Offices at:
516 Route 303, Orangeburg, NY10962 in Rockland County
(near Nyack, New City, Blauvelt, Spring Valley and Northern NJ)
and 10 West Shore Drive, Putnam Valley, NY 10579 in Putnam County
(minutes from Katonah and Yorktown Heights, NY 10536 & 10598 in Westchester County)
david@davidswilde.com
845-825-0599
Click on the following topics to learn more about the services I offer:
When to Choose Life Coaching vs. 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.
Also, it's 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.
As a relationship and life coach, a marriage and family coach, an executive, business, job-search and academic coach, and a spiritual 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, 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. I help my clients design their future rather than get over their past.
This means that 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 (our cognitive and affective styles and beliefs) which fall short of disease, illness, or "disorders", but are so often misdiagnosed as such, very often do not reflect pathology (i.e. an abnormal or diseased state) are not usually reimbursable by insurance companies. However, many such challenges in our lives can often be helped with practical tools and strategies including becoming aware of belief systems that are not serving us including negative thought patterns, the learning and practicing of new ways to see and interact with the world, and techniques to help free us from such sabotaging patterns. These include stress-reduction tools such as meditation, guided imagery, "conscious breathing" techniques, Emotional Freedom Technique ("EFT"), and numerous other techniques designed to reinvent ourselves and our lives for the better.
(Also, 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 between five and ten free 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 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 improvement of ones chosen objectives. )
In sum, in contrast to traditional psychotherapy, with relationship coaching, spiritual (including metaphysical) and 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 am your partner and co-creator to support you and hold you accountable for your desired goals.
- My clients are seen as whole, resourceful, and creative, and are not defined by psychodiagnostic labels or seen through the lens of pathology (i.e. disease, disorder or illness).
When should you 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. Psychotherapy aims at uncovering and healing the often unconscious roots of troubling 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's my personal belief and conviction that the vast majority of schools and universities teaching and training psychotherapists don't provide the essential and necessary skill-sets and tools to their students because their model of healing is often so very limited and based on antiquated models of change. So, if you do decide to seek out a mental health professional, be very mindful of choosing one carefully, after having interviewed several on the phone and/or in person and/or referred a referral 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 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 has received, etc. don't hesitate to tell your therapist that you feel you're not making enough progress.
Indeed, feel free to ask for earmarks or measurable indicators of progress as well as for a reasonable time-line so that you're not in therapy for the rest of your life with no ostensible improvement in what brought you to therapy. Be particularly wary if your therapist calls you "resistant" after a considerable period of time -- which, of course is subjective, once you indicate your dissatisfaction with the degree to which you feel your situation has improved. He or she may be basing such assessment on a the vestiges of the psychoanalytic paradigm which, unfortunately, can keep you coming to the wrong clinician -- or utilizing an approach that is not working for you -- for years upon years with no evidence of success or improvement. Happily, many more proactive and accountability-based schools of psychotherapy -- including cognitive and behavioral approaches (i.e. CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Solution-Based Therapy and others -- are becoming more and more popular.
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 with psychotherapeutic techniques and can help you to overcome trauma utilizing any of several approaches including EMDR and EFT.
I also offer Career and Business Coaching. My vocational coaching includes not only strategic career, job 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.
Sliding scale fees are available 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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About 18 months ago, I found myself at a crossroads in my career and personal life. Being a physician myself, I wasn't sure what to expect from a life coach I found through the internet. Looking back, I consider myself very lucky to have discovered David S. Wilde in exactly this way.
In the past, I've tried traditional therapy several times but never found it helpful, only frustrating. What made the life coach experience with David Wilde so different is that he encouraged me to focus on my strengths and not my weaknesses. He didn't treat me as someone with a psychological problem but rather as an individual with a range of choices. He made it his job to help me sort through the options, to let go of those that would increase my frustration, and to pursue alternatives that would bring me happiness.
With David's help, I was able to find a great job that gives me everything I was hoping for in terms of enjoyment and the feeling that what I do is valuable. And more importantly, in my personal life, I was able to define what I needed in a relationship and to understand why my significant other at the time wasn't serving my best interests. David's perceptions are laser-sharp when it comes to assessing the pluses and minuses of relationships. What I appreciated most were that he always highlighted my abilities, rooted for me, and helped me to make the correct decision. After every session, I felt empowered and invigorated -- a far cry from traditional psychotherapy, which delves into the origins of one's flaws and can cause a sense of sadness, loss, or inadequacy.
David gives his clients homework -- but he does his homework too. At every session I knew he had read what I emailed to him, and not only that, he also thought about it. At the beginning, he used a device called the Wheel of Life. Initially, mine was lacking in satisfaction in several areas. After a few short months of working with David, I can honestly say that every segment of my Wheel of Life is close to 100% in terms of happiness and fulfillment of my goals. ~Susan, Physician |
