A time for bridging our split selves

New Year’s Greetings!

A new year arrives and a new opportunity to grow, to adapt, to grasp new possibilities and also to come to terms with limitations, constraints and embody our losses.   Now more than ever is a time to embrace and transcend the splitting found in many coaching practices, self-help approaches and general attitudes to life. Polarised social outlooks make contradictory demands upon us, splitting our inner-selves between the Wounded-Self and the Celebrated-Self.   The Wounded-Self addresses the hurt or damaged part of ourselves that requires reparation and healing; and the Celebrated-Self addresses our desires and potential that can bring us success and happiness in life (Western 2012).

We all have multiple aspects of ourselves and different communities and cultures place social demands upon us to follow codes of behaviour. In the West today, the wounded and celebrated selves are contradictory social injunctions that create an internalised split within us. The 'big Other' tells us to confess, to open up, to acknowledge our pain, to share our feelings, to get in touch with our Wounded-Self; whilst at the same time it says 'you are great!' 'fulfil your desires' 'become your best Celebrated-Self'. Both social injunctions often demand consumption i.e. reading a self-help book or magazine, joining a gym, doing yoga, getting therapy or life coaching to work through your issues or find your true self, taking a personal growth course, buying new clothes or a car that will help you achieve your desired identity.

New year is a time where the Celebrated Self often dominates at the expense of the Wounded Self, hope can be over-stated, and the weight of positivity is imposed on us. The ‘happiness imperative’ demands that we perform it’s merry dance, in order to conform to social norms and this can be particularly true at the workplace. The Celebrated-Self is a dominant feature of the workplace, to get promoted, to keep your job, to impress others, we perform the Celebrated-Self without even thinking about it, and our Wounded-Selves are repressed, hidden and denied.  “How are you?  Great thanks! ….. How are you?  Really good!”   You know the game! You come to work filled with worries and you perform your Celebrated-Self as an automated response;  it’s expected and to open up about your worries is not to play the game. As R.D Laing so aptly puts it....

“They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game”  R.D Laing

Coaches, consultants, managers and professional helpers are often split into two polarised ways of working.  Some coaches and therapists are trained and conditioned to become overly attached to the Wounded-Self. They seek pathology and problems in their clients and use their expertise as ‘technicians of the psyche’ to fix them (Western 2012) - As a psychodynamic psychotherapist the Wounded-Self was my training and in the Group Relations and psychodynamic world, the Wounded-Self still rules. These coaches/helpers deny and repress the Celebrated-Self, they miss the desire, enjoyment, pleasure, resilience, talents and creativity in the client. Their expertise is to be the healer, a mender, a fixer and to fulfil their role as healer they require a Wounded-Self client to work on. A confident client, with a strong 'Celebrated-Self' doesn't provide them with the basic material to heal. On the other side we have positive psychologists, NLP practitioners, solution-focused coaches, life-coaches and many others who can only work with the Celebrated-Self.  This is especially true of American coaching approaches; they refuse the Wounded-Self, asking their clients to let go of 'problem talk' and focus on achieving their dreams and goals. Their expertise is to motivate, to develop positive mindsets and growth mindsets, believing in the philosophy that within each of us is a perfect self that is hidden within us, but can be recovered and if we peel the onion layers our true wonderful untainted self will emerge. Their mantra is 'you can become whatever you desire'…. 'If you believe enough in yourself you can achieve anything! 

The Desire of the Coach Rules In both of these scenarios the clients needs are relegated to second place, as it's the coaches desires and needs that dominate the sessions.  Two coaches working from different sides of this polemic and seeing the same client will emerge with two different assessments. They will lead the client towards different narratives and their coaching will be defined and shaped by their own training and their personal needs.   In short the clients script is shaped to fit their prescriptive approach. As a supervisor I have seen this happen so many times, and the problem is often compounded by a coach/therapist/helper getting supervision from somebody in the same tribe, from the same training background and with the same unconscious attachments and investments to either the Wounded or Celebrated Self approach. Some coaches are 100% polarized in this way, others lean more to one side than the other.   At Analytic-Network Coaching we begin our training by reading the Wounded and Celebrated Self book chapter and set out our philosophy that we must be comfortable to work with what our clients bring- and to create a space where both the Wounded-Self or Celebrated-Self can show up- often both at the same time. To do this means developing an understanding about our own unconscious attachments to 'ways of being' as it is our unconscious responses as coaches- our counter-transference responses and projections that guide our clients this way or that, and set limits on what they can and can't say or be in our sessions.   Our clients are often conditioned to find themselves trapped in a 'way-of-being' that privileges the Wounded-Self and problem talk, or to the Celebrated-Self and positivity talk.  It is our task to help them discover a less polarised self, a way to work with their symptom in a different, more open way that transcends the split self.

Working across the boundary of the Wounded and Celebrated-Self is liberating for our clients (and ourselves).   Covid-time, more than any other time, we have to work across this boundary. To live a full life, to live a good life and to live contentedly is to fully experience a whole range of emotions and experiences. It is to work through hope and despair, love and loss, happiness and sadness, pain and joy, striving and achieving, and all the other human conditions that make us human.   

 Wishing you all greetings this new year, and hoping you can bridge your own Wounded-Self and Celebrated-Self to find yourself fully engaged and to work holistically with colleagues and clients.

Our on-line Analytic-Network Advanced Coach Training, starts in February, where we train experienced coaches, managers and consultants in our psychodynamic and networked approach to coaching that begins with the Wounded and Celebrated Self. For more information please contact [email protected]