At the age of 60, I have reached that wonderful and glorious life position of recognizing that I don’t have any of the answers and am not all that sure of most of the questions. Most of my clients, however, are not quite there either in age or cognitive/emotive processes. With the occasional extreme client, of course, there are no questions, only answers.
Yet, when a person has all the answers and is not interested in asking any questions, how can there be growth, learning, becoming more? There can’t. There can only be stagnation. I am reminded of a line from a wonderful book by Richard Bach entitled Illusions. In discussing the concept that everything is in a constant state of change, one of the central characters says, “If perfection is stagnation, then heaven is a swamp!”
In looking at my “I have all the answers” clients, I am drawn to this metaphorical comparison. When we cease to ask, when we cease to want to learn more, our lives become the swamp. This is true for our clients and just as true for us as coaches and therapists. The recent post on the life position of needing to be right and needing others to be wrong, and the many responses in the various groups where it was posted, demonstrate this very point almost as if battle lines were drawn. There were those who asked, “Have you considered discussing [an idea or concept] with your client?” And, there were those who said, “Clearly, your client is suffering from [disorder]; this will fix him.”
These two tones prompted me to consider many things. At the top of the list was this concept of Questions and Answers. In coaching, we are taught to ask, ask, ask. We are taught there is no such thing as having the right answers, only the right questions. With regard to my own training in psychotherapy, I was taught that I didn’t have the answers, that the client would find the answers herself or himself (insight) and that their healing must be their own. I recognize that this isn’t a universal view. So too in coaching. There are many coaches who believe they do have the answers.
The truth is that none of us has answers for others. How can we? Do we live in their reality? Do we hold their beliefs as the ruling structure of our lives? Do we have their years of life experience? No, none of these. Do we know what is best for our clients? I don’t think so. However, they do. And when we can bring that out in them, when we can help them find their own answers by asking their own questions, then a difference can be made. Notice, please, that I didn’t say we can make a difference. We don’t make the difference. Our clients make the difference - or not - their choice. Our clients are the heroes in these sagas, not us. When we make ourselves out to be the heroes, we rob our clients of their greatest tools for self-healing, and then knowingly (or at least it should be) become the villains. We become crutches that keep clients crippled. We foster dependency and transference. We do nothing for them and even less for ourselves.
I would like to ask how you work with a client who thinks he has all the answers. Second, do you believe we have a responsibility to continue growing ourselves? If so, how do we best accomplish that?
http://patmazor-beliefsystems.blogspot.com/
http://www.patmazor.com/pat-mazor-current-blog-article.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment