Abby Malan

As a coach, I draw from a rich tapestry of methodologies to develop a customized approach for each unique client.

With formal qualifications in psychology, mental health and business I have, over the past 13 years, focused my professional development in Coaching and have studied with both Integral Coaching Canada and the Tavistock Consultancy in the UK.

Examples of current and recent clients include Investec Private Bank, UCT Graduate School of Business, Red Cross Children’s Hospital, RECM, Tourvest Travel Services, British American Tobacco SA and Johnson & Johnson.

My preference is to coach individuals in leadership roles who are at a point in their career and personal life where they are asking questions of themselves that can be addressed in a coaching relationship. I am inspired by the growth and change I facilitate in individuals. My clients respect me for creating a safe and open space that enables them to achieve outcomes that deeply matter.

Rooted in my own commitment to living with personal integrity and authenticity, as a coach my aim is to enable people to grow and advance the health, meaning and integrity of their lives, in and outside the workplace.

I am originally from the West Coast of Canada and have been a permanent South African resident living in Cape Town for the past 9 years. I am a mother of two young daughters and am married to a South African. In my free time I enjoy trail running and mountain biking in the forests of Cape Town, yoga and sea kayaking. My intention is to, as much as possible, maintain a healthy balance in my life.

Education, Training and Professional Membership

• BSc. Psychology, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada (1995).
• BSc. Occupational Therapy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada (1998). As an Occupational Therapist Abby focused on adult mental health and has worked in clinical, private, educational and community settings in Canada and the UK. Abby was a faculty member at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
• Masters in Business Administration, Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town (2002). Abby completed a thesis entitled “Are the International Coach Federation Professional Standards Appropriate for South Africa?”
• Certificate in Executive Coaching, Tavistock Consultancy Service, United Kingdom (2005).
• Foundation and Apprenticeship Module, Integral Coaching Certification Program, Integral Coaching Canada (2010).
• Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) (developed at the University of Massachusetts Medical Centre)
• Member of COMENSA – Coaches and Mentors Network of South Africa.
• Certified Enneagram practitioner, Adfen International, South Africa.
  
  

Coaching Approach

Carl Jung’s Depth Psychology, the Tavistock Process Approach and the Integral Coaching Canada method underlie my work as a coach.

Depth Work is about working below the surface of behavior to better understand why people behave in certain ways. The role and purpose of depth work is to understand the possibilities hidden in people, to determine or discover the processes by which they unfold, and to develop practical procedures with which to broaden people’s growth. The Tavistock approach involves working with the hidden dimensions of organisational life and assisting people to see the links between the different layers of the system.

Integral Coaching is a discipline that enables clients to become more aware of their current approach to situations, to see new possibilities and then build sustainable new competencies to achieve outcomes that deeply matter to them. Rather than ‘out with the old and in with the new’ the Integral method recognises that a client’s current way of being never entirely goes away but rather that aspects of it live on inside the clients next level of development.

As an Integral Coach I aim to understand how my client has been approaching their coaching topic prior to seeing me. Together we identify and work with long-standing patterns while building my client’s ability to move in different directions since both occur at the same time. Through this approach we develop greater conscious recognition of a past way of being and in doing so we loosen it’s grip. Simultaneously we create new ways of moving forward. As a client comes to see her/himself more objectively they are able to shift quite radically into healthier, more productive, and more expanded ways of being in their life.