Psychology Misunderstood: Open Letter To Weekend Coaches
Psychology is a university degree precisely because it is a very complex field of study. In this science there is nothing that is self-evident, although judging how our lives have gone we may believe the opposite, that being happy and enjoying physical and mental well-being consists of following some guidelines that are “common sense.”
This is why weekend coaches who base their training on workshops lasting a few months are so harmful They are not because to have a greater opportunity in the labor market they use a name in English instead of “psychologist”, but because their practices are based on a lot of presuppositions that are false.
Over the last few decades, the different tools available in psychotherapy have been improving and growing in number. What was initially considered ways to address mental disorders today also includes types of intervention in people’s general well-being. Psychologists can help you improve social skills, learn effective forms of leadership, manage anxiety in stressful times, etc.
This kind of progress exists because all kinds of theories, hypotheses and complex research have been formulated about how human beings think, feel and act. In this way, deeply rooted beliefs that seemed to be evident have been challenged, such as that we make purchasing decisions from a rational cost-benefit logic. Reality is much more complicated than common sense dictates
However, recently a tendency has been proliferating to want to learn psychology and “ways of helping others” simply through weekend courses or workshops lasting a few months. These weekend coaches send a very harmful message: that human psychology can be summarized in “doing what you really want” and getting closer to our goals basically by wanting it very hard and trying hard.
If this conception of the human mind causes problems, it is because it assumes a series of ideas that are not true. For example, the solution to problems related to psychology is to stop making excuses and go for what you really want.
That is to say, It is assumed that the discomfort of many people is caused by the presence of inhibitions and self-imposed barriers As if we all naturally tend towards happiness and the absence of it has occurred because we have strayed from the right path.
What these kinds of approaches to psychological problems (whether disorders or not) do is, basically, put all the responsibility on the individual. Point out that he should try harder, be happier, trust others more, and generally teach himself to focus on the good things in life.
These types of proposals not only serve to make invisible the problems that are part of the environment in which the person lives; Furthermore, they are totally useless for a very simple reason: they do not provide any tool with which to move forward, they simply point out that the person has a problem that has not been solved. A description of what is happening is not an explanation of how to change that, and knowing how to facilitate change requires proper training.
Ambiguous-based coaching
Thus, where a person who presents depressive symptoms, A weekend coach will try to help her by pointing out the importance of seeing the good in the bad , think about what you really want to do, etc. As if these kinds of processes were simple and one learned to carry them out without help simply because one has privileged information about what is going through one’s consciousness.
This idea that it is the client himself who knows the most about himself and that the specialist must simply “encourage” the individual to reconcile with his own potential spontaneously is based on totally ambiguous and useless concepts.
As the weekend coach has not had time to learn the theory necessary to create a precise and adequate vocabulary about his work or to question the epistemological bases of his proposals, he will understand his work as a kind of art in which, without mastering too much, an emotional sensitivity must be developed (that is, not intellectual and does not involve thinking about precise concepts) to connect with the mind of the other.
That is why the weekend coach uses all kinds of terms that he does not even know how to define without resorting to more totally ambiguous and confusing concepts: “search within oneself”, “trust one’s emotions”, “heal one’s own being” , etc. It is a way of working that does not even allow us to check if the sessions have been useful; How can you know if someone has managed to connect with their “inner self”?
Weekend coaches? Better with studies
Psychology is not an art nor is it based on training to connect emotionally with others. These are characteristics that anyone could claim for themselves, including shamans or people who offer pseudoscientific solutions such as family constellations.
Psychology is what it is because it is concerned with creating theories, hypotheses and theoretical models that neither can be learned in a single day nor do they use ambiguous language that means something different to each person. Practice is essential in this discipline, but theory is also essential.
