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XPaul Kensett E-mail: paul.kensett@www.thesmartschool.co.uk Info: Posts by the author (4)

Parental messages in coaching

I was thinking today how people live their lives based upon the messages that they would have received from parenting.

Within coaching sessions these messages come out in the way that people self-sabotage what they set out to do and achieve.

This is almost always subconscious and automatic and through coaching we help people understand in how they might be doing this, where this comes from and, importantly, help them to move forward from some of these self defeating patterns.

A very interesting part of transformational coaching is looking at the realm of Transactional Analysis.

Many people will know the book Games People Play by Eric Berne, which brought the idea of TA to the modern world.

One part of TA it looks at the concept of injunctions.

What are these?

Simply put they are unconscious messages that we pick up on as children from our parents.

They are unconscious and felt rather than verbalised and conscious. These can be very powerful and also the way we live our lives as adults can also be based on these early messages.

There are in total 12 injunctions that create a way of living.

1. Don’t be or don’t exist
2. Don’t be you
3. Don’t be a child
4. Don’t grow up
5. Don’t make it
6. Don’t (Don’t do anything)
7. Don’t be important
8. Don’t belong
9. Don’t be close
10. Don’t be well or don’t be sane
11. Don’t think
12. Don’t feel

You may be able to think about some of your own life situations that the above could apply to. This will be no different for clients who come to you as their coach looking for change.

Through coaching conversations within sessions and with clients you as the coach will pick up many of these themes.

This can provide a great place for exploration with your client. You can also be very open with these concepts with clients and ask them how they could be living their lives based on some of the above injunctions.

This is not to say that the client will not have other areas to work on but using the list above can give a real insight into their world and how they could be limiting their potential and actually living their lives based on old patterns and messages from parenting.

TA provides a fascinating area for exploration with clients and can also bring about a huge awareness for them.

In future posts I will share more in these areas.

The next time you find yourself falling into a pattern is it possible that you are tapping into one of these injunctions?

Filed Under Transformational Coaching