HARVESTING CLIENTS - Another practice peep

I would like to talk again about my practical work with people, first about a particular client & then some general talk and method-using.

This time it's a young adult that I coach up to twice a week. We've known each other for about three months now. I support her in finding a position as an apprentice. In each of my coachlings' lives, there are events that influence their existence.

One such event was the suicide of a friend of my client. I found out about it in conversation with her pedagogue. Because this was an important piece of information, I included it in the following meeting with her.

Why did I do that?

First of all, I put myself in her shoes. As soon as there is a death in my life, I want the people I deal with to contribute. It is enough for me that, as far as they are informed, they express their condolences to me when only acquainted. I feel that this is the least I can do and that it complies with the moral code of my society. I have noticed that this is the case, for example, in my own omissions in this regard. For example, if I had failed to ask for a person in my social environment who suffered from a serious illness. It felt wrong not do so.

The logical conclusion is to ask just as much as someone has lost a relative or friend.

When I expressed my condolences at the beginning of our conversation, my client said: "I don't always know what to answer." I replied, "That's not a big deal, just say thank you. I think it is important that you know I am informed and that I can understand that this subject is sad and painful for you. That's why I want you to know that my heart is involved. I'm assuming you meet people who don't." She said, "Oh, yes, so and so is like that! They won't say anything!"

I replied, after acknowledging that this hurts, that the failure to mention it has to do with the bias of raising a sensitive issue. We talked about her friend's suicide for a while and I told her that I thought she might be wondering if she could have done or prevented something. It was not so important to find a detailed answer to everything, and we remained to say that these questions were normal and that there were several stages in dealing with them, and she would go through them all.

In the course of the conversation I saw that it was good for her, and so I asked: "Are you now ready to start our work?", which she affirmed. We were then completely in our element and worked on her applications for good three-quarters of an hour.

After we had finished this, we came back into the conversation because, interestingly enough, an institution that she had already mentioned in a previous meeting and which is docking to the Catholic faith had revealed itself to her as desirable.

We had worked out a number of points for her volunteer year, which corresponded to her experiences in this context. It led one thing to another, and she said: "I do not understand why in my generation nobody has faith. It helps me now and makes me feel safer."

I found this remarkable and asked her about her background. She gave information about her parents and that they had belonged to different confessions. But most of all she was influenced by x, who she would love dearly, even if she would make a big drama about faith.

Then she gave me a quote from x:

"Never talk about religion, politics, and soccer!"

I had to laugh heartily about this contradiction and the familiarity between us, and so did she. I told her, "You know what, your x is a Buddhist without knowing it. I heard exactly the same statement from the Buddhist teachings. Just a little differently put. One should not make unnecessary suppositions about how the world or the universe came into being, about religion and not about society or negative speculation about people who are not present." (this also counts as a reminder for myself, as I often enough fall for the same).

I gave a little history lesson that a few hundred years ago the world seemed to have been the other way round and that the Church oppressed and persecuted opinions and accused people of heresy. And that it is the case today that as a Christian one is ashamed to admit this openly in a secular environment.

I made by my arm movement a scale which struck to both sides extremely and she laughed and said: "Yes, exactly and you say it is much better in the middle!"

If it may seem that I am talking about religion or secularity here, I would say that this is only of secondary importance. What happened between me and my young client was primarily an act of mutual understanding.

In the process of experiencing encounters with my clients, I use the method of "active listening" or client-centred communication. It is like a dance where I hear and see what they are referring to and that I pull what seemed to be of importance to them. When I am not sure, this is the case, I ask. When I can clearly see that it is so, I go on with questioning or giving information or offering advice.

Fruity thoughts

In between letting this article flourish I was cooking dinner for the hungry teenager (my son) and me. While I cut the tomatoes and was pleased by their color and consistency (they were just right), I thought of my clients in this way. The interaction with them is a seasonal work. You must be aware of when they have the right maturity to be picked from the tree. If they are still in the stage of ripening, it would be unwise to collect them, but if they are overripe, it would be bad to simply let them fall down. I, therefore, have to adjust the right moment of harvesting for a meeting to be tasteful.

Check my inner intention. Am I spikey?

If I can feel that I merely continue with a topic to which I want an approval of my client, this is to be understood of wanting to have the feeling of being "right", I can identify my intention as questionable and not constructive. A trigger can hide within almost every sentence, even within a single word or form of expression.

So, when I as a coach am triggered by a topic I am not pleased with at all, I must be aware that I feel uneasy because of it. Some years ago, I would have reacted with prejudices to my clients opening of her faith and - of course, much too polite to say so - I would have reacted with restraint and defensiveness. She would have felt this and then withdrew. At that time, because my mother had indoctrinated me in this regard, I had an aversion to all religious believers. I have overcome this luckily.

I come into contact with my prejudices every day. Since I live in a big city with many cultures, I inevitably come across their habits, worldviews and strangeness.

If I hadn't developed further and cuddled with my prejudices, I would have been extremely mistaken in this profession. It is for me also a question of ethics that I get myself aligned with the company which pays my fees as those are all institutions who engage with families and groups of different nations.

A session is a slow stream - not a racecar ride

Can you see that talking in waterfalls and chatting endlessly provides a lot more traps and triggers compared with talking slowly and with more breaks between sentences? So the second method I use is to bring more calmness and breaks into an encounter. This has a double effect: it prevents my client from gunfire talking and not being able to even listen to him- or herself and, as a consequence, of losing contact to her- or himself. And it prevents me to stay too much alert and to fall into the trap of trying to hold the pace. Of course, it lessens the number of triggers. In avoiding the rush there lays a profit for both me and the client.

