The Challenging Client #1

The first class in this course was held on Wednesday, April 25, 2007. We jumped right into this class with the facilitator opening up the class for people to share about clients that they have been challenged with. The first person shared about a client that was “staying in their head” and needed to move to their ‘body’, basically to feel more. As a coach we need to try to extract feeling words when they will tend to resort back to what they know. This can work the opposite way as well. A client could be always about their emotions and they may need to think more and try to separate from what they are feeling all the time. I think as a coach we need to be aware when either scenario is happening and try to draw the client into the other way of processing or the other perspective.

The discussion switched to foreigners (be it to Americans or other cultures) being challenging clients. I don’t like to think of it this way. We as coaches may be challenged by a client of a different culture but I don’t think that makes the client a ‘challenging client’. I feel the definition of a challenging client is more about there inability to move forward, or their negativity, hang-ups or lack of coach-ability.

The second class in this course is going to be led by another facilitator – I am looking forward to another perspective.