Cindy gets a new job. She's young, bright, professional, highly motivated and she gets the job done. Her boss decides that she has potential and promotes her to a position which involves presentations, and suddenly she panics. She just can't do it.
Let's explore what happened here. It starts at an early age. Cindy's mother is a needy, insecure woman, who has difficulty accepting her daughter’s growing independence from her. Whenever Cindy showed signs of independence, her mother got scared and reacted by withdrawing from her, suddenly becoming cynical and aloof (the way her own mother had treated her). As soon as her mother withdrew, Cindy suddenly felt alone and became scared in turn.
Cindy learned very fast how to protect her mother from being scared and herself from being rejected, albeit at a high price. She noticed that her mother relaxed if she worked hard at school and if she took care of other people, without showing she had her own wishes or ideas. She practiced this way of being for twenty years. It was Cindy's way of being accepted, and it helped her through school, helped her pass her exams and get a job pretty easily.
The structure of her first job matched with what she had learned: work hard and please people, and it's not surprising that her boss was satisfied with her performance. In the new job he offered Cindy, she was asked to come out of hiding and to show her real Self. However, the expression of this Self had always been punished by the withdrawal of her mother’s love and attention. Her mother couldn't support the development of Cindy's real Self, because she never learned to express her own Self.
If you look at Cindy's problem from a surface level, her reaction to the new job is surprising. It cannot be deduced from what she's shown in the workplace before. A coaching process would probably start with encouragement, emphasising her potential with the usual 'Yes You Can' phrases or try to train her presentation skills. Would it work? Probably not. Building up a new positive introject to compete with an old negative one is rarely successful: the old one has twenty years of experience in effectively running the client's limbic system.
Let's explore what happened here. It starts at an early age. Cindy's mother is a needy, insecure woman, who has difficulty accepting her daughter’s growing independence from her. Whenever Cindy showed signs of independence, her mother got scared and reacted by withdrawing from her, suddenly becoming cynical and aloof (the way her own mother had treated her). As soon as her mother withdrew, Cindy suddenly felt alone and became scared in turn.
Cindy learned very fast how to protect her mother from being scared and herself from being rejected, albeit at a high price. She noticed that her mother relaxed if she worked hard at school and if she took care of other people, without showing she had her own wishes or ideas. She practiced this way of being for twenty years. It was Cindy's way of being accepted, and it helped her through school, helped her pass her exams and get a job pretty easily.
The structure of her first job matched with what she had learned: work hard and please people, and it's not surprising that her boss was satisfied with her performance. In the new job he offered Cindy, she was asked to come out of hiding and to show her real Self. However, the expression of this Self had always been punished by the withdrawal of her mother’s love and attention. Her mother couldn't support the development of Cindy's real Self, because she never learned to express her own Self.
If you look at Cindy's problem from a surface level, her reaction to the new job is surprising. It cannot be deduced from what she's shown in the workplace before. A coaching process would probably start with encouragement, emphasising her potential with the usual 'Yes You Can' phrases or try to train her presentation skills. Would it work? Probably not. Building up a new positive introject to compete with an old negative one is rarely successful: the old one has twenty years of experience in effectively running the client's limbic system.