In short: The less one talks the less stupid it can get.

Feeling good about being the authority

For this, a client has to accept my leading role and tolerate that I interrupt and guide our pace. Within the relationships of young adults and me this often just happens naturally and even is not a question I do have to clear up first. Also, the acceptance comes often just by itself because I mirror them, that I once have been in the same situation and that I can understand their insecurities and struggles.

It can happen though that a client is not accepting my leading role and refuses to cooperate, like in this case.

Another method in client interaction is to pick them up where they stand - language wise as also which form of communication style they use. It is the same as if a french speaking person prefers to speak with French. Today I had a young woman which I had no problem to come to common ground.

What if I have to deal with a young man?

There, it is the same. I coach a young man, with whom I had so far two appointments and I realized after the meetings that I had used another language and tone of voice. Don't misunderstand that - I did not fake my behavior. What I did there was to place myself in familiar shoes. I have four brothers and I remember on a subconscious level their teenage friends and how they related to each other as well as to adult males. Would I have talked to that young man in the same way I did with the young woman he wouldn't even have bothered listening.

A little bit it is like acting on a theatre stage and truly pull on a role. The audience would shout at you if you cannot transport a character without feeling and applying it deeply.

Also, within those communication methods, there is the aspect what kind of style is involved. Does one talk in terms of giving rational information? Or is he mostly unraveling things? Is he a narrative speaker or one who prefers a short exchange of facts? Is one flowery or straight, gooey or prickly, aggressive or attentive, blue or orange, green or red?

During my education, I thought my teachers must be insane in expecting me to watch all those details, body language, pace, style and so on and so forth. I felt overwhelmed and was in awe how they as practitioners coped with this approach.

Finding common ground and an accepted form of communication

When I see that a client is too much bound by his style and form I must not cope and give myself totally away, rather I can be of service in disturbing his pattern by providing a question attached to that I first give him my observation and than ask if this is a form of communication he usually chooses with people. And which causes troubles. Also, I could act that out, giving him the advantage in saying: "I will act now something out in front of you. This is for the purpose to reveal something. It is an offer and you tell me afterward if I played it good or not."

Of course, one cannot expect to be a pro starting this work.
And I know that I was often mistaken and didn't even come near what I was taught. But within the years - and because I admired those skills - I was getting better.

It is not so much about knowing the names and methods of those ones who invented them (often the line goes way-way back into history) but to have understood and experienced them practice-wise. That was why my students and I were eager (and anxious) to start practicing not only with other students and teachers but with "real fruits".

Becoming myself a tasty wine

Talking about my practice in the above manner involves always the methods I learned. With every year and client, I polish my practice and become more skilled as well. That is the same in every profession. There is also the danger of getting too comfortable and blind to this and that. Therefore, I like my concept of life always mixed with other sources of knowledge as well as mingling my weekly hours with different activities like painting, solving technical stuff and getting acquainted with things I never did before. This gets less, I admit, the older I become.

Since I got a member of this platform I wrote a lot about methods and the background of my systemic approach. Today I preferred to write about my client encounters first and not interrupting my text in explaining the methods. I decided to provide you in the end ...

1. ... with some of my previous articles (which refer indirectly to this topic and speak more about methods & are the base of my practice)
2. ... text sources providing information about communication

In my next article, I think, I will write about the orange, green, blue and red characters - withdrawing them from a method called "Synergos" and which gained its technique from other, older sources in time and history (like Traditional Chinese Medicine, shamanic influences, and Western Psychology).

Thank you for reading.

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^{Picture sources:}

^{Grapes: Photo by Amos Bar-Zeev on Unsplash
Condolesence: Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Tomatoes: Photo by NordWood Themes on Unsplash
Cactus: Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash
Shoes: Photo by Travis Essinger on Unsplash
Wine: Photo by Marco Mornati on Unsplash}

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^{Text sources:}

<sup>- https://steemit.com/steemstem/@erh.germany/private-practice-a-case-where-i-closed-consultation
- https://steemit.com/steemstem/@erh.germany/please-disturb-a-tribute-to-annoyances
- https://steemit.com/steemstem/@erh.germany/prescribing-a-symptom-or-how-doing-exactly-what-has-become-a-problem-can-help-the-problem-huh
- https://steemit.com/steemstem/@erh.germany/about-system-theory-and-the-integrative-look-on-life-you-are-not-as-objective-thinking-as-you-might-assume
- https://steemit.com/steemstem/@erh.germany/is-it-more-profitable-to-suffer-than-to-let-go-of-a-problem</sup>

<sup>- Leadership: https://www.inscapeconsulting.com/2017/10/develop-self-awareness-leader/
- Person-centered systems theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person-centered_systems_theory
- Gestalt psychology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology
- Communication styles & listening skills: http://www.academia.edu/6861665/Communication_styles_and_listening_skills
- Communication styles based on cultures & a little self test: http://www2.pacific.edu/sis/culture/pub/1.5.3_-_Communication_styles.htm
- Patient-centred communication is associated with positive therapeutic alliance: a systematic review
- Communication that values patient autonomy is associated with satisfaction with care: a systematic review
- Patients value patient-therapist interactions more than the amount or content of therapy during inpatient rehabilitation: a qualitative study</sup>

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