Sharing the Load

Psychologist James Coan studies the importance of social connection for our well-being. During an interview on the Transforming Trauma podcast earlier this year, he told a story that shapes how I coach leaders healing from burnout.

Studying clinical psychology, he worked with military veterans with late onset PTSD. After living their entire lives without symptoms, his patients were suddenly being flooded with emotions they couldn’t process.

One client presented a particularly challenging case. Even for war veterans, his experience was profoundly horrific, so horrific he couldn’t handle any therapy that would have asked him to to talk or think about what happened to him. His experiences were so overwhelming that simply asking him to breathe deeply triggered a trauma response.

Then, one day, the client asked to bring his wife of fifty years with him to therapy. Coan agreed. Once again, the client froze in panic as soon as the conversation started.

But then, his wife reached over to him and grasped his hand. As soon as he felt her touch, the client started sobbing. He wept for several minutes. But then, slowly, he started to tell his story, a story his wife had never heard before.

The weight of his pain and shame was crushing him. But the touch of someone he loved and trusted shifted that weight just enough he could begin to free himself.

This story sparked a line of research that would lead Coan to develop social baseline theory, which we’ll be talking a little more about this week.

Essentially, Coan compares the problems we confront on a daily basis to tables we need to move from the first floor to the second floor of a house. Not everyone has to carry trauma like his traumatized client did, but we all have something in our way that’s too heavy and awkward to lift on our own.

What if we had another person—or several other people—who can help us share the load? What would that do? They wouldn’t be carrying the table for us or telling us where to put it. Just reminding us we’re not alone can give us the strength to continue.

That’s exactly what the wife of Coan’s client was doing with her touch. And it was enough.

Coan’s research focuses primarily on the importance of close attachments, but this story has important implications for coaching, too. Many people are trying to move tables their friends and families can’t help them with. They need someone they trust who can share the load for a bit, so they can direct their energy more fully toward the work they need to do.

As a coach, I aspire to be that someone, a compassionate and trusting presence that can help you have the confidence to move around, over, and through whatever obstacle is in your way.

Want to learn more? Book your free Discovery Session here.