Mirror, Mirror: Balancing Recognition and Autonomy in Coaching

As coaches, we are often asked to help our clients understand how others see them. Executives come to us confused about how they show up in the world and ask for guidance on how they are perceived, wanting us to reflect back to them what they present to their colleagues. Beneath this question, however, might lie a deeper desire–perhaps we’re being asked to help our clients establish a sense of self. In today’s post, I explore sociological perspectives on the origins of self-worth, and look at the challenges that balancing a need for others with a need for autonomy brings to the practice of coaching.

In The End of Love: A Sociology of Negative Relations (2018), Eva Illouz highlights a modern paradox: that our pursuit of individuality is often deeply intertwined with our requirement for recognition. Illouz argues that in today’s world we seek reassurance of our uniqueness and self-worth through loving relationships. She argues that our significance as individuals now depends, at least in part, on being valued or well-regarded by a romantic partner. Whereas we used to belong to a group or a class, and our self-worth in large part could come from that belonging, we’re now trying to get this recognition from our lovers. In doing so, we’re giving them power over who we perceive ourselves to be and subsuming our worth into how we present to the world. Love’s power, for Illouz, lies in its ability to provide recognition. For Illouz, this is partly a consequence of modern systems of capitalism, which commodify selfhood. Even if we might have other views on why we might enter into a romantic relationship, there is value for us as coaches in thinking about what role we might play in satisfying this need for recognition from our clients. We should also question how we are perpetuating a commodified notion of the self in providing that recognition as a service–selling our clients a sense of self. 

There are echoes of this idea in Norbert Elias’s chapter “The Social Constraint Towards Self-Constraint” in The Civilizing Process: State Formation and Civilization (1982). Here Elias examines the historical basis for self-constraint, comparing the way individuals regulated themselves. He contrasts medieval practices to modern ones and focuses on the journey of change between them. Elias, referring to the civilizing process of identity creation, argues that participation in increasingly complex social structures is what forces us to adopt a mechanism of self-control and in doing so, creates our identities as a collection of norms and rules. We need the feedback loops of social approval and disapproval to understand what we should be doing and how we should be doing it. Over time, however, we internalize these rules so much that they become part of who we are and how we define ourselves. Elias’s view pushes Illouz’s idea beyond romantic relationships to other social interactions–implying that our notion of self comes from broader social structures and their associated rules. 

Although Elias saw these changes as occurring over centuries, in our social media-infused culture we see this playing out much more rapidly and deeply than Elias envisioned. Approval and disapproval occur at the click of a button, and anyone in the world can pass judgment on our actions, creating increased anxiety and complexity in how our identities are constructed. On social media, shame and embarrassment are immediate, pervasive, and often brutal. One of the consequences of this has been a reversion to a need to validate ourselves in the context of group identities. Much of our current tribal political landscape reflects a deep need for individuals to have their subjectivity confirmed by others. Paradoxically, as Illouz examined in the context of romantic relationships, this is often couched in the language of individualism. Yet, to exist as an individual today also requires belonging to something, not just to be recognized by someone. The idea that to exist we need others challenges our current cultural assumption that we are entirely autonomous and self-reliant, and that we bear sole responsibility for our successes and failures.

So how do we reconcile these competing views of a need for others’ perspective and the current push for autonomy? I would suggest that there is a way through this conundrum by actively choosing to seek out that recognition. Even if in our romantic relationships we are seeking validation of our self-worth, that is often an unconscious aspect of what we are looking for. Most people would also not perceive themselves as building their sense of self-worth through social constraint, as Elias suggests. But many of us look for recognition and self-worth actively by seeking out ‘experts’ like coaches, who we ask to validate us as people. 

We have to be careful here not to create a structure of self-blame or shame around needing that external support. In his work Emotions as Commentaries on Cultural Norms (2012), Joseph Davis highlights how contemporary cultural norms of autonomy often lead individuals to internalize blame for negative events, even when those events are caused by external forces or other people. Exploring reactions to romantic break-ups, Davis shows how we are much more prone today to question our own role in precipitating the end of a relationship. Even further, Davis looks at how we also pathologize our reactions–telling ourselves to not take it so hard, or blaming ourselves for overreacting. This cultural framing can make it especially difficult to process external causes of negative events, and could be exacerbated by a growing reliance on professionals like coaches for recognition. 

Going back to our starting point, what does this mean for coaches? Coaches are trained not just to listen to their clients, but to listen such that the client feels ‘heard’. In effect, one of the coach’s roles is to serve as that mirror to someone who is perhaps not being properly reflected by the people around her. This is not a question of agreeing with clients, but recognizing them as having a perspective (which, for some clients, is a rare event). Even if challenging or pushing a client to think beyond their initial ideas or thoughts on a matter, the coach is still validating the existence of the client. Following the thinking of Elias and Davis, we also have an outsized role as potential arbiters of what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. Translating the confusing signals our clients receive into practical actions, but also helping them to take ownership of their own translations and perhaps free themselves somewhat of the need for a mirror. In doing so, we help our clients to find a balance between a relational need for recognition and the autonomy to define themselves as they wish. 

We cannot free ourselves completely from our foundational need for others in shaping our sense of self. We can, however, work to diminish our need for others as providers of significance and guidance as per Illouz, Elias, and Davis. By recognizing how we have let others’ validation become a requirement for our happiness, we can become more intentional about how we allow them to steer our actions. Building our own structures of self-recognition–whether independently or with the help of a coach–we can free ourselves from the cage of striving to meet others’ requirements for us to be loved. By becoming our own mirrors in the process, we increase the chances of liking what we see. 

Davis, J. E. (2012). Emotions as commentaries on cultural norms. In A. M. Gonzàlez (Ed.), The Emotions and Cultural Analysis (pp. 31–49). Surrey: Ashgate.

Elias, N. (1982). The social constraint towards self-constraint. In The Civilizing Process: State Formation and Civilization (pp. 229–247). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Illouz, E. (2018). The demand for recognition. In The End of Love: A Sociology of Negative Relations (pp. 144–180). Malden: Polity Press.