A Case Study: Claiming Equity Using Early Story and Metaphor

Coaching provides a useful approach for gaining the trust and balance needed to tackle difficult issues, including structural racism and equity. Adlerian practices lend themselves to effectively support the client and the coach in seeking and sustaining personal well-being and wholeness required for addressing equity issues. Use of two story-based methods proved valuable for assisting a client with movement: external stories that compare tragic and transformational characters to relevant client experiences, and internal ones, early recollection stories that reveal limiting and expansive patterns and behaviors and offer personal metaphors as guides. The method known as “story + mastery = more” offered the client greater focus, clarity, and direction and led to a new place of personal power and strength for both client and coach in their equity work.