DON’T FIX SYMPTOMS — TRAVEL WITH THEM

“The best way to design a failure is to establish a poor definition of the complaint.”

Steve de Shazer, Clues

Symptoms—don’t you love them? Okay, okay, so you do not love them! In fact, most human beings actually and literally hate them. And why not? They induce suffering! along with symptoms comes pain and distress. So no wonder we want to spend as little time as possible with any and every symptom of some problem. Now in coaching and especially in counseling, symptoms are the very things which invite people to come. And even though coaching is about goals, dreams, and visions, even though it is about stepping up and taking on a new challenge, what often gets a person into the coaching chair in the first place is a symptom. Something unpleasant is happening or blocking one’s way forward.