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FRANK ÁUSTERMANN going to illustrate the importance of self-care. In a further step I shall answer the question of why I take recourse to Foucault’s philosophy and its underlying concept of self-care, and of good interaction and its relevance to coaching. The following sections will deal with impulses from Foucault’s philosophy, above all with his concept of the practice of freedom. The practice of freedom firstly encompasses self-care, secondly the courage of truth, and, thirdly, criticism. In the end I will draw a conclusion proposing to understand coaching as an appeal to take care of oneself, especially in times of acceleration and boundless work. In my opinion this is the only way to avoid that acceleration and boundless work lead to an accelerated and boundless coaching. I am convinced: Self-care will become ever more important in coaching, especially given the sweeping social trends such as economisation!, acceleration? and the delimitation of work. In a first step I wish to approach this context by looking into the question of the quality of coaching. From my point of view, good coaching interrupts the professional everyday lives of executives in a sustainable manner. This distinguishes good coaching from poor coaching. Poor coaching simply continues the burdensome and accelerating situation at the workplace of persons with managing functions in the same ways and patterns. Poor coaching solely serves to adapt executives to drastic social trends. It is restricted to optimise the coachees‘ performance or to increase their ability to present themselves without critically reflecting working life in general und thus the social changes and their repercussions on professional everyday life. For our future society, the question is not so much if professional consulting such as coaching will become more popular but rather what the difference between good coaching and poor coaching actually consists of. The decision about the quality and future of coaching will depend on how this form of consultation responds to social trends. Where social trends are not considered at all or are taken for granted as matters of fact, it will be easy to exploit, or even “hijack”, coaching for other purposes. The question is what good coaching could consist of, how it responds to acceleration and if coaching is capable of a critical reflection of the situation at work; or if it simply serves to adapt executives to changes accepted in a fatalistic manner. Rudolf Heltzel - Wolfgang Weigand, Im Dickicht der Organisation. Komplexe Beratungsaufträge verändern die Beraterrolle, Göttingen, 2012, 17. Hartmut Rosa, Beschleunigung. Die Veränderung der Zeitstrukturen in der Moderne, Frankfurt am Main, 2005. * 116 +
