Responsibility

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are… The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.

(George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950), "Mrs. Warren's Profession" (1893) act II)

How can coaching support clients as they take more responsibility for themselves? This issue is discussed here considering six major psychotherapeutic therapies. 

Psychotherapeutic Therapies

Cognitive Behavioural School – Radical Behaviour Therapy

Radical Behaviourists believe that external circumstances cause all behaviour. Their deterministic view has no place for the mind or free will, seeing thinking as just another externally caused behaviour. Much of the theory is based on quantitatively sound experiments (for example, Pavlov conditioning dogs) and some believe that this enhances its validity.  

There are similarities between this deterministic approach in which a “black box” transforms stimuli into behaviour, and other theories, such as Cognitive Behaviourism’s schema and the script of Transactional Analysis (TA), but a crucial difference is that Radical Behaviourists see the “black box” as the tool for achieving change, whereas TA practitioners and Cognitive Behaviourists see the aim of therapy as releasing the client from the script or schema.

Although it incorporates a wide range of techniques, Radical Behavioural therapy is typically based on “conditioning” – rewarding positive behaviours and associating negative behaviours with negative outcomes, so that the client begins to behave differently.

Radical Behaviourism’s complete disavowal of the mind renders notions of responsibility meaningless; without mind there can be no accountability.

To the casual eye Radical Behaviourism has no relevance to coaching; coaches pride themselves on empowering clients and this cannot be done if the client is mechanistically reacting to external stimuli. Nevertheless, anecdotal evidence suggests that many coaches inadvertently obtain at least some results through conditioning - clients change their behaviour in order to receive positive feedback from their coach – a clear example of an external stimulus. It is hard to see how this can be avoided unless the coach becomes an unemotional automaton.

There are two important criticisms of radical behaviourism. The experiments are largely carried out on non-human animals and its validity in the human case is therefore questionable. In addition, it is instinctively hard to accept that people are mindless!

Cognitive Behavioural School – Cognitive Therapy

In contrast to Radical Behaviourism, Cognitive Behaviourists regard the individual’s view of the self as crucial to behaviour. It is debatable therefore whether the two therapies should be placed in the same tradition. Nevertheless both share an emphasis on changing external behaviour.

Cognitive Therapy’s underlying principle is that clients have faulty interpretations of reality as a result of schemas developed early in life. The similarity with TA’s scripts is striking. Therapy aims to correct faulty cognitive processing, so that the client develops a more appropriate view of reality and thus behaves more effectively. After successful therapy, the client will become their own therapist, taking full responsibility for future behaviour.

Much coaching entails examining the perceptions of clients, helping the individual to devise more helpful interpretations of reality. A Cognitive approach is therefore helpful.

An important criticism is the implicit assumption that the therapist (better able to perceive reality) is in some way superior to the client and this may be disempowering.
   
Psychodynamic School - Classical Psychoanalysis 

Freud suggested that the mind has three agencies:

• The Id consists of inherent instincts, particularly relating to sexuality, and is completely unconscious
• The Ego ideally is rational, moderating the influence of the id
• The Super-Ego is formed within the ego, prolonging parental influence. It is consciously perceptible to a small degree

It is tempting to see these three agencies as equivalent to TA’s Child, Adult and Parent, and some useful analogies may be drawn, but a key difference is that neither the id nor super-ego interact directly with the external world; their external interactions are all moderated by the ego. This is in contrast to TA, in which all three ego states interact directly with the outside world. They can therefore be seen as different manifestations of the Freudian ego.
  
A contrast with the existentialist approach is the source of conflict: psychoanalysis sees conflict arising from the clash between the ego and, for example, the sexual instincts of the id or fear of the super-ego. These conflicts arise throughout sexual development and are therefore entirely self-generated, whereas in existentialism, conflict flows from confrontations with the “ultimate concerns”. A solipsist would regard these concerns as purely generated within the mind as well, but existentialism rules this out, explicitly relating each individual to external circumstances.   
 
Freud suggested that the ego develops various defence mechanisms, such as repression and reaction-formation, to deal with the conflicts outlined above, and therapy is intended to address these mechanisms, ultimately resulting in a stronger ego, which can be used more efficiently to make realistic decisions – taking responsibility. In terms of TA, this may be seen as the strengthening of the Adult, as historic influences are addressed. Similarities with existentialism are less clear cut - although the strengthening of the ego may be seen as analogous to the taking of responsibility for one’s own ontological nature, the complete focus on the past is anathema to the existentialist.  

The key implication of psychoanalysis for the coach is the importance of the past on the way that individuals behave today. Whilst many pay lip-service to the influence of the past, most coaches are highly goal-orientated, focusing almost exclusively on the future.

