To give or not to give advice, that is the question
"Before giving advice we must have secured its acceptance, or rather, have made it desired."  Henri Frédric Amiel

In today's therapeutic culture, complex psychological concepts are often reduced to sound bite clichés.  One such cliché which has filtered down to the popular culture can be summarized as follows.  Helping professionals, especially counselors and social workers, aren't supposed to give advice, they're just supposed to listen compassionately, all the while assuming that clients know what's best for themselves.  We are told that these professionals, including coaches, should act as facilitators, not advisors; their role being primarily that of helping clients to find their own solutions to their own problems.  The problem with this belief is that it's a half-truth, and like all
half-truths, it contains pearls of wisdom, but is also in need of some adjustment.

The current emphasis on active listening, empathy, and non-judgmental support was probably a reaction against an older, more authoritarian approach to helping people, and is largely the work of a psychotherapist named Carl Rogers. Rogers developed an approach he called "nondirective," and later "client-centered therapy." He felt that people, if they were in a safe, nonjudgmental atmosphere, could solve their own problems, establish their own sense of right and wrong, and live full, authentic lives.  In therapy sessions, he tried to view each client with what he called "unconditional positive regard."

Essentially, this is a fancy term for affirmation. If a client felt affirmed, Rogers claimed, they would gradually let down their defenses, open up to the therapist, and begin a process of healing and transformation.  Rogers also placed a heavy emphasis on empathy.  In therapy, this meant reflecting back to the client what the therapist was hearing, with a focus on validating the client's feelings.  Today, the Rogerian methodology has extended far beyond the therapist's office to shape the content of marriage encounter weekends, youth retreats, small group facilitation training, and even management consulting seminars.  And of course, this approach has also affected coach training, as I can testify from my own experience.  In fact, the non-directive, Rogerian method is now such a part of our culture that most people practicing it don't even realize they're doing so.

So, what's wrong with empathy?  What's wrong with being nonjudgmental?  What's wrong with putting the focus on the client instead of the counselor acting as an authority figure?  What's wrong with being a non-directive facilitator instead of a traditional leader?

Well, nothing, exactly. After all, I think we all know that a feeling of safety and affirmation are essential to any good relationship.  And facilitating people to make their own decisions is a sign that we respect them and have faith in them. Facilitation, as opposed to conventional leadership, opens us to a magical, transformative process that I myself have witnessed in several small group settings.

The problem is that just like food, sex, work, or exercise, it's possible to have too much of a good thing.  In my humble but bigoted opinion, the helping professions have taken the Rogerian approach too far, sometimes to the exclusion of other methods that would add  some needed balance and perspective to our interaction with clients.

William Coulson, a former Rogers disciple, has written extensively about what happens when schools and other institutions adopt a strictly Rogerian approach.  Coulson's concern, and one that I share, is that non-directive methods are not appropriate for young children.  Apparently, even Rogers himself, as well as his esteemed colleague, Abraham Maslow, felt the same way, and stressed that young children need firm guidance.  A purely nondirective approach can also lead to an obvious moral relativism.  The classic example, sometimes cited by psych professors and graduate students, is that of the therapist gently empathizing with a suicidal client, talking them all the way to the window, and identifying with their desire to jump.
 
In some cases, Rogers’ methods can become almost rigidly mechanical.    Oddly enough one professor even came up with a computer program called Eliza, (click to experience Eliza), whose purpose was strictly to ask open-ended questions in a typically Rogerian manner.  But we are not robots or computers, we are people, and no coaching or counseling relationship can be reduced to a technique.

But I don’t blame Rogers himself for this problem.   I once saw a classic film of Rogers counseling a young woman, and he was very genuine and warm.  When she said she thought he would make a good father, he lovingly said, “I think you would make a very nice daughter."

In his best-selling book, THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED, Christian psychiatrist M. Scott Peck defines mental health as "the ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs."  As a coach, it is my responsibility to help my clients see reality.  While this includes helping people make their own judgments and draw their own conclusions about their particular life path, it also means helping people see things they can't see themselves.  We all have blind spots, including yours truly.  Seeing the limits of nondirective therapy, William Coulson entered the field called Ethnopsychology, which is the study of tribal truth-telling.  In a telephone interview, Coulson cited the example of a young African boy whose father guides him around the forest, showing him
what fruits he can eat, and what plants are poisonous. While he doesn't bully the boy, he does give him firm guidance and instruction.  Good doctors do the same thing; they don't take a non-directive approach to medical treatment, unless they want to be sued for malpractice.

