Self-help coaching: Clients, industry players speak of how dodgy coaches can do more harm than good
WHAT DO SELF-HELP COACHES DO?
The International Coaching Federation (ICF) — a global organisation that does certifications in coaching — defines the practice as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximise their personal and professional potential”.
Practitioners and clients who spoke to TODAY say coaches act as a soundboard and prompt the clients with questions to help them in their thinking process and sometimes reframe certain issues to help them reach their objectives.
These goals differ based on the coach’s niche and the programme offered.
For example, business and executive coach Carol Lim coaches business and organisational leaders on how to lead and manage their teams as well as how to make executive decisions and strategise.
“In coaching teams, I look into things like psychological safety, culture, how to promote greater diversity of thought in decision making and how to avoid groupthink and be more inclusive, among others,” she said.
Meanwhile, Ms Maisie Cheong advertises herself as a "human connection and communication" coach.
Her clients include those facing difficulties in connecting with their loved ones as well as others seeking clarity when making important decisions or those facing obstacles in setting goals or changing certain mindsets.
She would surface assumptions that the clients may have and help them see the issue more clearly.
Unlike clinical psychologists and therapists, coaches do not undergo training to handle psychological issues, but they learn methods and frameworks of coaching.
Ms Cheong, for example, has recently completed a three-month coaching certification programme which involved theoretical and practical training.
“In every session, there is also a live practicum where you have to coach on the spot and be observed and be critiqued after that,” she said, adding that she will be attaining other certifications related to her specialisation in the coming months.
There are many international and local organisations that provide training for coaches, the most notable being the ICF which was set up in 1995.
What is the difference between a coaching programme and other forms of mental health support then?
Ms Diana Petrov, a counsellor from psychological consultancy firm Mind What Matters, said: "If we are generally coping well and wish to develop new skills, grow certain areas of our lives or make decisions, we can turn to a coach or a self-help programme.
"However, if we face serious challenges in coping with the demands of life, work, relationships , we should seek therapeutic help from a trained mental health professional," she added.
WHEN COACHES CROSS THE LINE
In response to TODAY's queries, president of the Consumers Association of Singapore Melvin Yong said that it has received four consumer complaints against life coaches or self-help programme service providers from Jan 1 last year to Aug 3 this year.
“In general, consumers reported that they encountered unpleasant experiences when they were attending self-help programmes or coaching sessions,” he said.
“These unpleasant experiences include instances when participants felt that the coaches were judgmental and impatient towards them when they were sharing personal issues, when coaches were unable to answer questions posed by participants, and when participants were asked to introduce new participants to join the programme.”
Former Nominated Member of Parliament Kuik Shiao-yin, who herself is a coaching practitioner, recently wrote a post on professional networking site LinkedIn to draw attention to the potential harm that can come about from bad actors in the coaching field.
“Not all self-help programmes are helpful. Some feel helpful at first but evolve into something potentially harmful,” she wrote in the post last week.
“Some even tip over into being psychologically, emotionally and financially abusive.”
Speaking to TODAY on Thursday (Aug 3), she said that her posts were sparked by her own bad personal experiences as a trainee before she got herself certified in coaching and facilitation.
“In one of the sessions, I felt angered and humiliated by a trainer’s process. No check-in of care was extended either in-session or post-session,” she shared, adding that the sessions pushed boundaries unnecessarily and made her uncertain and uncomfortable.
“You were left to pick up the pieces of your own self-worth because the session’s underlying message was ‘if you have an issue, it’s about you and your issues — and nothing to do with us’.”
Here are some negative practices that coaches, mental health experts and former clients of coaching programmes shared with TODAY:
- Negative methods, untrained in handling psychological issues
Dr Geraldine Tan, principal psychologist and director at The Therapy Room, told TODAY of her experience dealing with some teenagers who went through bootcamps in school organised by motivational organisations.
“These camps motivate you by breaking you first. They leave you very vulnerable first. And then it's the rah rah rah rah sort of momentum,” she said.
Instead of becoming motivated, some of these teenagers who were referred to her for help instead showed depressive symptoms and had suddenly become withdrawn from their families and found it difficult speaking with their parents, among other signs that she saw.
