The Professional Guessing Game: Embracing Uncertainty in Coaching and Psychology
Navigating the Grey: How Coaches and Psychologists Use Intuition and Wisdom to Guide Clients.
As coaches or psychologists, we get much training. It covers various models and interventions. It also teaches us ways to assess them. This study and training build a sense of certainty. They help us manage different client scenarios and presentations. It’s a false confidence, however. Once you start seeing clients, you see how well theory stacks up to reality. Now, the theory and practice from our training do build our confidence. This training is foundational for our client work. Yet, over time, the unknown exists in working with clients. I call this unknown the professional guessing game. It is better not to use a conceptual model or assessment method to examine the client. After all, the client is the expert in them.
Professional guessing game — and clients are their own “experts”. We can share an observation or theory based on your work with the client. But, it is often a professional guess. Yes, there might be diagnosing a disorder using the DSM-5-TR. For us psychologists, tests are often quite black and white. Interpretation of test results helps bring inert results into a realm of greater certainty — or black and white. So there are aspects of psychology and, dare I say, coaching, which tend to be black and white. Yet, there is still debate, even in our university studies, especially in psychology. Is our work with people an art or a science? The art helps us delve into the unknown. Sometimes, our life experience lets us help clients explore their minds. We also know that our clients are the experts in themselves.
Holding up a jumper…does it fit? As professionals, we should reflect on what we see and ask respectful questions. With many of my coaching or therapy questions for clients, I liken it to holding up a jumper or other piece of clothing to my client. Does this jumper fit them? Prefacing my guess with this jumper concept lets me be playful. It enables me to explore a contentious issue with the client tentatively. It gives the client permission to take a breath and then listen to what question will be put forward to them. Now, whatever type of metaphorical jumper I hold up, I like to see if that question touches a nerve. Clients may sit back in their seats or twitch in their eyes or face. These are signs of some inner tension in their body. And this inner tension may be something that we can talk about.
I’ll also be mindful of what my body tells me when sitting with a client. Do I sense anything about our relationship? For example, do I feel I’m pushing a concept uphill with my client? Or do I feel defiant or oppositional to my client? I can also look at the client’s body language and see if that same feeling might exist with them. And, by listening to my body, does it share any unease or tension? Early in my career, I worked with colleagues in large organisations. This was before I started practising psychology or coaching. I learned to listen to my body and my colleagues. I noticed whether I felt tense or sweat forming on my brow. These were signs that something was off about that colleague. It was often the case.
I started to use my bodily signals as part of my intuition. And even though intuition is not precise or accurate, it is fuzzy. Instead, it provides a weird sort of data I can work from, much like emotions being data you can work from. Both intuitions and emotions can be uncomfortable. But they are worth listening to. In the safety of working with coaches or clients, I can then have process conversations with them. These help me understand my feelings. They also help me question if our work has caused my bodily sensations. This also applies to clients as well. I will check in on them, and even though coaching is supposed to be above the neck, as they say, people are human beings. They decide based on emotions, not the logic they prefer to show off. In my work with both coachees and psychology clients, I will include a discussion of feelings. I will hold up a jumper and check in with my clients. I will ask them to label their feelings and emotions in their bodies.
Labelling feelings (bodily and emotional). I’ll see how well they can label emotions and report their physical sensations. I’ll also note how they slow down to feel their feelings. Many clients become unsettled when they start to feel their feelings. They will then rationalise or try to control the session’s narrative. This intellectualisation often avoids feelings. We can discuss that in our process conversations. I will try to bring them back to their bodily sensations and help them ground themselves. I suggest getting them to do box breathing or other techniques. They should become more mindful of the chair they’re sitting in. And I may have them label five things they can see as a starting point. Some clients, especially perfectionists or the anxious, will find the grounding work hard. It’s hard to bring them back into their body. It’s also hard to get them to sit with uncomfortable feelings. Yet, this is where much therapy work exists for specific issues. For coaching, it’s less so, but it depends on what the client wants to work through. Over time, I’ll ask my clients to share their experiences. I want to know what has worked better or differently.
This is part of holding up the jumper to see if it fits. It’s a professional guess to see if it resonates with the client. I observe how I’m feeling or how they could be feeling. I encourage the client to explore that further. Over time, I influence the client’s attention towards what is going well. I think about their plight and the system that keeps them wanting more from life.
The professional guessing game I’ve discussed today might not sound very professional. However, my coaching and psychology work includes tests, ethics, and interventions. It focuses on results. A client’s presentation will always have a grey area.
We don’t always know their true thoughts and feelings. We can draw this out, but there’s still ambiguity. So, we can hold up a jumper and check if it fits. This is a way to navigate that ambiguity and forge an even stronger bond or collaboration with my client.
