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When to choose Coaching over Psychotherapy?
The coaching relationship is a sacred and committed, helping relationship. It uses a powerful process of inquiry and personal discovery to build clients' levels of awareness and responsibility, and provides ongoing support, structure, feedback, unconditional positive regard, and most importantly, accountability. The coaching process helps clients define their vision and achieve their goals faster and with more ease than would be possible through many other approaches, including traditional psychotherapy. As such "homework" is assigned on a rather regular basis, with accountability built in to assess the results and tweak the next agreed-upon "assignments" accordingly, on a week-to-week basis. With coaching, you will know within a matter of weeks whether it is "working".
It's also important to understand that coaching is based on the notion that we are whole, resourceful, and creative. It does not treat "mental disorders" as defined in the DSM IV (the Diagnostic and Statistical Mental Disorders) and as a result, it is not reimbursable by third-party payers such as insurance companies. In fact, without "medical necessity", which refers to diagnosable disorders, insurance companies rarely, if ever, provide reimbursement. Additionally, coaching tends not to focus on the past excessively, unless the past keeps showing up in the "present". (Then it's not really the past but the present that we're dealing with.)
As a relationship, marriage, family and life coach as well as a career development and executive coach, a job-search coach, a spiritual (and metaphysical) coach, and a dating coach, I help my clients first discover what they want in any and all aspects of their lives -- in their marriages, their family lives, their social and work relationships, their jobs and careers, their inner emotional and psychic sanctums, as well as in their spiritual lives. We then devise practical strategies to get there. The process fuels and motivates clients, allowing them to unlock their own brilliance and skills, overcome their fears or other obstacles, and then take action. It is my clients' goals, dreams, and visions that drive our relationship and the actions taken. The focus is on the present and the future, not the past. Through life coaching, I help my clients design their future rather than get over their past.
The myriad of life's challenges including marital problems, relationship issues, spiritual issues, personal issues, and even many emotional challenges and negative ways of thinking and/or feeling about the world (created by our cognitive and affective styles and beliefs) often fall short of disease, illness, or "disorders", but are sometimes misdiagnosed as such. So often, such life challenges do not reflect pathology (i.e. an abnormal or diseased state) and are, thus, not usually reimbursable by insurance companies. However, many such challenges in our lives can often be helped with practical tools and strategies. These include simply becoming aware of belief systems and negative thought patterns that are not serving us, and learning/practicing new ways of seeing and interacting with the world. I teach and help my clients practice techniques to help free them from sabotaging patterns, including meditation, guided imagery and guided meditation, conscious breathing, Emotional Freedom Technique, ("EFT"), and numerous other alternative and holistic methods of tweaking our lives for the better.
For the job-seeker or person seeking to find and/or fulfill his or her life's purpose or passion, I sometimes initiate the process with brainstorming techniques, the use of inventories and personality questionnaires, intuitive techniques, and/or with various means of holistic tools designed to help in the exploration of ones strengths, skill-sets, and talents (both manifest and latent, or hidden) together with an assessment and exploration of the current career or job landscape within this economic climate. I also work with high school and college students who "don't know what to do with their lives" and need guidance to find their ideal career path. Regardless of your circumstances, we don't overlook the intersection between supply and demand to find a workable and pragmatic, economic fit. I help my clients to develop a pragmatic and deliberate strategy towards attaining their goals and then help them execute it -- step-by-step, addressing and eliminating "seeming" obstacles as they arise. This may involve teaching particular skills or identifying where such skills may be gained, identifying appropriate industries or organizational paths or strategies towards one's desired "end", and creating a structure and a "game plan" within which to make it all happen. My clients' weekly "homework" is a big part of their work. And, as per my coaching packages, I am available between sessions via email and/or phone for ongoing consultation, feedback, and support.
(Please be aware that while I am a Certified Employee Assistance Professional ("CEAP") coaching is NOT the same as my provision of EAP services. EAP services reflect a short-term model that some larger employers provide as a benefit to their employees, often providing anywhere between three and ten free counseling sessions. These sessions are designed primarily to "assess and refer" an individual to the appropriate mental health, substance abuse or other behavioral health professional and/or to provide short-term "treatment" within the framework of the western behavioral health paradigm and do NOT reflect or incorporate the coaching philosophy or paradigm as described above. As a result, and as one example of the differences, EAP work does not incorporate the assignment of "homework" and provide ongoing e-mail and phone support between sessions to assess the level of movement forward towards attaining ones stated goals.)
In sum, in contrast to traditional psychotherapy, with relationship, dating, family, or marriage coaching, executive coaching, spiritual coaching, and all other types of "life coaching":
- The focus is on the present and the future, not the past;
- The goal is not to "fix" a problem, but to CREATE a better situation;
- The relationship is collaborative and ongoing until the client feels that his or her goals have been met; and
- As your coach, I'm your partner and co-creator to support you and hold you accountable for your desired goals;
- You, my clients, are seen as whole, resourceful, and creative, and are not defined by psychodiagnostic labels or seen through the lens of psychopathology (i.e. disease, disorder or illness).
