| Roland: Martyn, you created a system of
coaching that you teach internationally - Soulwork Systemic Coaching.
I know that you attract people with very high
credentials. Can you tell us about it? Martyn: Soulwork
offers a wide spectrum - we offer business coaching, success
coaching, couple coaching, team coaching ... and more. What is interesting to
you?
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The
experience of integrity provides a reliable sense of life direction,
meaning and fulfillment. It is the Soul of Soulwork. Martyn Carruthers
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Roland: What is the theoretical basis for Soulwork Systemic
Coaching?
Martyn: Soulwork integrated
principles and practices from many disciplines. The anthropologist Dr Gregory Bateson
provided a hierarchy of abstraction which helps us analyze a person's
cognitive habits. The psychologist Dr Clare Graves provided a hierarchy of social evolution
which predicts the development of relationship skills and organizations of a
person or group. Dr Richard Bandler provided
the concept of metaprograms, which are useful for predicting behavioral
constraints. We also integrated skills derived from native
Hawaiian healers, who helped us recognize
and change relationship bonds, while creating the concepts of family
soul and healthy family that permeate Soulwork.
Roland: Do you use other models for relationship
coaching?
Martyn: We use a hierarchy of relationship development
to predict the current and future relationship challenges that a person will
face, which was inspired by Annegret Hallanzy's VoVa. We use
another home-made hierarchy to assess
relationship health. And our systemic diagnosis predicts relationship conflicts,
transferences, separation and deaths.
Roland: Are these psychological theories?
Martyn: Soulwork is practical. It focuses not on
resolving complaints, but on helping people find meaning and happiness
and helping people develop achieve worthwhile goals. Soulwork includes
finding life purpose, or "sense of life", if that is what a client wants.
Roland: Can people use
Soulwork by themselves - or do they need help?
Martyn: Few people can use what they
do not understand. Soulwork can help people solve the
underlying issues that stop them from solving their own problems. Once those
issues are resolved - a person is free to find information, to make decisions
and to act. When those entanglements remain active - a person makes robotic decisions and may be unable to act.
Soulwork is about quality relationships - yet Soulwork is not
easy. A coach can provide people with the relationship resources to accept and acknowledge
their complaints and to identify their goals and dreams. Then people can
solve their conflicts, their anger, fear, sadness and guilt and move on
freely. Without this coaching relationship, most people attempting
self-Soulwork will distract themselves, or get stuck in "poor me"
consciousness, and in difficult moments they may go
to sleep.
A Soulwork coach responds to non-verbal communications
or unconscious objections. Few
people can do this for themselves. Unconscious signals are ... well ...
unconscious. A coach can respond to those communications by gently provoking people to
become conscious of them. This is a BIG step towards the person sorting out their
"stuff" - their objections to happiness.
Roland: That makes sense - so
- who will benefit most from Soulwork?
Martyn: Motivated and responsible
adults gain the most benefits in the shortest time. We also work with
children, and childlike adults, in a less direct way, with indirect stories and
interactive metaphors instead of direct strategic questions.
A more difficult answer is that people who lack
quality relationships are unlikely to realize the depth of Soulwork. These
people will be unable to use the systemic resources available in Relationship Coaching. They need a quality relationship with the coach.
Roland: Would you call Soulwork a
New Age development?
Martyn: Some people complain that the name
Soulwork sounds too New Age. Soulwork is practical. Each step of Soulwork
follows a structured, systemic sequence, without recourse to
intuition. We check all answers in three or four ways, to ensure
that a client wants a specific change and the consequences of that change.
(See New Age)
Some therapists want to intuit their clients'
problems. That route can lead to dependency and victimization. Clients
have no idea if a New Age counselor is accurate or even effective - and
some therapists blame their clients if something does not produce results.
Roland: Is not Soul an
emotionally loaded word?
Martyn: Many people are
not interested in anything to do with soul, and I wouldn't have
been a few years
ago. A better word is integrity, although I like the word
Soulwork. We also call our corporate and organizational work
Systemic
Solutions and avoid using words with esoteric or spiritual connotations - although, for
me, the Soul of an organization is an extremely practical and worthwhile topic
to discuss with leaders and CEOs.
We do not ask or require that a client have or develop any
particular belief. If a person wants success in some field, or has
recurring problems, chronic or recurring medical symptoms or mental
symptoms such as depression or panic attacks, that is enough.
Roland: Your demonstrations
tonight were stunning. You make it look very easy. The audience had no idea
how long it normally takes for people to make those type of changes.
Martyn: Some students joke that
I choose "easy" demonstration people. But most people are "easy" to work with
if they are motivated and responsible. When I present Soulwork; I prefer to
demonstrate whatever I talk about.
Roland: You said that Soulwork is holistic ... what does
"holistic" mean to you?
Martyn: Soulwork is holistic in that
I attend to a person's communications of body, mind and spirit; including
emotions, relationships and meaning, and I offer ways to
change things that don't work or are counter-productive. I ask about thoughts and feelings.
I offer ways to identify and change unpleasant internal dialogue (limiting
beliefs or self-sabotaging thoughts and consequent behaviors).
Roland: Is that always possible?
Martyn: Always is a very long word.
If you are in a relationship with an entangled person - whether the
entanglement is with another person, a substance or a behavior, then you
risk becoming entangled with that person's toxic obsessions or addictions.
