INHE 2002 Week 6 Declining the Answer Post Example

Week 6 Discussion: When the Client Asks for the Answer

"Just Tell Me What to Do": An Initial Post on Declining the Question Without Dodging It, and the Line Between Passing Along Information and Choosing Someone's Course

In my practice session this week, my partner, playing a client who wants to sleep better, said: "You know more about this than I do. Just tell me what to do." Half the posts I have read so far would answer her. I declined, and I want to defend how.

What I said was close to this: "I can tell you what the research says helps most people sleep, if that's useful. What I can't do is choose which of those things fits your life, because you know your evenings and I don't. Would it help if I shared a few and you told me which ones seem possible?"

That reply has two parts on purpose. The first offers information, with permission. The second declines to choose. I think the line between those is the whole distinction. Passing along information means giving a fact or a range of options that comes from somewhere outside both of us, such as a public health guideline. Choosing a course means deciding which option this person should follow. The coaching scope published by the national board says coaches may share information from recognized sources but support clients in making their own decisions (National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching [NBHWC], 2023).

Why not just answer? Two reasons. First, people tend to resist advice they did not choose, even advice they asked for. Motivational interviewing describes the urge to fix the problem as the righting reflex and notes that it often produces arguments against change rather than change (Miller & Rollnick, 2013). Second, the client asking "tell me what to do" may be tired or discouraged, not ready to hand over decisions. Answering would treat the request at face value when the more useful move is to explore what is behind it.

The reply also avoided two things I see in many posts. It did not refuse with a rule ("As a coach I can't give advice"), which sounds rehearsed and leaves the client with nothing. And it did not answer while pretending not to ("Some people find that avoiding screens after nine works really well..."), which is advice in disguise.

My question: is there any client request where answering directly is the right coaching move, not just an exception?

Reply to Owen

Owen, you argued that refusing to answer can damage trust, especially early on. I agree that a flat refusal would. But the reply I described does answer, with information, and only declines the choosing. Do you think a client would experience that as a refusal? I am genuinely unsure, and it might depend on how tired she is when she asks.

Reply to Grace

Grace, your example of a client asking whether to stop a medication is a good case where the coach must decline both parts, because even the information belongs to the prescriber. Reviews of coaching describe it as client-centered and focused on the client's own goals (Wolever et al., 2013), which does not include clinical decisions. I think your case and mine sit on either side of the line: general health information can be shared, and anything specific to a person's treatment cannot.

References

Miller, W. R., & Rollnick, S. (2013). Motivational interviewing: Helping people change (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.

National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching. (2023). Health and wellness coach scope of practice. https://nbhwc.org/scope-of-practice/

Wolever, R. Q., Simmons, L. A., Sforzo, G. A., Dill, D., Kaye, M., Bechard, E. M., Southard, M. E., Kennedy, M., Vosloo, J., & Yang, N. (2013). A systematic review of the literature on health and wellness coaching: Defining a key behavioral intervention in healthcare. Global Advances in Health and Medicine, 2(4), 38-57. https://doi.org/10.7453/gahmj.2013.042