How to Coach Yourself and Others Empowering Coaching And Crisis Interventions | Page 38

This book is in B&W, not color - Print page in Grayscale for Correct view! Often clients come from disadvantaged and marginalized groups where they “have been ‘beaten down’ by oppression, poverty, abuse, and other harmful life experiences. They want better lives for themselves and their families, but they feel powerless to make the necessary changes. Some clients have a pervasive sense of failure and feel different from and rejected by other people” (Sheafor & Horejsi, 2008, p. 422). Sometimes powerlessness arises from negative self-evaluation and low self-esteem or from lack of confidence in one’s ability to alter one’s life, but sometimes the systems that are set up to assist clients are themselves oppressive and contribute to powerlessness. Describing the welfare system, Carniol (1995) observes, “As for the clients, evidence shows that they often find themselves blamed for the problems they face. They find they don’t get the help they need or they don’t get nearly enough to make a difference—or they get ‘cut off’ ” (p. 3). Racism and other prejudices may also deny clients access to jobs and resources such as adequate housing, a reality which reminds counsellors that they have some responsibility to advocate for progressive system and social policy changes. Ben Carniol, a Canadian social work educator, offers this challenge: “Social and economic and environmental justice demands a transformation of power, including a basic democratization of wealth-creating activities—so that the practice of democracy comes within the reach of everyone, rather than being manipulated by those who now dominate the heights of our political and social structures” (1995, p. 158). Client self-determination is enhanced when clients have more choices. This perspective draws counsellors into broader activities, including working to identify and remove gaps and barriers to service and encouraging more humane and accessible policies and services. In addition, as McWhirter (1991) argues, empowerment requires that clients “gain some degree of critical awareness of systemic power dynamics” (p. 225). One way counsellors can achieve this end is to provide clients with information on groups and organizations whose efforts are directed toward changing problematic elements of the system. The counselling process itself offers empowerment to clients. The beginning phase offers many clients a unique opportunity to explore their situation and their feelings. Active listening skills help clients bring long-forgotten or misunderstood feelings to the surface. Ventilation of feelings can energize clients, and it can lead to spontaneous insight into new ways of handling problems that seemed insurmountable. For some clients the work of counselling is finished at this phase. For [email protected] Property of Bookemon, do NOT distribute 38