Many people with the potential to do good research and writing work hit blockers that are a complex mix of psychological blockers and intellectual issues. For example uncertainty and fear around what to work on, lack of confidence in one’s ability. It’s difficult to find someone to help address this kind of problem. Therapists and mainstream coaches don’t have a good understanding of research and EA work. But within EA most of the coaching available is focussed on career choice or productivity techniques, without the sometimes deep psychological work needed to unblock people’s research potential. This fund could support the training and work of people who have the rare combination of therapeutic ability and understanding of research work. This kind of coaching could also be useful for people outside of EA within academia.
Additional notes:
This idea partially stimulated by this tweet from a writing coach, which says “Okay so at this point it’s clear that the real point of my coaching is helping people unlock dormant emotions and unsuppress unacceptable elements of self through expression, although there’s prose tuneups too What do I call this Compassionate creative coaching?”
Intellectual coaching
Empowering exceptional people, Effective Altruism
Many people with the potential to do good research and writing work hit blockers that are a complex mix of psychological blockers and intellectual issues. For example uncertainty and fear around what to work on, lack of confidence in one’s ability. It’s difficult to find someone to help address this kind of problem. Therapists and mainstream coaches don’t have a good understanding of research and EA work. But within EA most of the coaching available is focussed on career choice or productivity techniques, without the sometimes deep psychological work needed to unblock people’s research potential. This fund could support the training and work of people who have the rare combination of therapeutic ability and understanding of research work. This kind of coaching could also be useful for people outside of EA within academia.
Additional notes:
This idea partially stimulated by this tweet from a writing coach, which says “Okay so at this point it’s clear that the real point of my coaching is helping people unlock dormant emotions and unsuppress unacceptable elements of self through expression, although there’s prose tuneups too What do I call this Compassionate creative coaching?”