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Do ACCELERATION AND BOUNDLESS WORK LEAD TO ACCELERATED AND BOUNDLESS COACHING? Self-knowledge (awareness) is subordinate to self-care practiced. How do I take care of myself? Foucault summarises the care for oneself as follows: “Epimeleia heautou is an attitude, an attitude toward oneself, toward others and toward the world... The care for oneself encompasses a certain kind of taking heed of what I think, say and of what happens in my mind. [...] Epimeleia invariably also characterises a number of activities, that is those which are addressed to oneself, activities through which you take care of yourself, through which you change, cleanse and purify yourself.”'? This form of self-observation encompasses manifold practices. These include mediations as well as measures to promote one’s health, consultation and reflecting activities, i.e the keeping of a diary in which I take down interactions of professional everyday life and think about whether they have been successful or not and what the reasons might have been for that. By no means is the care for oneself egotistical self-fulfilment. Epimeleia heautou is rather understood as a necessary and sufficient condition for the care for others. Those who take care of themselves in this manner are bound to care for others along the same lines. This is an eminently social, and if you like, political side of the care for oneself. For taking care of oneself is never restricted to oneself but social reality is looked at altogether. How does his concept of care for oneself relate to coaching? Against this background coaching could be understood as an “appeal to take care of oneself”'? similarily to the concept of “help for self-help”. It is not the coach who takes over another person’s responsibility, but coaching motivates and challenges us to take ourselves seriously as subjects, and this implies to assume responsibility for oneself. Self-awareness and autonomy form the targets of coaching shaped by the care for oneself. The practice of freedom within the meaning of the care for oneself promotes mindful interaction with oneself and with others. A basic criterion for interaction is practiced mindfulness. However, freedom within the meaning of the care for oneself not only implies mindfulness but also the courage for the truth, according to Foucault. 2 Michel Foucault, Die Hermeneutik des Subjekts, Frankfurt am Main, 2009, 26. 2 Hermann Steinkamp, Seelsorge als Anstiftung zur Selbstsorge, Münster, 2005. s 119 "
