Get a Life (Coach)
By Nina Baruch
How all this began?
Dana and I are far from being the first to benefit from life coaching. In the last two decades, life coaching has become very popular, and has helped more and more people establish the kind of life they believe is right for them.
The first to identify this need was Thomas J. Leonard, an accountant, who in the late 1980's concluded that many of his clients needed advice that went beyond financial planning. What they really needed, he thought, was someone who could help them sort through the options that prosperity had provided them: where to live, where to work, and how to spend their leisure time. And since no such person existed, Leonard set out to train people to fill this role. From the start he steered away from the soul-searching of psychodynamic therapy, and concentrated on changing specifically identified behaviors and attitudes.
The result was an array of checklists, exercises, and self-assessment tools, designed to help people set goals, identify obstacles, and streamline their lives. Each of these tools embodied Leonard’s organizing insight: people waste mental, physical, and emotional energy dealing with things they put up with because changing them requires too much time and effort. He believed that by eliminating intolerable parts of their lives people could free up the energy necessary to begin envisioning their lives, or they could devote themselves to new endeavors.
The coaching movement has grown fast ever since. Today there are life coaches, relationship coaches, money coaches, dating coaches, spiritual coaches, weight-loss coaches, and peak-performance coaches, coaches for students, coaches for professionals, coaches for therapists, and even coaches for coaches.
Why now?
Leonard's success was the result of perfect timing: a confluence of social and economic forces was presenting Americans with an unprecedented array of options on how they should earn their livings, and leads their lives; at the same time, it was depriving them of the mentors who could help them make these choices.
Since World War II, increased mobility and the decline of family and community ties had reduced intergenerational contact. The rise of commuter culture had diminished young people’s exposure to role models in their own communities. The rapid diversification of the U.S. economy had bred a need for specialists, and made it less likely that young men and women could find mentors outside of their field.
At the same time, outsourcing, and telecommuting gave rise to a generation of independent contractors, who needed help in bringing structure and focus to sometimes chaotic lives. As the influence of the human-potential movement spread through the culture, legions of middle-class Americans embraced the gospel of self-improvement, and looked for a secular chaplain to direct their progress.
Anxiety, ambition, and the challenges of modern life had combined to create a market for men and women who could provide, for a fee, a service that older generations had once performed for younger generations as part of the social contract.
Some of those who became coaches were organizational-development consultants, some were therapists who had been trained in how to question, listen, and form relationships with clients. Others were alumni of personal-growth seminars like “est,” impressed with their own growth and eager to share their secrets with others.
And yet, to this day, the coaching boom remained largely unexamined. Although there are many who claim this field is the logical next step in the evolution of psychology, there are others, especially psychotherapists, who claim life coaching relies too much on untested self-help remedies, and that many of its practitioners have no formal and satisfactory training in psychology. Others claim that coaching plays on quick fix for clients and practitioners, but doesn't solve real problems.
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By Nina Baruch
How all this began?
Dana and I are far from being the first to benefit from life coaching. In the last two decades, life coaching has become very popular, and has helped more and more people establish the kind of life they believe is right for them.
The first to identify this need was Thomas J. Leonard, an accountant, who in the late 1980's concluded that many of his clients needed advice that went beyond financial planning. What they really needed, he thought, was someone who could help them sort through the options that prosperity had provided them: where to live, where to work, and how to spend their leisure time. And since no such person existed, Leonard set out to train people to fill this role. From the start he steered away from the soul-searching of psychodynamic therapy, and concentrated on changing specifically identified behaviors and attitudes.
The result was an array of checklists, exercises, and self-assessment tools, designed to help people set goals, identify obstacles, and streamline their lives. Each of these tools embodied Leonard’s organizing insight: people waste mental, physical, and emotional energy dealing with things they put up with because changing them requires too much time and effort. He believed that by eliminating intolerable parts of their lives people could free up the energy necessary to begin envisioning their lives, or they could devote themselves to new endeavors.
The coaching movement has grown fast ever since. Today there are life coaches, relationship coaches, money coaches, dating coaches, spiritual coaches, weight-loss coaches, and peak-performance coaches, coaches for students, coaches for professionals, coaches for therapists, and even coaches for coaches.
Why now?
Leonard's success was the result of perfect timing: a confluence of social and economic forces was presenting Americans with an unprecedented array of options on how they should earn their livings, and leads their lives; at the same time, it was depriving them of the mentors who could help them make these choices.
Since World War II, increased mobility and the decline of family and community ties had reduced intergenerational contact. The rise of commuter culture had diminished young people’s exposure to role models in their own communities. The rapid diversification of the U.S. economy had bred a need for specialists, and made it less likely that young men and women could find mentors outside of their field.
At the same time, outsourcing, and telecommuting gave rise to a generation of independent contractors, who needed help in bringing structure and focus to sometimes chaotic lives. As the influence of the human-potential movement spread through the culture, legions of middle-class Americans embraced the gospel of self-improvement, and looked for a secular chaplain to direct their progress.
Anxiety, ambition, and the challenges of modern life had combined to create a market for men and women who could provide, for a fee, a service that older generations had once performed for younger generations as part of the social contract.
Some of those who became coaches were organizational-development consultants, some were therapists who had been trained in how to question, listen, and form relationships with clients. Others were alumni of personal-growth seminars like “est,” impressed with their own growth and eager to share their secrets with others.
And yet, to this day, the coaching boom remained largely unexamined. Although there are many who claim this field is the logical next step in the evolution of psychology, there are others, especially psychotherapists, who claim life coaching relies too much on untested self-help remedies, and that many of its practitioners have no formal and satisfactory training in psychology. Others claim that coaching plays on quick fix for clients and practitioners, but doesn't solve real problems.
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