This post is going to be all about my reflections and ideas about how to get a DP system going without a coach. Yes I decided to switch it up, I’ll still write about the history of DP in therapy eventually, but it wasn’t tickling my passion bone for now. Before I start however, I think it’s important to shine a light on the fantastic coaches that are out there. If you would like to find out who these DP coaches are or get in touch with them, then please feel free to go to my resources page – there’s a new section on finding coaches.
I’ve spoken to a lot of therapists about Deliberate Practice, a small number of them have found a way to keep plugging at DP, but most others were no longer doing it; they tried but felt overwhelmed by trying to figure out how to get their DP system going and subsequently stepped away.
There’s nothing wrong with deciding to step away from DP, in fact it’s perfectly natural, DP is much harder than most other forms of self-development – the process is a major grind and for the most part leaves you feeling exposed.
We’re initially motivated to get straight into deliberate practice after we learn that our current forms of professional development aren’t working as well as we thought. We start gathering outcome data and identify a learning edge to strengthen, in most cases that’s goal collaboration with clients – mine was the same! So far so good in our DP efforts, but inevitably we start to feel uncertain about where to go next or even if we’re working on the right thing. That’s where the wheels can start to come off, because to help us in that stuckness we start to look for a mentor/coach who can guide us through DP, there’s not that many FIT/DP focused psych’s. We can’t find a coach, someone to give personalised guidance – so now it feels like we’ve just sunk deeper into the mud. The fruit of our discovery can start to wither, as it withers we lose faith that the process of FIT/DP is beneficial, as soon as we that lose belief, DP starts to seem more and more overwhelming, before where we saw benefit we now see resentment, which leads us to stop DP entirely.
A very common story in attempting Deliberate Practice
That common story is a perfect example of our brain wanting to take the path of least resistance in the face of vulnerability. I’m absolutely convinced that the the story can be changed – to one where we feel supported, which gives us drive to keep our DP efforts going until it becomes a reliable DP system and starts to generate a tangible benefit. Because believe me, once your DP system grows enough to the point it feels natural and you’re seeing a consistent benefit, it fuels itself enough to keep running – like an ecosystem.
In order for the story to change though the bar of entry to DP must be lowered. I do have a bit of a fear that if this doesn’t happen then DP in therapy will simply remain on the fringe at best or at worst will fall into obscurity.
As the above story suggests, it seems that many of us believe that in order for DP to work, we need someone to guide us – a coach. I have heard some very good arguments that we need a coach if we are to truly improve as therapists through DP. It’s a fair point, as research suggests human beings are not so great at seeing into their own blind spots, learning from our mistakes, or being able to tell if what we’re doing is working. These points were raised via email by my new DP pen pal, Jordan Harris and in a separate email exchange with the Daryl Chow and Scott Miller. This makes sense, I mean think about it, as therapists we’re trained to work as a team with our clients, that neither side can do it alone, because both the client and therapist help eachother see into blind spots. In addition, DP can make us feel vulnerable and exposed, we are hardwired to seek safety when such feelings are triggered, so it’s understandable to seek guidance from someone we trust to help us feel safe again. Lets also not forget that I have had an excellent coach up until a month ago, which I strongly believe has helped me become a better therapist.
This creates a problem though, with so few DP coaches in the field of therapy, what the heck do we do if we can’t find a coach? My fear here is that if we tell people they need a coach to be successful at DP, as soon as they can’t find a coach they’ll just give up. Nup. Not good enough. I’m sorry I can’t let that just be the end of it. I’m not keen to wait an unknown amount of time to see if more coaches start to emerge from the soil. My stubbornness and curiosity has hooked into this dilemma like my cat, papoose, hooks into Tuna.
Then in the same email exchange I had with Daryl Chow, Scott Miller said the following…
“For me, and I’m sure Daryl will agree, finding a coach is part of rather than precursor of deliberate practice. I think of the Olympic athletes who don’t have one, but many, each highly specialized.”
Scott Miller in an email about the role of coaches in DP.
Thank you Scott! That’s good enough for me!
Then others raised and supported another very good point in support of DP without a coach. The now famed “super-shrinks” were a vital part of the research that kicked off all this hubbub about deliberate practice in the first place and they wouldn’t have had a Deliberate Practice coach in terms of how we think of them now.
Now I want to be clear – I do believe that having a coach for DP will almost always be better than no coach and almost everyone I have spoken to has acknowledged how important a role a coach can play in one’s success. When I talk about trying to create an effective DP system without a coach, I’m not talking about trying to achieve DP that is maximumly effective, but DP that is simply effective enough to help you become a better therapist. We’re not athletes at the end of the day, so why should we have to practice like exactly like one? Yes I’ve had a fantastic coach, but my growth has also come from many other places; seeing patterns in my outcome data, getting great feedback from my clients, coaching from my uber-intelligent wife, support from the amazing DP communities on Facebook who have humoured my incessant questions, getting ideas from blogs, the greats of DP being generous in taking time to respond to emails and leaning on good old fashioned self-reflection.
Some ideas on how to move forward in DP without a coach
Can there be benefits of coaching with people who are not therapists?
Consider people you trust who are both therapists and non-therapists, make a mental list of those people. Then bring to mind things you do in therapy that are holding you back from being a better therapist, no matter how small or big they are, just areas you could improve. It may be easiest to think of behaviours you could be doing more or less of, e.g. “I could more often explore when a client hits roadblocks in their homework”. When I started this journey I sat down in my 12-man super-sized beanbag, pulled up a word doc on my computer and made a list of as many ‘areas of improvement’ I could think of.
Now take an area of improvement you thought of and put it to someone you trust, get their thoughts on if they were you, how would they react to the situation?
Don’t be afraid to ask more than one person. In fact, I have a few people I like to ask for advice, I’ll feel bad if I go to one person all the time, so sometimes I’ll switch up who I ask and spread the love. You never know what pearls of wisdom this might bring, even if it leads to a new idea 4 months later, it’s still worth it.
Can we get better at coaching ourselves?
I spend a lot of time reflecting, the most popular times are in the shower or driving to and from work (approximately a 45 minute drive), but this reflection can happen whenever I’m doing an activity where I’m on autopilot. Doing activities where I’m concentrating are typically the only way this reflection switches off. While I’m reflecting I often think about client’s that are not seeing improvement in their therapy or how I can improve what I’m working on as a therapist. I tend to ask myself some pretty common questions:
- Is there something that is missing in (insert client’s) treatment, any buttons that we haven’t pushed yet?
- I’ll reflect on ways I can explain a concept that will be helpful to a client next time
- how can I make (insert target behaviour) easier or smaller for myself?
- what am I trying to achieve with (insert target behaviour)
- I’ll also reflect on conversations and how I could have approached or worded things differently
Some of my best ideas have come from my own brain (e.g. the idea to drop anchor to my fix it mode). Though these ideas never develop in isolation, they are always a genesis of ideas and advice I have taken in from other sources, whether they be the people I trust, a tv show, a documentary, a blog or the radio… the list goes on. Creativity is not about generating an original idea, it’s about taking known ideas and stretching them out like dough, until it turns into something new.
Pursuing answers to these questions may well prove to be a fools errand, but I have had plenty of those in my journey so far – ideas that in of themselves never left the ground. There’s one thing I know though, that I’m both stubborn and patient, so I’ll spend however long I think I need to finding answers. Because while I hit plenty of dead ends, a dead often reveal a secret door to a new discovery – very little goes to waste when it comes to Deliberate Practice.
A supportive and collaborative DP community and environment is key
The key to getting your DP system off the ground, if you can’t find a coach, will be to engage with a supportive and collaborative learning community, this will be absolutely vital to engaging with and maintaining Deliberate Practice, because while we may not need a coach, we can’t do it alone and you certainly don’t have to – you can even contact me if you want!
Deliberate Practice Psych 