Most of our heuristics (fast thinking solutions) operate out of our procedural brain. Our “knee-jerk” reactions exemplify procedural heuristics. The second system is usually called the Episodic or Expository (Explicit) Memory System. Specific memories of past events, as well as memories of potential problem-solving and decision-making processes, are brought to the fore when dealing with a new, complex, or elusive issue. While procedural memories are usually engaged without any conscious awareness of their application, episodic memories are engaged in a fully conscious manner. These memories are not just stored and retrieved. They are lived!
As a coach, we can provide valuable assistance to our clients as they consciously review their psychosocial template (what are you thinking?), and to the extent possible, even their somatic template (what are you feeling?). Most importantly, we must encourage our client to avoid the use of fast-thinking heuristics when addressing multi-tiered issues – as tempting as it is to escape into a rabbit hole of procedural serenity. As a coach who is focusing on assisting their client to accurately and flexibly anticipate the near-future world they will engage, the advocacy of consistently implemented Slow Thinking, Reflective Practice, and Appreciative Perspectives is critical.
Social Neurobiology and Coaching
Several important points emerge from the contextualist perspective offered by social neurobiology. First, powerful interpersonal relationships produce strong emotional reactions that, in turn, strongly influence the nature and quality of these relationships. Second, our amygdala might be sorting out the threatening and non-threatening elements to anticipate in our immediate environment. In our role as coach, we can be of great value in helping our client identify their own Amygdala-driven anticipations and find ways to address these strong anticipations.
A social neurobiological perspective can even lead to the conclusion that we create reality in our relationship with other people and that our mind is actually embedded in a collective enterprise with the people with whom we relate. We think in connection with other people, much as we create our values and guide our behavior in connection with other people.
When anticipating an event or a relationship without the engagement of other people, we are likely to be projecting specific attributes onto this event or relationship. We create reality on behalf of emotions and thoughts that exist in our own mind, and the projected emotions and thoughts to be found in the projected mind we have created.
Without the input of other people, our near future is an “ink blot” that we choose to “interpret” on behalf of our own hopes, fears, and needs. We refuse to live in the present and are determined to anticipate the near future, even if this means fabricating elements of this future in our own mind. As a coach, we can become that connecting mind that alleviates the need for a fabricated and projection-based mind. This might, quite simply, be the primary function we serve as a professional coach
Polystasis and Coaching
Habitual behavior requires the shifting of knowledge and skill sets from focused, intentional, and explicit (conscious) memory systems to another memory system located in a different part of the brain. As noted, this system is often considered our “procedural” memory. This second memory system is holistic, much less accessible to intention. It is implicit (unconscious) in nature. We are likely to find that the psychosocial template is composed primarily of procedural memories. The template contains untested assumptions about what people in general believe and want, as well as a wealth of often-distorted past experiences regarding relative success or failure in working with other people.
Download Article
