Non-directivity in career coaching

At the heart of much of our career professionalism is the notion that we are non-directive practitioners. This is widely accepted and its importance is felt keenly. I wonder, though, if it has become one of those concepts which is so much part of our fabric that we don't really think about how it works and whether it's actually a good thing. I thought it might be useful if I just reminded myself what it is and spent a moment checking that I still believed in it.

At the heart of the non-directivity principle is the notion of self-actualization, the belief that we are all intrinsically motivated to change, to grow and develop. This is a biological tendency, not a moral imperative - it's part of the human condition and is simply what it means to be human. The role of the practitioner is to help clients work out what might be preventing this growth and help them identify what to do about it. The client is in charge of identifying what the problem is and working out what the solution is. This approach to practice is not just a moral position, it's a belief about how it is. Advice and suggestion from outside simply won't work and risk getting in the way of the all-important therapeutic alliance.

So that's the theory, as set out by Rogers (1957).

Rogers himself was concerned that the notion of non-directivity was being misunderstood. He originally used it as synonymous with 'client-centred' but and dropped it from his lexicon fairly early on in his writing. Some of his concern seemed to be that non-directivity was thought to be an element of client centred practice. In fact it's more fundamental than that: the central axiom of client centred practice determines that practice should be non-directive. A client centred approach does not include non-directivity - non-directivity is entirely bound up with the theory. The motivational force for change resides within the individual and a facilitative attitude in the therapist leads to the relationship which gives the client the resources to unleash this force. Non-directivity is a natural and inevitable consequence of a belief in the actualizing tendency.

The non-directive principle is sometime criticised for being impossible to achieve. However hard we try to be entirely unbiased, our own opinions will inevitably surface in our responses to our clients' stories. But actually, the hard-line version of non-directive counselling, as described by Rogers, doesn't require a consistent and perfect lack of bias. Rather, it advocates an adherence to the philosophy of non-directivity - a commitment to and a belief in the self-authority and self-determination of the client. Rogers states that 'reasonable consistency' in non-directive practice is enough to facilitate growth and that a 'facilitative attitude' is the thing to strive for.

So that's how it is described in its original form. How should that be applied to careers work?

I think that career practice in general sticks to the principle that we shouldn't tell our clients what to do. Most of us, most of the time would baulk at the idea that after an hour with a client, we might be in a position to tell them what career path to follow - and I think we would be against this both morally (it's not our place to do this) and practically (we simply couldn't do it). This, I think, is the role that non-directivity holds in our practice. A more hard-line version of non-directivity though would lead to career practitioners giving no advice and giving no suggestions. At all. It would preclude us from telling clients what steps to take, where to look for job vacancies and what A levels you need to take to get into medical school. It would even mean that we shouldn't suggest that a client chooses a goal for the conversation or identifies any action points to implement afterwards.

This I think feels more extreme than we see in most career practice, and I'm not at all sure that we would be doing our clients any favours if we help back from expressing ourselves altogether.

For me, one useful idea has emerged from Grant (1989) who talks about the difference between principled non-directivity and instrumental non-directivity.  His idea of instrumental non-directivity seems to suggest that a practitioner (he was writing from the perspective of a therapist, but the same could apply to any therapeutic intervention) should be non-directive until the point at which an intervention of some sort would be useful to the client. It's about a philosophy of non-directivity but within the context of a process.

For me, this works. I almost always use a model (usually the GROW model) as a structure for my career conversations. I find that this framework, with its goals at the beginning, and action points at the end allows me and my client to make good use of our time together and achieve more than with a less structured dialogue. But within this framework, about which I am directive, I try to stick to non-directive content. I direct the process, my client directs the content.

Another interesting idea has come from Kahn (1990) who suggests that the idea of therapist fallibility is a more useful notion than non-directivity. He describes an approach which he calls directive responsivity, where the therapist does make suggestions of interventions, but where both the therapist and the client acknowledge that the therapist might be wrong. Advice giving and suggestions can then be a manifestation of the therapist's empathetic understanding and congruence, and show authenticity.

I think for me the important thing is to keep the best interests of the client at the heart of every decision I make within my intervention. I truly buy in to the notion of the self-actualising tendency, I genuinely believe that the best decisions will come from my client and their motivation will come from their belief that this is the right decision. But where my client is definitely the expert on themselves, I am the expert on the process. I bring some knowledge and experience and understanding of career theories and psychological theories which means that sometimes I have a different perspective to share.

So I think I can be comfortable with the notion of instrumental non-directivity, and directive responsivity, where my client is in charge of the content but I may be directive about the process.

 

Grant, B. (May, 1989). Principled and instrumental nondirectiveness in person-centered and client-centered therapy. Paper presented at the Third Annual Meeting of the Association for the Development of the Person-Centered Approach in Atlanta, May, 1989

 

Kahn, E. (1999). A critique of non-directivity in the person-centered approach. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 39(4), 94-110

http://www.ibrarian.net/navon/paper/A_Critique_of_Nondirectivity_in_the_Person_Center.pdf?paperid=6672382