Just not feeling it - coaching "cognitive" clients

Many coaches distinguish between “cognitive” and “emotional” conversations. I personally would not make that distinction as they always go together, but I think I am starting to understand how a purely “cognitive” coaching conversation can feel like “not enough” for the coach.

Let me first describe what I understand when I hear a colleague talk about a “cognitive” client or a “cognitive” conversation: The client speaks with little affect and a neutral tone. The topic of the conversation is around what the client experiences as a problem and then moves to what they want instead ending with very concrete, almost plannable steps. The whole conversation seems a little bit linear: problem – goal – maybe past successes – steps or experiments.

I can see how coaches (maybe not clients?) feel like they shortchanged their clients with such a conversation. I hear my colleagues talk in terms of: “I did not coach ‘the who’ or ‘the person’” or: “The conversation revolved around what the client is thinking and what they are going to be doing – there was little talk about emotions.” Coaches can be afraid that this coaching was just “more of the same”, the same kind of conversation that the client has already had with themselves or with other people. There can be the idea that unless “emotions” or “feelings” are talked about, the conversation is not “whole” or complete.

As you can see from my “…”, I disagree with the premise that “emotions” need to be voiced or described before any significant change can happen. For me, they always happen in a context and as people are describing changed contexts (suppose the problem is gone, what would that be like… who would notice… what would they be noticing) their emotions will follow suit and change without them ever having been talked about.

But anyhoo – I was thinking how to help my coaching friends who are experiencing a problem with flat “cognitive” conversations, so here are my thoughts:

Big trap: don’t make people talk about feelings who do not want to talk about feelings

The one caveat that is very important to me is that the coach should never center their own ideas of what needs to happen in a coaching conversation over what the client wants. There are people who simply do not like to name emotions. Let them be. Learn to coach in a way that suits them. Don’t colonize their experience by assuming you know better.

Work with detailed descriptions

When you notice that a client who is usually quite neutral in tone is changing a bit toward more lightness, happiness (whatever the client wants), ask them whether what they are experiencing in this moment is something they want more of (if it is not clear already). Share your observation: “You seem to speak in a lighter tone when you are mentioning… or how would you describe this?” Ask to expand into the future: “Suppose this lightness (or whatever the client’s word is) was even more present in your life, what difference would it make? Who would notice it? How would they notice? Who would be least surprised? What do they know about you?” etc.

Invite to tell stories

Another option may be to ask the client to tell the story of their preferred future, for example the story of “a day with lightness (or whatever the client wants)”: what is the client doing, perceiving, experiencing.

Again, I don’t think you have to verbalize emotions in order to change them – by telling the story, the client might experience these feelings. No need to talk about them. My favorite simile is my experience with singing lessons. It is very hard to describe what it feels like when you are hitting a high note with ease, but once you have done it, you can search for it and eventually repeat it. Once clients have described a situation, felt what they would feel in this situation, they can recognize it when it happens, search for it and eventually repeat it. All this is possible without having an exact word for it. After all, what do we know about what someone “really” feels when they are saying that they are feeling “lighter” (or anything else).

Talking about emotions in counseling, therapy and coaching is a traditional language game for these contexts and therefore I want to take my colleagues seriously in their quest to invite the “whole” client into the conversation and offer the above tips. However, it may just be that the whole client is already there…

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