CHALLENGING COACHING Calibrating the coachee's tension What are the implications for coaching and development? Because of the strong link coaching has with the "sister" profes- sion of counseling, some coaches believe that coaching should be supportive and not challenging. However, the big difference between counseling and coaching is not what the practitioners do; it's who they're working with. Typically, people who go to see counsellors are saying: "I'm not functioning properly and I want to be fixed and feel better." Someone seeing a counselor is likely to have high levels of tension or anxiety and may already be in the suboptimal area of performance. If this is the case, the counselor will consciously create the conditions to reduce tension and anxiety and hold a very relaxed session to bring the client to the optimal level of arousal. The amount of tension a person