching anchored in a process of deep interpersonal communication. This approach is neither a surface approach nor a therapeutic approach. It is an interpersonal approach focused on safe, secure communication in which difficult, complicated issues are addressed and where crucial conversations occur. In this process, the executive is approached as a person, one who stands behind the executive mask or facade.

24 Occupational Health Psychology

Occupational health psychology (OHP) has emerged as a growing branch of psychology interested in promoting individual and organizational health and well-being. As the interest and concern over how work affects the health and well-being of workers has increased over the years, the need to address this in our research and practice has grown as well. This chapter overviews what is meant by occupational health and provides a composite of work that is currently being done in the field. The first section of the chapter provides a brief history of OHP. The next section discusses three key ecological dimensions as the basis for action in improving occupational health. The third section provides a framework for preventive health management, and the fourth section presents an organizational health center model, followed by an OHP training model. The chapter concludes with a case study demonstrating key concepts from the chapter and a discussion of future directions for the discipline. Keywords: occupational health; employee well-being; occupational stress; work safety