Perspectives and challenges for the study of brain responses to coaching: Enhancing the dialogue between the fields of neuroscience and coaching psychology

Article: The interest in coaching psychology and neuroscience have been steadily increasing over the past 15 years. However, the two fields have not yet established consistent dialogues underpinned by experimental research. This paper highlights the importance of such dialogue for the growth of evidence-based coaching and how coaching psychology could benefit from previous neuroimaging and electroencephalographic studies in the field of psychotherapy and task-specific brain functioning to design research protocols that could significantly contribute to our understanding of how coaching works at the brain level and how coachees could best achieve results.

Another article by the team at the Coaching Psychology Unit, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil and the Centre for Neuroscience, International Academy for Professional Development. The group undertook a systematic review of electroencephalographic findings in patients with major depressive disorder during cognitive or emotional tasks. The studies identified reveal the frontal cortex as an important brain structure involved in the
complex neural processes associated with MDD. Findings point to disorganization of right-hemisphere
activity and deficient cognitive processing in MDD. Depressed individuals tend to ruminate on negative
information and respond with a pattern of relatively higher right frontal activity to emotional stimuli
associated with withdrawal and isolation.

Take a look at the article, in press.

de Freitas, S.B., Marques, A.A., Bevilaqua, M. C., de Carvalho, M. R., Ribeiro, P., Palmer, S., Nardi, A. E. & Dias, G. P. (in press). Electroencephalographic findings in patients with major depressive disorder during cognitive or emotional tasks: a systematic review. Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria. DOI: 10.1590/1516-4446-2015-1834.