Among the differences between coaches and therapists are: coaches serve people, therapists 'fix' them. Frequently a part of a client to coaching is yearning to be fixed, yet another part considers himself whole, and ready to take on issues. The coach is all too often tempted to take on an issue as a problem to fix, but ways can usually be found to treat it as an issue; oftentimes the coach's own experience will suggest a way.
Copyright (c) 2009 Dave Smart
Clients come to coaches with many issues, and they may not have thought through what the difference is between an issue and a problem. Of course, the coach has thought it through, that is why he is a coach and not a therapist. So we generally begin by explaining the difference, and the client is, or will be, investing his money in a coach. As such the coach considers him or her someone to serve, not fix. But: that client, like all of us, has several parts of himself and some parts may have doubts about whether or not he really needs to be "fixed".
Jungian coaches recognize this internal conflict as they recognize that coaches and therapists do very similar work, but under very different ground rules. The client has made a choice, and primarily the choice is where to come from in himself or herself. But he or she has made similar choices of where to come from in his decisions of commitment throughout his life. Whichever his choices, the different parts of himself are present, recognized or not.
The issue for the coach, who in his choice of profession has committed to serving and not fixing, goes beyond the vain question of what would make the client feel served, to the substantive question of what would serve to resolve the issues that the client's agenda raises?
By way of illustration and example: clients who come to coaching are frequently angry. These persons come from a victim-role place (which all but guarantees will make them angry) and their rant on whatever circumstances they have taken themselves as a victim ask in essence "is it not all right to be angry?" This they have done many times with others to solicit them to ask similarly of themselves, then they both can take comfort in that it IS all right. The coach has a choice of ways to deal with this.
One way would be the answer the question: no, it is not all right. Perceiving yourself as a victim will only strengthen the opposite, the victimizer part of yourself; and sooner or later that victimizer will take some action that would do you no good. But defining it as wrong characterizes it as a problem, that begs a solution - in other words, a "fix".
Another way, thinking of serving not fixing, the coach asks what has served himself, or would serve? The Jungian concept is that the events of our lives are in fact parts of ourselves, if the universal scope of the Greater Self is considered; and this is true even of the things that "happen" to us. Thus, all things happen for a reason. When one, be he a coach or not, fully accepts this, he comes to experience he is not angry like he used to be, indeed he has no need to be. If not angry, he would have no need to ask the question of whether it is all right to be angry, and with no negative answer would have no problem to fix. It is that Jungian concept that would serve here, and we need a way to express and explain it.I.
But how can one get over being angry?
It can be a daunting concept to someone who has not been exposed to Jungian psychology for many years. Still, ways can be found to introduce it in an accepting manner. It may help to introduce it in reverse order. In the above example, you might ask, if you were NOT angry would you ask is it all right to be? And if you did not ask, would the answer to that question be important? Then, why might you not be angry? If you knew and understood the reason for given circumstances, would you be so angry? And if not, then IF ONLY you knew the reason. Maybe tomorrow you will!
It is so often temptingly easy to consider a given situation a problem to be fixed. Finding a way to serve is often not so easy. But the client has already wrestled with the question: why should I pay money just to be served? If he can do that, surely we as coaches can wrestle with what action WOULD serve.
I am indebted to Marlena Field's poem "Fixer" for inspiration of ideas for this article.
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