Power Tool: Time One vs. Times Two (T1 vs. T2)

A Coaching Power Tool created by Franklin Cook
(Grief Coaching and Recovery Coaching, UNITED STATES)

Healing from grief caused by the death of a loved is inherently a painful experience. But the pain of grief is not inherently a negative force, for pain over a loss can be constructive and purposeful—and, indeed, pain can contribute to a person’s healing. In grief coaching, therefore, the coach can make space for a client to feel the pain of loss and, at the same time, help the client move “toward” and “away” from pain in a way that opens up an opportunity for reflection from various perspectives and aids the healing process. An effective and meaningful way to do this is to use the Time One (T1) vs. Times Two (T2) Power Tool.

The process for using T1 vs. T2 involves:

• Listening for (and to) the client’s emphasis—in his or her telling about a situation or an issue that is painful—on a time domain (past, present, or future).
• Formulating questions about the situation or issue from the perspective of the other two time domains:
  • If the client is emphasizing something painful in the past (T1), formulate questions about the present and the future (T2).
  • If the client’s emphasis is on the present (T1), formulate questions about the past and the future (T2).
  • If the emphasis is on the future (T1), formulate questions about the past and the present (T2).

• Being present with the client (namely, communicating to the client that you are listening, that you hear what he or she is saying about the situation or issue, and that you recognize and sympathize with the client’s point of view and feelings, etc.).
• Asking one of the T2 questions you have formulated.
• Engaging in a dialectical conversation with the client in which
  • Your role is
    • affirming the client (using conversation skills such as active listening and interpersonal skills such as exhibiting empathy and compassion) and
    • inviting further amplification of the story about the situation or issue (using follow-up questions, including the second T2 question or various “angles” on both T2 questions you originally formulated).
  • The client’s “role” is to focus on storytelling (which means not that the client is assigned this role but rather that the coach’s gauge for whether the Power Tool is being applied effectively is internally asking the question, “Is the client telling a story?”).

That might sound complicated, but it’s not. It does require of the coach practice and preparation regarding the skills involved (such as formulating questions, reflective listening, exhibiting empathy and compassion, etc.) as well as strong and constant attentiveness during the session. In fact, the power in this Power Tool comes in part from its simplicity. Deliberately inviting a client to probe all of the domains of time (past, present, and future) related to a situation or issue that is painful inevitably causes the client to “move” from one place (in time) to another. In so doing, it can shape whatever is being shared into a narrative—or storytelling – framework. While there is certainly some unpredictability involved in using T1 vs. T2, the movement across time tends to generate a story (even if it is communicated in a number of disjointed fragments of the overall story), thereby establishing numerous vantage points from which the client encounters a perspective (or perspectives) on the situation or issue that opens up the range (and depth) of ideas, feelings, and experiences the client is having. The true simplicity of the tool comes from the fact that creating new vantage points for a person and deepening his or her experience are natural outcomes of storytelling.

Here is a fictional example of the tool’s use (which, of course, is truncated and overly simplified):