Editor for creating a social atom

Editor for the social atom

To work out the coachee's social atom, the coachee is asked first to find a symbol for themselves on a sheet of paper or on a flipchart. The coachee then adds a further symbol, which can represent an important person, an animal, a hobby, work or something similar. The intensity of the relationship is then shown by the number of lines between the “self symbol” and the symbol just added. If the relationship is painful or negative, this is indicated by a cross line that “strikes through” the relationship line. The symbol is then numbered “1”. The process is repeated until the coachee has represented all of their important relationships.

The coachee has now given expression to their current and unconscious network of relationships. This network can then be explored, for example by the coach drawing the coachee's attention to the order of the symbols, to the size or appearance of a symbol, or to the distance between a symbol and the coachee's own symbol. In this way, the coachee learns to perceive and understand their network of relationships consciously, and can change relationships deliberately or draw on them in their decision-making.