In Contrast, When Should One Choose Psychotherapy over Coaching?
When one is experiencing emotional, mental or behavioral challenges, disturbances, and/or symptoms that produce significant distress and may be long-standing or chronic, and often reflect a "disorder" or "abnormal" set of symptoms, psychotherapy is often necessary and required. Certainly when there is any risk of imminent physical harm -- including active suicidal or homicidal ideation -- coaching is not the appropriate vehicle. Psychotherapy aims at uncovering and healing the often unconscious roots of troubling, often chronic, and disturbing emotional, mental, and behavioral experience. This often involves going into ones past and healing the emotional trauma that triggered the distressing and chronic symptoms. There are many forms of psychotherapy and therapeutic techniques which should be considered to determine which approach best suits the unique needs and goals of the individual. However, my personal belief is that very, very few therapists are trained to truly heal deep emotional trauma.
It is my personal belief and conviction that the vast majority of schools and universities teaching and training clinical psychotherapists do not provide the essential and necessary skill-sets and tools to their students simply because their models of change and healing are often so very limited. So, if you do decide to seek out a mental health professional, be very mindful of choosing one carefully, after having interviewed several providers on the phone and/or in person and/or referred from a trusted source. Be wary of professionals who don't have or aren't willing to give you ten or fifteen minutes on the phone to give you a sense of their style, their personality, and their clinical approach. Put a premium on seeking a feeling and a sense of trust and comfort with someone you've chosen to work with. Also, for the maximum help, put at least as much value on your feeling about a professional's level of compassion, humanity, and integrity as one might do on the number of credentials he or she carries, the level of prestige of his or her graduate and/or undergraduate schools, the number of professional papers he or she has published and/or the awards he or she may have received, etc.
Finally, if you're not feeling that you're making progress -- or seeing results -- within what you may consider to be a reasonable period of time, don't be afraid to confront your therapist with such feelings and to open a dialogue about a time-frame for the above, as well as perhaps adding mesaurable accountability milestones to the process so that it is not an open-ended life-long pursuit with no measures of success. Be wary of therapists who are loathe to discuss such topics with you and/or continue to allow you to work with them seemingly endlessly without ostensible progress, and referring to any such inquiries as to signs of progress a form of "resistance" on your part. These are vestiges of an old psychoanalytic paradigm that, while having helped a few, is fortunately beginning to be replaced with more pragmatically-based and solution-focused therapists of a variety of schools of thought, most notably those incorporating cognitive-behavioral techniques (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and a number of other approaches. Simply put, be a savvy consumer. Caveat emptor.
Having a relationship and life coach who is also a trained, experienced psychotherapist provides you with a professional who can help you to understand the differences between coaching and psychotherapy and determine which approach is suited for your unique needs and goals.
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I provide telephone and face-to-face marriage counseling & coaching as well as psychotherapy around relationship and family issues, parenting issues, sexuality, challenging teenagers, blended or step-family problems, "difficult" in-laws, dating challenges, and provide practical tools to help you achieve your goals. Click here to learn about some of the most common marital problems -- including infidelity -- and their resolution. To learn more about how we heal relationships, especially marriages and other intimate, committed relationships, click on this link to learn how we heal ourselves and our relationships. If you or someone you love is struggling with sexual or pornography addiction or an addiction to food, I can also help.
I provide coaching on stress and anxiety management including meditation training and hypnotherapy. I also work with your religious orientation or spirituality, if desired, and provide spiritual coaching and support. If you're suffering with anxiety, depression, PTSD, or grief, I can help you overcome symptoms and their underlying causes and can help you to overcome traumatic wounds utilizing any of several approaches including EMDR and EFT. Click here to learn about Psychotherapy and Hypnotherapy techniques.
I also offer Career Development and Executive Coaching, Job Search Coaching including Resume Development and Interview Skill Training, and Business / Entrepreneurial Coaching. Such coaching includes not only strategic career, job, organizational, and business planning but also resume / C.V. writing, and interview preparation including role-playing. As a Certified Employee Assistance Professional (CEAP), I I have been a Consultant to Managers of Fortune 500 Corporations, have led Supervisory Workshops and Trainings, and have extensive experience with workplace and organizational issues.
I provide telephone coaching sessions across the U.S.A. and I encourage the use of phone sessions because of the many clinical and pragmatic benefits that it provides. CLICK here to learn about the benefits of phone coaching.
Even if psychotherapy is the appropriate and necessary modality for you, I use practical approaches because traditional talk therapy and counseling often keeps clients stuck in their heads, in their limiting beliefs about themselves, and in the actual counseling itself.
It is crucial not to dwell unnecessarily on the past. However, to the extent that unresolved past issues -- including emotions, thoughts and behaviors -- are still being played out in the present, they are, in truth, present issues.
A sliding- scale is available with reduced rates for those who can't afford my regular fees. I will work with you to come up with something affordable if I feel that I can help you.
I try to turn no one away whom I feel that I can help.
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