Profound psychological knowledge is very useful in coaching as it helps to achieve real breakthroughs. This is often where the real magic happens.
When people find out I'm psychologist they often say things like "oh I should be careful what I say, you might see through me now". Relax, no one can look into your brain....
Let me show you what might happen in a coaching session though, by telling you about a client I had the other day: she came in with a career development topic and it quickly turned out she had an issue with self-confidence. To find out where this was coming from, I asked some questions about her past. Sentences like "don't be so silly" or "you don't have any sense of humour" had been on the agenda a lot.
This led me to the question if there were any fabrics everyone would rate as soft she had always found scratchy. "How do you know??" was her astonished answer. We then talked about her other senses, most of them being highly developed. Maybe more developed than in other people. A HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) test showed a similar picture.
All her life she had gotten the feedback that something was wrong with her sensory perception. All her life she had thought she couldn't trust her own perception of the world. With this new knowledge about herself, she could focus on using her neurosensitivity as a strength, re-define her role in teams and overcome lots of obstacles in her career.
Can one be an excellent coach without being psychologist? Yes one can! However, for me my psychological background helps a lot to recognise certain patterns....