We are thrilled to be previewing the Human Experience Specialist Certification Course that launches in October. Join the inaugural cohort and become one of the world’s first Human Experience Specialists. Curious what this means? Come take a look!
In previous weeks, I’ve been making the case for a different kind of helper: someone interested in the whole person and equipped with a broad understanding of human nature. I’ve called this person a Human Experience Specialist.
But what does an HES actually do?
Imagine that a sixty-year-old woman says, “I’ve had a successful life. I have a good marriage, wonderful children, enough money, and work I’ve enjoyed. But lately I keep thinking: Is this it?”
There are many ways a helper might respond. One would be to reassure her. Another would be to look for symptoms of depression. Another would be to help her establish some exciting new goals.
A Human Experience Specialist might begin somewhere else.
“What do you mean by ‘Is this it?’”
It is a simple question, but it opens a door.
Perhaps she means that her accomplishments no longer satisfy her. Perhaps she has become acutely conscious of mortality. Perhaps she is bored. Perhaps the roles that organized her life—mother, wife, professional—no longer feel sufficient. Perhaps she has spent decades being responsible and has never asked what she actually wants. Perhaps she isn’t unhappy at all. Perhaps she is experiencing the perfectly understandable existential uneasiness of realizing that a life is finite.
The HES doesn’t know which of these is true. That is precisely the point. The conversation begins with curiosity.
Or imagine a man who says, “I have to leave my job. I can’t stand another day there.”
We might be tempted to begin making a plan. How much money does he have saved? What other work could he do? When should he resign?
Those questions may eventually matter. But an HES might first want to understand what “I can’t stand another day there” actually means. Does he hate the work? His boss? The organization? Who he becomes while doing the work? Is he exhausted? Humiliated? Bored? Does he want another career, or does he secretly want an entirely different kind of life?
The presenting problem is an entrance, not the destination.
This doesn’t mean that a Human Experience conversation is endless exploration. The HES is interested in movement. At some point, understanding should lead somewhere. That might mean asking a new question, trying a life experiment, having a difficult conversation, making a decision, changing a habit, investigating an assumption, setting a boundary, grieving a loss, or finally acknowledging a truth that has been avoided for years.
Suppose a novelist says, “I haven’t written in three years.”
We could offer productivity strategies. But perhaps the real conversation eventually reveals something else: he no longer wants to write the novels he thinks he is supposed to write. His “block” is partly a rebellion against his own creative identity.
Now, a life experiment becomes possible. For the next two weeks, what if he writes something he would never dream of publishing? Maybe a detective story. Poems. A memoir. Ten outrageous pages about his family. Anything that violates his idea of what a serious writer like him is supposed to produce.
The experiment may succeed or fail. Either result teaches us something. This is part of what distinguishes a Human Experience conversation. We are neither merely listening nor rushing toward solutions. We move back and forth between understanding and action, reflection and experiment, the immediate problem and the larger life.
Sometimes the most useful thing we can do is ask a question. Sometimes it is to offer an observation. Sometimes it is to suggest an experiment. Sometimes it is to challenge an assumption. And sometimes it is simply to remain with someone in a difficult place without pretending that the difficulty can be quickly solved.
There is a name for that last capacity: accompaniment. It may sound simple, but it isn’t. More next week on accompaniment.
Don’t miss your chance to be a part of the first ever cohort of Human Experience Specialists. There is a HUGE early bird savings available for early registrants. Make sure to take a look!
iStock image
