Crise, blocage et événements : le coaching de vie dans les parcours biographiques
Coaching is recognized as a support service aimed to clients who want to achieve personal and / or professional goals. If executive coaching is intended for managers who encounter difficulties and “turning points” in their professional trajectories (Salman, 2013), there are no biographical surveys concerning the path of life coachees. What is most intriguing with life coaching is that it has a polymorphic character that is elusive in its totality and leaves us with several blind spots. Indeed, having ''life" as a field of practice includes "everything", which is making it difficult to study. However, if one considers the fact that common sense "life" is used as an expression of self (Lévy, 2001): what does the study of this device allow us to know about whom? Based on a qualitative interview of ten coachees life courses (nine women and one man), I propose an analysis of individual and contextual reasons and motivations at the source of their solicitation as well as an exploration of the crisis notion. This research illustrates that the coachees in the sample experienced a biographical crisis caused by the "synchronous co-occurrence" of events in various trajectories of their lives. A type of crisis that causes a blockage (or a freeze) that requires the help of an external party to resolve it. Beyond this individual purpose, the analysis shows that there are important contextual factors explaining life coaching request : a context of general dissatisfaction ( in the private and public life); the occurrence of one or more breaks and biographical transitions (birth, divorce, death, illness, ...); a disappointment with so-called traditional support systems (“solidarities spaces” and psychotherapy f.ex.) and so many other elements whose interconnection shapes collective conditions that guide individuals biographical pathways towards this type of accompaniment. More broadly, given the composition of the sample, this research provides a glimpse into women’s conditions of existence who face various contradictions specific to their social position (s).
Accompaniment Crisis Life coachees Events Life course perspective