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Phobias: What Coaches Should Know
What if a coaching session takes a turn towards unfamilar territory? What if we start coaching around a business issue and end up discussing personal issues? This article takes a look at a common form of abnormal psychology - phobias, so that managers who coach can spot any early warning signs.
When I train managers as coaches I always warn them to respect the power of coaching questions and to recognize the possibility that what starts as an innocuous, business related conversation, may lead to the unveiling of a deeper issue. Coaching managers would be advised to develop at least a little insight into the signs of abnormal psychology. Consider for example, phobias.
We need to consider phobias and the anxiety response they can produce in their sufferers. ‘Phobia’ appears to be one of those psychological terms that have become rooted in everyday language. People uneasy with I.T. equipment complain of Technophobia and nervous maths students claim to be victim to Numberphobia and so on. In truth, however one is only phobic if one experiences some of the physical symptoms of anxiety in situations in which most other people are able to cope.
We can group phobias into three classifications:
Simple phobias - fear of a certain object or situation Social phobias - insecurity in public places Agoraphobia - fear of being in unfamiliar places
There are two main explanations as to why people develop phobias:
Learning Theory - which suggests that phobias develop from an intense experience with certain stimuli, e.g. Watson and Rayner’s experiment with young Albert featuring rats and loud noises.
Psychoanalytic Theory - which suggests that a phobia is a conscious manifestation of an unconscious fear, e.g. Freud’s analysis of ‘little Hans’ in the early 1900s.
Each theory suggests a very different type of treatment:
Learning Theory - suggests systematic desensitization. In other words the sufferer is exposed to the source of their anxiety a little at a time.
Psychoanalytic Theory - suggests that treatment involves revealing the subconscious concern; usually with hypnosis.
One thing is for certain, asking the sufferer why they are afraid of something so silly or suggesting that they pull themselves together will probably not help. For the sufferer the fear is all too real.
So what should managers who coach do when these signs emerge in a conversation essentially concerned with budgeting or goal setting? Best advice would seem to be to keep to good coaching principles. Ask questions designed to raise awareness, generate responsibility and build trust then listen carefully and attentively to the responses. This is highly unlikely to make things worse and may actually do quite a lot of good.
After that, it’s a question of referring the coachee to the relevant professional. For this reason I recommend that all coaching managers familiarize themselves with their organization’s welfare procedure.