How confidential are these coaching conversations?
A coaching conversation with each client is completely confidential, with some limits (see below). I do not share personal identifying information or details about specific conversations with others, outside of coaching supervision. The entire point of the coaching relationship is to provide you with a private, safe place of companionship, free of judgment, to explore your ideas, your values, desires, goals, and the challenges you face in pursuing them.
I engage in periodic coaching supervision sessions where I can share experiences of my practice and ask for input for my own professional development. It is part of the ethics of coaching supervision that no personally identifying information about a client is given and the focus is on the coach’s performance, not on the client.
However, our conversations are not regarded as legally-privileged or protected conversations as one may have with an attorney, or with a clergy member. If I understand that a client is intending harm to him/herself or to another, or has been involved in an unadjudicated criminal activity or intends to engage in criminal activity I am legally obligated to report such to the proper authorities. By court or police order I could be obligated to provide authorities with information about my client or client conversations.