The Devil You Know

I am continuing to think about issues and themes raised by Gwen Adshead's excellent book, The Devil You Know, about which I have blogged previously. One of the fascinating tensions that comes through from her autobiographical reflections on her work with people who have done evil, concerns judgement and being non-judgemental (another topic I have blogged about before).

On the one hand, it is clear that listening in a non-judgemental way is extremely valuable and important in helping people to tell their stories.  And that, in turn, is very important in terms of their learning, growth and healing as human beings. 

And yet, it is also important that they reach a judgement on their evil actions (for in the context of the cases Adshead considers, that is what we are dealing with - murder, child sexual abuse etc). It seems clear that when they can name their offence rather than use a euphemism (such as 'my index') and acknowledge the evil of it, they are on the path to recovery. So the judgement is important, and a practitioner's non-judgemental listening should not collude with any denial of that. 

Carl Rogers is interesting here: as a therapist he was renowned for his non-judgemental listening and his unconditional positive regard. Yet in raising his children - and in his own private life - he held to high moral standards. Yet the non-judgemental approach, and his stance of unconditional positive regard eventually caused him profound problems, probably contributing to his breakdown later in his life; in particular when he found that for some of the therapists he was training, being 'authentic' included sleeping with clients; and they would say 'it may be wrong for you Carl, but it's not for me...' - and from his position of being non-judgemental and striving to maintain unconditional positive regard, he found he had nowhere to stand to correct them (he also confided to Bill Coulson that he was no longer competent to edit the journals he was editor of, as he was so attuned to the effort and positive intentions of those who wrote papers that he was not able to evaluate which ones were of real value, and still less able to tell some authors that theirs weren't). 

So my (somewhat tentative) conclusion is that being non-judgemental is a useful listening stance (in some situations) but we need not to allow it to become our moral stance. It is stark in Adshead's world of high security psychiatric hospitals, where the evils are so clear, but is equally important in the world of work and our domestic lives, when perhaps it is more tempting to collude in the name of kindness, or to keep the peace.

The vulnerability paradox

Vulnerability is the ability to be wounded; vulnera being the Latin for wounds. Yet so often when we are talking about emotional or psychological health, it is only in vulnerability that we are able to heal. 

This was made very clear in Gwen Adshead's excellent book The Devil You Know, which I read after listening to her completely compelling Reith Lectures.  

She writes movingly about the impact of people who have committed dreadful crimes talking with each other about their crimes, as catalytic in helping them to start to re-build their sense of themselves and their ability to function effectively in the world.

Yet all our instincts can militate against us risking vulnerability - why should we risk being (further) wounded? 

To a lesser extent, this reluctance manifests in many aspects of our social and work lives, and our completely natural reluctance to be vulnerable creates barriers between us and others, and indeed between us and ourself. 

This is where concepts like psychological safety, unconditional and uninterruptive attention, and unconditional positive regard come into play; helping to create the conditions in which people are able to explore - to take risks with - vulnerability and discover the relief and the healing that can ensue. 

As a coach, I find that there is another layer to the paradox, as well. One of the most effective ways for me as a coach to help people to risk being vulnerable is to be vulnerable myself. Yet the risk is, of course, that the focus of the conversation becomes me and my stuff, which is not helpful. This is particularly the case if the coach shares wounds, not scars, as I have blogged before. However, a degree of disclosure, followed by questions that encourage the individual to think about their stuff, not the coach's, can be an effective way to deal with that risk.

There is of course a further layer of complexity when one is facilitating a group or team; when coaching 1-1 I can be confident that I will not abuse someone's vulnerability; but when I am facilitating a group, I cannot have the same level of assurance. So I think I have an additional level of responsibility when as a facilitator I create an environment in which people are encouraged and supported to be vulnerable. 

Clear contracting is clearly a part of the solution; but with the best will in the world I cannot guarantee that everyone will honour confidentiality agreements after the event, for example. So I end up taking a calculated risk, with others' vulnerabilities, on the basis that, more often than not it is helpful and productive for the group to talk honestly about reality than to collude about unreality; and, of course, on the assumption that finally it is each individual's call how vulnerable he or she chooses to be.

And even if that does lead teams to having discussions that are not always comfortable - well, better the Devil you know...