Should we demonize coaching?

Why coaching is disturbing

Because it does not only target marginal practices, but the very heart of any support relationship.

At a time when certain abuses are highly publicized, it becomes necessary to rethink the limits, theethics and above all the responsibility, both on the side of the accompanying people and that of the accompanied people.

Manipulation, control, unrealistic promises, confusion between support and omnipotence... These phenomena exist.
Removing them from the debate would prevent any rigorous analysis.

The central question is perhaps not: should coaching be condemned?
But rather: how to define a correct position in a support relationship?

Coaching often intervenes in moments when the benchmarks are fragile:

• periods transition,
• personal or professional vulnerabilities,
• phases of doubt, questioning or suffering.

In other words, where the influence is stronger.

It is therefore not only normal, but necessary, for society to question:

• intentions,
• methods,
• power relations,
• practice frameworks.

The problem is not just these questions exist.
The problem appears when we confuse abuses with discipline, abuses with serious and supervised practices.

When fiction acts as a revealer

It is often through strong stories that these debates resurface.
Fiction has the capacity to make visible usually diffuse mechanisms, sometimes trivialized in reality.

As such, the film Gourou acts less like a generalized accusation than like a magnifying mirror :
it shows what can happen when support is exercised without a clear framework, without limits explicit and without shared responsibility.

Taken literally, it caricatures.
Taken as a warning signal, it requires asking an essential question:
where does the responsibility of the support person begin, and where does it stop?

Coaching ≠ personal development without a framework

Confusion persists between:

• professional coaching,
• certain forms of development personal,
• and sometimes quasi-spiritual or pseudo-therapeutic practices.

Responsible coaching nevertheless rests on clear foundations:

• an explicit objective,
• a formalized contractual framework,
• a defined temporality,
• a non-directive posture,
• and recognition assumed his own limits.

A coach is neither a guru, nor a savior, nor an expert in the lives of others.

Ethics and deontology: two complementary registers

These two notions are often confused, wrongly.

• Ethics set rules : what is authorized, what is not.
• Ethics questions the posture: is it right, here and now, for this specific person?

An ethical framework without ethical reflection can become mechanical and an ethical posture without an ethical framework can become dangerous.

Responsible support requires both, in a living and continuous manner.

Supervision: a pillar that is too little visible

Contrary to certain representations, serious coaches do not work alone.
Supervision is an essential space for:

• analyze complex situations,
• identify transfer and counter-transference phenomena,
• question its angles dead,
• prevent relational or narcissistic slippage.

An unsupervised coach is a risk, not a guarantee of freedom.

How to recognize a serious coach?

Faced with medial abuses, a question often arises:
how to distinguish a professional posture from a dangerous practice ?

Some essential benchmarks:

• a clear framework from the start (objectives, duration, limits),
• a non-directive posture, without promise of miraculous transformation,
• an ability to say no, to direct elsewhere, to refuse an inappropriate request,
• regular supervision.

The seriousness of a coach is measured less by his speech than by his ability to set limits.

The role of professional federations: the collective framework

Professional coaching does not develop outside framework.
It is part of an ecosystem structured by recognized federations, whose role is to standardize, supervise and make the practice accountable.

Among the main references:

• ICF (International Coaching Federation): core skills, strict code of ethics, international certifications (ACC, PCC, MCC).
• EMCC (European Mentoring & Coaching Council): emphasis on maturity of posture, ethics and supervision.
• SFCoach / APECS (France): structuring of the profession, recognition of training, prevention of abuses.

These federations are not marketing labels. They remind us that coaching is a profession that involves collective responsibility.

Do not exceed the limits... on both sides

Responsibility does not rest solely on the coach.

Healthy support supposes:

• that the coach knows how to say no,
• that he directs towards other professionals when it is necessary,
• that it never promises miraculous transformation.

But also:

• that the accompanied person remains an actress,
• that she retains her critical spirit,
• that she does not abandon her decision-making power.

Coaching is not a space of dispossession. It is a space of clarification and empowerment.

In conclusion

Demonizing coaching would be a mistake.
Idealizing it would be another.

The issue is elsewhere :
How can we build support practices that are useful, responsible and rigorous?

At a time when abuses are legitimately denounced, it is perhaps time to remember that true professionalism is recognized less by the promise than by the ability to say:
“this is not up to me”.