Edwin, the consultant who had tried programmes with three different coaches, recalled how a coach threw him “open ended” advice like how one must figure out what brings joy in life.
“They might say things like ‘Otherwise, everything you do, no matter how successful it is, you will feel empty’,” he said.
“These kinds of statements are not very helpful for clients, I think.”
- Cult-like groups
Executive and business coach Carol Lim recalled a case she knew about, where an individual who enrolled in a self-help programme in an effort to improve her career, became an “evangelist” for the programme, actively promoting it to others.
While the individual enrolled in the organisation with career-related improvements in mind, the organisation also offers programmes targeted at youths, couples and families.
“Naturally they (the organisers) will go ‘Not only do you need it, the whole family needs to do it too. Bring in your spouse, your kids’,” she said.
Mr Sherman Ho, co-founder of mental health-focused social enterprise Happiness Initiative, said that some of such groups have a “cult-like” tendency in getting existing members to recruit new ones and do work for the organisation.
“What happens in that situation is that when they coerce these people to spend so much time (with the organisation), what they're also doing is that they are really cutting off a lot of external social support structures,” he said.
“They spend less time with family, they don’t have enough time to spend with their friends and so on.”
- Clients or cash generators?
Sometimes the kind of work or activities the organisations urge their clients to do also seem to be for its own financial benefit.
Ms Teo, the past self-help programme participant, said that a friend of hers had taken part in an advanced programme at the motivational organisation she was in. As part of the programme, the friend was tasked to do fundraising for the group, on top of paying a costly fee to enroll.
“The company rationalised it by effectively saying: ‘You must return to the society that groomed you, because it was the coaching organisation who groomed you, so you must pay them back’,” said Ms Teo.
There are also some cases where participants were compelled by the service providers to take up increasingly costly follow up programmes.
Dr Tan of The Therapy Room noted that while it is natural for organisations to look for income to fund its services, how their key performance indicators (KPI) is framed could be indicative of their priorities.
“Whether your KPI is the number of people getting better, or is your KPI ‘Have we improved in our profits from month to month? Have we sold (packages) to more people this month?’” she said.
CAN BAD PRACTICES AND COACHES BE WEEDED OUT?
As with all industries, having some bad players in the coaching industry is inevitable, said past programme participants, coaches and other mental health practitioners.
“I think for the coaching industry, it gets a bit more of that highlight because it is an industry that has many variables and is centred around subjective, intangible experiences that are more open to interpretation,” said Ms Cheong, the coach.
Mr Ho likened it to the scourge of scams, which have been gaining a lot of attention in Singapore in recent years but cannot be completely eradicated.
“If someone approaches you and says ‘I can help you to solve your life problems’, that's actually quite an appealing thing to want to invest money in,” he said.
Public education, though an uphill task, is key to help people spot potential negative practices in the mental health and wellness space, he added.
Accreditation and regulation could go some way to mitigate risks as well, said some practitioners, as there is no formal licensing system here for coaches.
Ms Kuik however noted that it might be tough to implement.
“It’s difficult to police and enforce. There’s a whole other issue there where even (psychological) therapists in Singapore are not all officially registered. So you do have ‘therapists’ and ‘counsellors’ who are untrained as well,” she said.
Ms Kuik pointed to a non-government organisation in the United States called Seek Safely, which was started by someone whose sister died in a training session gone wrong.
The Seek Safely website lists different red flags to watch out for in dodgy training programmes, and Ms Kuik said a similar resource in the local context would be helpful, too.
On the coaches’ part, Ms Cheong stressed the importance of ethical coaching.
This would entail things like avoiding avoiding hard marketing or abusive messaging, as coaching is "not something that you tell people they need".
"People have to choose it intentionally for themselves because they are empowered to take action,” she added.
It would also include the responsibility to coach in one’s area of specialisation and redirect the client to another professional if the client’s needs lie beyond that area of specialisation.
The mental health practioners said that despite the negative experiences one may face in the mental health and wellness space, the fact that these individuals are going out there to seek help or improve their mental wellness must be encouraged.
“What we need is a better education in darker dynamics and support each others’ courage to keep seeking help from safer, more skillful people,” said Ms Kuik.