Coaching Philosophy

Part 1: What is Coaching?

Part 2: What Coaches Do?

Part 3: The Reality of Human Frailty

Part 4: Listening to The Barbarian

Part 5: The Limits of Willpower

Part 6: Indirect Change

Part 7: To Give or Not to Give Advice, That is the Question

Part 8: Transparency and Authenticity

Part 9: Don't Go Changin', to Try and Please Me

Part 10: Self-acceptance, Not Self-improvement

Post Script

On the front page of this site, I state that as a coach, the greatest gift I can offer my clients is myself.  A big part of that gift involves sharing the truth as I see it.  While it's only my opinion, my clients are paying, at least in part, for an opinion, a professional opinion.  By paying for it, they are essentially asking for my direction.  And this brings us to the question I ask at the beginning of this article; when is it right to give advice?

In the small group Bible study I currently attend, we have a ground rule against unsolicited advice.  If we feel compelled to give someone advice, we need to ask them if they want to hear it.  As I said above, my clients have essentially given me permission to give them advice and direction, since that's part of what they're paying for.  Does that mean I always give advice?  Not at all.  If a client is especially defensive about a particular topic or area in their lives, they may not be ready to receive my feedback on that issue.  There is no hard and fast formula for when to give advice; it's a matter of discernment and trusting your gut. This is where the Rogerian principles of empathy and active listening can be effective tools.  And, when we do give advice, we can do so in a way that still makes the client feel affirmed and valued; not judged and criticized.

If you look at My Bio, you will notice that I am blind from birth.  If a stranger or a good friend sees me trying to cross the street at the wrong time, I'm not going to be the least bit upset if they yell for me to stop and rescue me from oncoming traffic.  I won't feel judged or criticized, I'll be eternally grateful that I have people in my life who care about me enough to warn me of impending danger.  As helping professionals, and even as good friends, we need to accept the fact that people aren't perfect.  Rather than judging them for their flaws, we can gently steer them back on course, letting our strengths complement their areas of weakness, and vice versa.

Finally, I'd like to say a few words about a very misunderstood concept which comes from an often misunderstood Bible verse.  Even more so than Carl Rogers, the average person has been influenced by the phrase "judge not lest you be judged," found in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 7, verse 1.   This verse has been used time and again to suggest that we should not make judgments at all about other people, period.  The problem is that this simplistic interpretation ignores the other verses which provide the context for this passage.

"Do not judge so that you will not be judged.  For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.  Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?  Or how can you say to
your brother, "Let me take the speck out of your eye," and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. Matthew 7:1-5.

Here we can see that Jesus is not telling us to avoid judgment at any cost, but rather to avoid judging hypocritically.  In other words, we should not condemn others for committing adultery if we are doing it ourselves.   Jesus is telling us to get our own house in order first, and that is the point of the passage.

We have gone from one extreme to the other in our culture. In an effort to liberate ourselves from a rigid, self-righteous, authoritarian mentality we have come to a place where it's politically incorrect to take a stand.  Being nonjudgmental is good if we mean that we should not prejudge, from which we get the word prejudice.  We should not rush to judgment about a person, an idea, or a situation until we have the facts at our disposal and truly can say we are as informed as possible on the issue. But once we are informed by truth, we are perfectly entitled to judge, evaluate, and draw a conclusion; be it positive or negative.

In sum, we can say that sometimes it's appropriate to give advice, and sometimes it's not; sometimes we are called to judge, and at other times we would be better to refrain from judging and keep an open mind.  I know that sounds trite, but in coaching, we are called to respond based on the context of a client's needs; we can't be locked into a rigid system, even one that claims to be open-ended and nondirective.  In the end, we must simply be ourselves, with all our strengths and weaknesses.  We'll talk more about that next time.

Continue to Part 8: Transparency and Authenticity