ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the way non-independence unfolds in clinical work and coaching. Although many times one person is seen as “the problem” or as having a disorder or being dysfunctional, or as having a goal they want to achieve quite apart from anyone else, actually interactions involving two people are never about just one of them, and goals cannot be achieved in isolation. That is especially so if the client is in business attempting to work with a supervisor or lead a team of others. This chapter explores the ways people influence one another in an ongoing current of interaction. It defines the term non-independence. Intimate partners develop subtle routines and extension behaviors that are carried out in patterns with rhythms. They get things done through one another (extended cognition), and these things are done non-verbally because the partners have learned one another’s ways. The situation is not simply a matter of feedback loops or of a carrying over (next chapter); it is more basic than that. The two people are fundamentally non-independent. The chapter also covers externalizing and internalizing as related to such non-independence, and it touches on the non-independence between therapist or coach and client.