An important criticism of this theory is its strong focus on sexuality. This is due to its origins in what to us appears a highly sexually repressed society and its relevance can be questioned in a more “liberated” era when such repression is less likely to occur.
  
Humanistic/ Existentialist School - Transactional Analysis (TA)

Whilst TA has its roots in psychoanalysis, it can be included in the Humanistic/ Existentialist School as the belief that people can develop full autonomy over their lives is crucial to it.

TA suggests that all individuals have three ego states: Parent; Adult or Child. The Parental state resembles parental behaviour and may be controlling or nurturing. The Adult state is an essentially responsible approach whilst the Child is a remnant of the person’s childhood. Each ego state is divided into sub-states. At any one time, each individual is operating in one of these states. For example, the person who is unable to work a video recorder may operate in the child ego state, stimulating parental behaviour from those around them. 

An individual’s behaviours are seen as the result of a pre-determined script – the product of programming by the individual’s parents which gives the illusion of autonomy. There are similarities with the formation of the Freudian super-ego, prolonging parental influence. The ultimate goal of TA therapy is to generate true autonomous behaviour in which the Adult gives the individual the capacity to develop control, having genuine free choice.

TA bears clear similarities to Existentialism, in which the individual is assisted to develop complete responsibility over their own life.   The implications for responsibility are clear: the coach may seek to allow the client to cease to be dominated by the internal Parent, instead using the Adult to assume control over the choices which are made.

TA appears a seductively simple approach. This may be its Achilles’ heel; many unqualified individuals feel able to apply it, even though they have little knowledge beyond the three ego states.           

Humanistic/ Existentialist School – Reality Therapy

Reality Therapy’s key concept is that each individual can control only their own behaviour. Once this is accepted it is logical for people to stop trying to control others and to cease allowing themselves to be controlled. Reality Therapy sees clients as choosing some form of self-destructive behaviour to attempt to control the world and satisfy a variety of inherent needs. It takes no account of the past, seeing problems as being in the present alone – the focus is on what clients can choose to do now to control their own behaviour. This is closely linked to the key theme; clients are helped to see that the “locus of control” in their lives lies within themselves – they are encouraged to take full responsibility.

In the coaching relationship, this kind of approach is frequently used, especially in the corporate context. Clients often present with the attitude that the company or other people are to blame for the problems that they have at work. A common technique is asking the client what he or she can do now to improve matters – they are encouraged to choose to control their own behaviour.

An argument against Reality Therapy is that it deals only with symptoms, not causes.

 
Humanistic/Existentialist School - Existentialism

Existentialism’s emphasis on complete responsibility for oneself combines with its total focus on the future. It posits that there is no fixed human nature and that each individual must choose his or her own being, or ontological nature. This experience of being provides the pre-condition for change. In the living human, this condition of being may be threatened by factors such as societal pressures and illness. When these threats are overcome, the individual is able fully to choose their own being and to address their problems.

Existentialism suggests four “ultimate concerns”: death; isolation; freedom and meaninglessness. People build defence mechanisms to protect themselves from the anxiety associated with these concerns. These defence mechanisms restrict people’s potential (their ability to “be”), resulting in existential guilt, which is predicated on the notion of personal responsibility for one’s own being. This responsibility both depends on and is a result of our ability to transcend the past and the present to create our futures.

The existentialist’s aim is to ensure that the client ceases to repress his or her sense of being. The existentialist focuses on the relationship with the client, believing it to be the agent of change, rather than seeking to “cure” problems that the client may have. The goals are to understand the conflict caused by an ultimate concern, identify the defence mechanisms and discover other ways of dealing with the ultimate concerns so that the individual can realise his or her ontological nature. 

Of particular relevance to responsibility are the ultimate concerns of freedom and isolation. An existential approach can help the coaching client to understand ways in which he or she has set up defences against freedom, avoiding responsibility for choices. Meanwhile, helping the client to deal with defences against isolation can lead to an acknowledgement that they alone are responsible for their lives.
 
Existentialism can be criticised for its complete emphasis on the future. It is however clear from working with clients that for many, the past and present must be dealt with in order to approach the future.

Synthesis

The six theories form a spectrum:

1. Radical Behaviourism
2. Cognitive Therapy
3. Classical Psychoanalysis
4. Transactional Analysis
5. Reality Therapy
6. Existentialism

There are three trends across this spectrum:

• The chronological focus of each of them moves forward from past to future
• The role of the mind strengthens from zero to being the only tool usable by the individual
• Ultimate responsibility increases

Even the completely deterministic approach of Radical Behaviourism may be inadvertently accessed in coaching work; coaching is a broad church and each of the theories has something to offer to the practicing coach.

Bibliography

Beck, R.C. (2004), Motivation Theories and Principles, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson 

Nelson-Jones, R. (2006), Theory and Practice of Counselling and Therapy (Fourth Edition), London: Sage.