Hello Bill. I want to clarify a couple of points, because it seems that some of my comments were understood out of context, and therefore not clear at all . . . This is one of the hazards of phone interview to blog post to secondary blog post . . . 1. I do not have any disdain for personal coaches. As a sociologist interested in changing notions of the self and of success, I observed that the birth of coaching coincides with the downsizing of the early 1990s and the consequent lack of career stability. This has three effects: 1) many educated middle management people were understandably concerned about job security; 2) many were "liberated" from the corporate cubicle world and in search of new work options where they can be in control of their workflow (i.e. not laid off again); and 3) many HR departments were in need of people to counsel people who were being laid-off and motivate those left in jobs where they're doing twice the work for the same pay. This socio-economic situation was a fertile ground for the rise of coaching. 2. When I commented that coaching is a quick process, that was in the context of comparing coaching to psychoanalysis, which traditionally asks the analysand to spend four to five hours a week in treatment in a treatment that can last many, many years. As far as I know, this sort of a time commitment would be unusual in the context of coaching. Moreover, coaching emerges at a time when medical insurance (for those fortunate enough to have it in the US) began to disallow reimbursement for protracted psychotherapeutic treatments. Speedier, putatively more efficient if not more effective therapies, such as cognitive behavioral therapy and psychopharmacology continued to be funded through some mental health HMOs. Therapists saw their client lists decline, and some recast themselves as coaches. Financial advisors recast themselves as coaches. And unemployed middle managers and academics recast themselves as career coaches. People in search of counseling began to see coaching as an alternative to psychotherapy, and since their HMOs weren't going to pay for the psychotherapy anyway, part of the legitimacy structure for psychotherapeutic interventions was undercut. (Being funded through a mechanism like health insurance was part of the former legitimacy of psychoanalysis and psychotherapeutic practices.) None of these facts mean would suggest that all coaching is oriented toward to corporate notions of success. Some certainly isn't. But the genesis of coaching as a profession seems to tie in closely with the crises that American corporations have faced in an era of increased global competition. 3. Finally, until quite recently there were not any training programs for coaches, and to the best of my knowledge there are not yet any state mandated licensure processes. So anyone can hang out a shingle as a personal coach. Some coaches do extraordinary work. Some don't. But there has not been a certification process. CoachU, the American Coaches Federation, and the International Coach Federation all seem to be moving toward the codification and professionalization of coaching practices, which may lead to licensure practices. But right now in New York State, where I live, you need more training to be massage therapist than a life coach or personal coach. I think that is something that will change for this industry, but for the moment that is just the situation. My question . . . and the point of my book Self-Help, Inc: Makeover Culture in American Life, is to ask what might we learn from and about the culture of self-improvement that could shift our consciousness from an individualistic, narcissistic, materialistic notion of success to a socially and politically engaged notion of success that calls for economic and social justice, as well as a sustainable existence on this green-blue rock that we call home. That question requires that I be deeply interested in the rise of coaching as a phenomenon, and also deeply concerned about the values that are promulgated by coaches.