Summary and critique
Summary
Gardiner & Kearns (2012) believed that there are many materials on writing, most of which focus on the mechanics of writing. They argued that the psychological significance of writing have for a long time been ignored although it is an imperative part of the skill. Writing psychology emphasizes that an understanding of one’s self and belief system including behavioral approaches held can actually be used to improve writing (Gardiner & Kearns, 2012, 248).
Cognitive behavioral therapy is one of the models used in psychology for enhancing behavior change through helping clients to dispute some pathological belief system. In writing, therefore, cognitive behavioral coaching is a model whose core role to correct the psychological beliefs that are faulty. In doing this writers are encouraged to adopt much healthy writing skills. The cognitive behaviorists believe that if the thinking of a person is changed then the behavior of that person is also bound to change. The writing coaches subscribed to this CBT uses ABCDE model in influencing writer’s behavior change (Gardiner & Kearns, 2012, 250).
ABCDE is an acronym for a step by step presentation on what takes place from the time writer things of an event up to the point where they put it in writing. Activating event is the first step and it involves a reflection and mental analysis on the information at hand (Gardiner & Kearns, 2012, 251). The second stage is the belief (B), this mainly discusses what the writers take on the event is. It includes the readiness of the writer, the feeling of being competent or incompetent in the work, the writer’s perception on the importance of writing down the material and whether or not they have enough time (Gardiner & Kearns, 2012, 251). The letter C in the acronym is about the consequence or impact that the belief system has on the synthesized event. Since most people will have some negative the resultant behavior is that of avoidance. The fourth step is Disputation, here the writer try to evaluated and critic the consequences of their action. Some positive thoughts may come along and they try to do away with the already inflicted negative thoughts that they have. The final stage in the ABCDE model is effective new outlook and behaviors.
Writing does not necessarily have to take the sequence that the ABCDE model claims. People just write at other times before going through the step by step process. It is possible to just make an abrupt decision to start writing. What if the writing is needed urgently? Time may not allow for even having any thoughts let alone having a self discourse on them. People do not always have negative thoughts about writing. This model makes an assumption that writers should go through coaching because they have faulty belief systems that needs to be disputed. Not everybody have negative believes and this leaves out coaching for those people who wanted to be coached but there is nothing wrong with their beliefs.
The ABCDE model does not apply in personal materials such as journals, records or hen just passing information to close persons. For example while writing down a journal one may not give a damn about the outcome since nobody is expected to access it. The model is therefore limited to formal writing. Human beings have the ability to think independently and it will be very difficult for the coaches to determine what the person is thinking. Since this model is so reliant on the mental process the coaches may as well find some tricky people who just for the sake of getting reed of the follow up and the coaches may pretend that they have transformed their thoughts.
Coaching in writing is important and the ABCDE model can prove relevant for coaches (Gardiner & Kearns, 2012, 249). It is however clear that this model used solemnly may not always apply in all situations and to all people. It is important therefore that coaches use some alternative model to compensate for the insufficiency of the ABCDE model.
References
Maria Gardiner1 & Hugh Kearns (2012) Cross-disciplinary perspectives in coaching psychology The ABCDE of Writing: Coaching high-quality high-quantity writing. UK: British Psychological Society