Many people say that they want to get rid of unpleasant symptoms but don't
want to change the entanglements that cause the symptoms.
Roland: How do you find mind-body connections?
Martyn: I ask
questions such as: Where do you hold emotional experiences in your
body? What are the benefits of withholding these experiences?
Roland: Where does Soul come into all this?
Martyn: Soulwork has a basic
assumption about the innate wholeness of
people, and their desire for wholeness and their desire to
connect with other human beings in an experience that is generally called
happiness.
Roland: What problems do people bring for Soulwork?
Martyn: People come for Soulwork to
control emotions, to end compulsions or obsessions, to gain communication
skills, to change difficult relationships, to discover who they are and to
find meaning in life. Most people come with goals, but want something different, so our systemic diagnosis is a key to fast and effective life coaching.
Roland: And your therapeutic coaching includes ... what?
Although Soulwork techniques include such things as relationship matrix,
systemic solutions and
interactive metaphors, we resolve conflicts, identifications and
many forms of
identity loss. This leads to the experience of integrity and connectedness that we call
Soul.
Roland: Who are your main clients?
Martyn: We have a wide range of clients. We
support private therapists and those in public health and mental health sectors, as well as corporate
Human Resources people.
Many people who seek Soulwork want to experience life differently; they want to
achieve their goals or end their
complaints. As each person is a system within other systems - our systemic tools help
people reach their emotional goals as well as physical goals, which often
includes integrating personality. Most people live fragmented lives
based on conflicting desires, conflicting beliefs and conflicting values.
Roland: Are you
saying that most people - me for example - are split into pieces? That
sounds more like multiple-personality...
Martyn: In multiple
personality syndrome, people are amnesic of their actions and
decisions in other states - but few people are so dissociated. Most people
know well the experience of "Part of me wants to ... but part of me
doesn't", many people make promises in one state yet
forget them in another.
People with deep inner conflict may announce decisions one day
and deny those decisions the next day. People who experience self-criticism
have "inner voices" which can be horribly critical. We often say
that, "Psychosis
is exaggerated normality".
Roland: What issues are people
concerned about today?
Martyn: The sources of inner conflict may change but conflicts
remain. Many women suffer from grief and conflict when
they postpone childbirth and motherhood in
favor of a career. Many men suffer shame following immature sexual
exploits. Many people suffer from the emotional consequences of abuse and
trauma, and from lack of acceptance. Although our world is changing rapidly,
our emotional responses to our relationships seems constant.
Soulwork includes effective solutions for cross-generational
entanglements. People can end their suffering. We also deal with
the effects of abuse and the consequences of trauma better following
our research into relationship bonds. We can better recognize the symptoms of post-traumatic
stress and we can help motivated people rapidly dissolve those symptoms.
Roland: Martyn - I have heard good things about your
results - but
- who coaches you?
Martyn: I enjoy exploring other
therapeutic modalities from a client perspective -
although not many therapists enjoy me as a client. I focus on results - not
credentials - and I am not very
compliant if something doesn't make sense. I do not allow my life to be a
testing ground for theories.
Roland: How do you determine what type of coaching is helpful for what type of problem?
Martyn: Coaching,
consulting, counseling, advising and
therapy are words that are often used interchangeably. In a
consulting role, I work in a focused way in a highly defined
context, perhaps to change the structure of a human resources department. On the other side,
individual client coaching is exceedingly open. Who knows what the next client will
want? Very few people know what they want.
Roland: How long does Soulwork coaching take?
Martyn: How long is a road? A Soulwork coach often works with time-limits
for people who want a fast solution rather than all-life mentoring. For example
a coach may offer 5 or 6
sessions to change a defined complaint or to expedite a specific goal. This
can be in a week, if a person can handle the intensity.
A Soulwork Coach can also provide long-term changework to
restructure a person's identity and integrate personality. Fulfilling these goals can be
profoundly life changing. This may require 10
or 20 sessions - perhaps over three months or so, although healthy
people can do it a lot faster.
Roland: You said that Soulwork has a "spiritual"
base. How do you know whether a person is "spiritual"? How do you
perceive spiritual evolution?
Martyn: Life includes many distractions,
games and illusions -
often self-inflicted or provided by ignorant, arrogant or manipulative people.
Each of us must pass
these distractions to fulfill life and transcend death. Yet these distractions can be so
compelling or so uncomfortable that many people stop moving
forward. It's like they reach a certain age - could be six or sixteen - and not develop
much after that. We expect such people to express age-regressed, immature behavior.
The Soul of Soulwork is an experience of integrity and connection that
transcends memories, thoughts and feelings. The egoistic personality
"I" can merge with an unborn
and undying reality - while alive. Age-regressed behavior is
incompatible with this deep maturity and responsibility for life - and the stable
experience that we call Soul provides a reference - a direction - a compass -
through the challenges that life presents us.
Soulwork coaches people to look at their lives, to resolve
identity loss, to end toxic traditions and to perceive illusions. We travel
together through the chaotic wildernesses of the body-mind - to the twin
goals of lasting solutions for mental, physical and relationship symptoms,
and for "life makes sense".
Roland: Martyn, thank you for
your time.
Soulwork systemic coaching offers effective telephone coaching, training and mentorship.
Do you want to resolve emotional and relationship challenges? |
