Cutting your chest open at a party.

 'You're a psychiatrist? Oh go on then, tell me what you think of me'.

A not uncommon thing to hear when what I did for a living came up as part of a casual introduction.

If I asked them about how something or other was going in their life, equally casually, I got a nervous titter and 'Oh, I don't know, you're going to psychoanalyse me aren't you?'

I was a psychiatrist for 15 years. Medically trained, I helped people who had trouble with their mind. I think I was pretty good at it, but it was a professional skill. My work persona was an extension of my social being, but given a professional sheen: my particular forte was that I was unusually approachable and 'normal' according to most patients whose feedback I got. But being a psychiatrist does pose a question to the person who bears its title: how shrinky do you become outside work? For me, not at all. For others, a lot.

Take an analogy. I initially trained in cardiothoracic surgery, before moving to psychiatry. As a surgeon, I would use my skills at work to help people with their problem. It requires a specific setting, the right set of tools, a willing patient, ethical guidelines, and so on.

I didn't go around cutting peoples' chests open at dinner parties, any more than I analysed them when I was a psychiatrist. Understanding someone's psychological troubles is also a specialised skill which requires its own setting. Surgeons worked in theatres; my psychiatric workspace was a calm and pleasant office, without distractions. My 'surgical tools' are carefully crafted questions and ways of reacting. In the same way that a surgeon might use his forceps or scalpel to carefully open or expose a certain part inside physically, my reactions, comments and questions are similarly crafted tools to explore what is going on inside mentally, to a person who I needed to understand professionally.

Of course, you might ask if these things are deployed in social situations anyway. In general, not for me. I was happy enough being my usual, unadorned, wisecracking, distractable self socially. Only very occasionally did I look into someone's 'soul' by observing them more carefully: if they came across as potentially dangerous or unpleasantly dysfunctional, for example. For other psychiatrists, they did embrace the persona of the 'horn-rimmed bespectacled empath' quite spectacularly and permanently. I suppose being a professional of any kind can bleed into your persona that way, perhaps giving you a sense of social armour or currency. Similarly, there were some surgeons who behaved very 'surgically' socially: they allowed their iconic social standing to give them an air of authority on everything they did, which was received either positively or not, depending on the people they were with. And yet others were rather unsurgeony, at work and at home. Playing the banjo, working on their old Morgan, you wouldn't have guessed what they did for a living. Same went for me.

In familial and cultural circles, the medical profession comes with expectations and decorations. I guess you can adorn yourself with them or not. My folks were sometimes amused, but occasionally irritated, by my not being more 'doctory' in their conservative social group. I guess all parents have pride when their kids do something that is culturally prized. In the end, though, I left medicine because I learned that what I really liked to do was help people who were already functional, to become even more so.

So that's why I became a coach. There's no denying that being a coach is a bit more murky as social currency, compared to being a doctor. Coaches are more frequently drawn from a pool of carpet salesmen or retired bankers than they are from extensively trained experts in human behaviour. I am very glad to be my kind of coach though. 

Knowing the origins of thinking and behaviour at the depth that I do, is rare and therefore particularly helpful in my new niche. It happens to give me an advantage in an emerging profession. I get to help people who want to be better in some way, which is no different than what I always wanted to do, except that they are happier, and they make greater use of my help, being more functional, more questioning, and more able to use what they learn. Helping someone to expand their talent, while also addressing pertinent psychological questions, is a technically intriguing and rewarding activity; I am often assured by how much my previous training is helpful. The cherry on the cake is that they are only too happy to know me socially.