How to Coach Yourself and Others Empowering Coaching And Crisis Interventions | Page 37

This book is in B&W, not color - Print page in Grayscale for Correct view! 4. Empowering "Empowerment means increased assertiveness and self-management skills. It is associated with positive human growth and change processes (McWhirter, 1991). As helping professionals, counsellors are committed to the growth, healing, and development of the clients they serve. Unfortunately, the intention to help does not always guarantee that counsellors are helpful. Some have argued that counselling and psychotherapy can actually serve to oppress rather than empower clients. For example, Steinbock (1988) argues that helping relationships is oppressive to the extent that helpees embrace a view of themselves as needy and dependent on the helper for solutions to their problems. Further, he contends that problem resolution focuses on the individual rather than the systems that create the problems, resulting in a very low likelihood of constructive, preventative change (Steinbock, 1988). Prilleltensky (1989) argues that interventions based on traditional approaches to psychotherapy serve to perpetuate the kinds of systemic problems and inequalities that lead clients to seek psychological services, preserving rather than transforming an unjust status quo. Caplan (1992) argues persuasively that feminist therapy, explicitly created to address women's oppression, is also vulnerable to reflecting and preserving the gender inequities of society. These critiques warrant serious consideration. In societies marred by inequality and injustice, racism and sexism, economic stratification and violence, all counselling relationships are vulnerable to subtly and even overtly reflecting these and other forms of oppression (Amold, 1997). By virtue of our training and education, counsellors are in a position of relative privilege that, unexamined, can contribute to maintaining the presence of oppressive social influences within the counselling relationship. For example, counsellors who fail to acknowledge the roles that racism and classism play in creating the environment of a low income client of color may blame the victim"; counsellors ascribing to the values of the dominant culture without examining the influence of their values in counselling may define client problems and engage in interventions that are inappropriate for their clients (e.g., Arnold, 1997; Katz, 1985; Sue & Sue, 1990). Empowerment Coaching Empowering = mobilizing strengths for change. The concept of empowerment was described as the process of helping clients discover personal strengths and capacities so that they are able to take control of their lives. The foundation for empowerment in counselling is the belief that clients are capable and have a right to manage their own lives. Thus, an empowerment attitude focuses on the capacities and strengths of clients. Empowerment values and methods challenge counsellors to forgo any need to control clients by taking on an “expert” role that puts clients in positions of dependency. Giving priority to empowerment constrains counsellors from hiding behind professional jargon. Moreover, counsellors who empower demystify the counselling process through open and non-jargonistic discussion with clients of their methods and assumptions. Self-determination, an important component of client empowerment, is promoted by helping clients recognize choices and by encouraging them to make independent decisions. Counsellors should not do for clients what clients can and should do for themselves. When empowerment is the priority, clients become the experts, and there is “collaboration and shared decision making within the professional relationship (Sheafor & Horejsi, 2008, p. 79). McWhirter (1991) asserts that the potentially empowering aspects of counselling include “an underlying belief in basic human potential and in clients’ ability to cope with their life problems, a collaborative definition of the problem and therapeutic goals, skill enhancement and development, recognition and analysis of systemic power dynamics and an emphasis on group and community identity” (p. 226). For [email protected] Property of Bookemon, do NOT distribute 37