What are we listening for as a Trauma informed coach?

By Julia Rogers, MCC

From the first day of our coach training we are told that the most important thing to do as a coach is to listen to our clients.  We are taught about listening at all the different levels, starting with just waiting for the pause so that we can talk, right through to being attuned to the varying nuances in our client’s physical presentation.  We learn about listening to the words that our clients speak, asking them what they mean when they use certain phrases and using their language when we phrase our questions so that they know we have listened to them.  When we hear the term “Trauma Informed Coaching” it seems to suggest that we should be doing something additional, or different as a coach when working with trauma in the coaching room.  What should we be listening for as trauma informed coaches?  Is there another level of listening that we have not yet uncovered?  

To answer these questions it is important to step back slightly to explore this area.  Using the phrase “trauma informed” is somewhat misleading, as it seems to suggest we should separate those coaches who can work with clients who have experienced trauma from those who can’t.   Yet, as Julia Vaughan Smith discusses in Coaching and Trauma, working with trauma in clients, and ourselves, is “the norm”.  We will all have experienced trauma to some degree.  What will differ from person to person, and from client to client, is the extent to which the trauma feelings are present.  As such, we need to ensure that we are aware of how to listen to clients who may be bringing their trauma feelings into the coaching room.  This is a skill that all of us can hone and refine.  The key point is to be alert to what we are listening out for.  

Professor Franz Ruppert, in Trauma, Fear and Love (2014), describes three parts that we have in our psyche:  the healthy self, the trauma self and the survival self.  These parts of ourselves will vary in sizes depending on our own trauma “biographies”.  The proportions of each self can also change in relation to the environment that we find ourselves in.  The healthy self is that part of us that is not affected by trauma. The trauma self is where the emotional pain and the fragmented memory of the trauma are contained.  Although these remain hidden away in our unconscious they do have an impact on our lives and how we behave.  The survival self works hard at keeping these trauma feelings away from our conscious minds.  As such there can be a disconnection between our minds and our bodies.  We are less likely to feel things and will remain in the cognitive space, creating survival strategies in order to keep us feeling safe and away from any painful thoughts, feelings or memories.

The optimum environment for coaching is where both client and coach are in their healthy selves.  Remember that coaching is a dynamic between people.  It is not just the client who comes into the session with a complexly structured mind.  The coach also has a healthy self, a trauma self and a survival self.  It is therefore up to us as coaches to do the work on ourselves so that we are bringing our healthy selves into the session.  If our survival selves are present then we are likely to be experienced by our coachees as defensive or distant and there will be a lack of rapport, meaning that the coaching relationship is less likely to be productive.

Fortunately, it is unlikely that clients will bring their trauma selves to coaching.  It is possible that we might meet the client’s survival self in a coaching session.  As such we need to be alert to what language the client is using that could suggest that they are in their survival self.  Survival language includes:

• Denying that there is a problem
• Saying that everything is fine (when it clearly isn’t)
• Talking about addictive behaviours
• Talking about the need to be in control (often to a point of excess)
• Needing to rescue others
• Describing themselves as a victim
• Being cautious around relationships

Survival strategies can be exhausting for the client to perpetuate, and it is not the place for the coach to try and dismantle these.  Often if we try, we will be met with resistance and it will damage the working alliance between coach and client.  This defeats the purpose of the client entering into coaching with us.

In these situations what can we do?  The most important thing for us to remember is that we need to stay in coach mode, not racing in to fix things for the client.  It is essential that we stay in our healthy selves and don’t get invited into our own survival strategies.  As soon as we step into our survival self the client is no longer at the centre of the session and we have stopped coaching.  By doing our own inner work and staying out of our survival self we are able to acknowledge what might be going on for the client, stay curious and enquire what they need at present.  It might not be that the coaching session works as well as you have hoped, however as long as you stay in coach mode you have always stayed in your healthy self and will not have become overwhelmed by thoughts about whether you are doing a good job or not.  

As always, if you have any concerns about working with clients who disclose that they have experienced any level of trauma do take this to mentoring or supervision.  Our best coaching is done when we stay open and reflective as to how we are working.  As coaches we are lifelong learners.  Working in a trauma informed approach is one more way of developing our practice.