Coaching is a framework in which a trained professional (like me) helps you understand how your current thinking and beliefs and behaviors are holding you back. Based on that understanding, we work together to support your effort to make desired changes in your life. We do this largely through on-going practices that will help you build new capacities, capabilities and new points of view. As your coach, I can point the way to what is possible, and can point toward practices that will help you open up those new possibilities, but I cannot make it happen for you–that part is up to you. If you are willing to invest in yourself, and devote time and energy to your own development, profound changes can and usually do result.
The Integral Coaching approach in which I was trained encompasses all facets of the human experience that could contribute to new possibilities and capabilities. My work integrates four different but connected “circles” of your life experience: mind, body, heart/emotion, and what I’ll call soul. By “soul” I mean those aspects of your experience of self that are beyond your body, mind, and emotions, and are therefore difficult to see, touch, or define. These aspects of your experience are not obvious, and they sometimes do not show up at all until we have practiced paying attention to them.
Beliefs (mind), habitual actions (body), and stuck or strongly reactive emotions (mind/body) can be major impediments to changing how life feels to us, and so it is to these areas of our experience that we will turn our attention. We shift our focus from the people and events around you, to the thoughts, beliefs, behaviors and emotional patterns coming from inside you. This shift is powerful when done with awareness, acceptance and compassion.
A typical coaching program includes a 30-minute preview discussion to help you understand the approach, and to help us get to know each other. If we determine that we are a good fit for each other, we will schedule a 90 minute intake discussion for me to get to know you, what you are experiencing in life and how you are responding to that. Following the intake session, I will present a proposed coaching plan, followed by a series of 60-minute coaching sessions. An individual coaching program may include anywhere from 15 to 50 coaching sessions, depending on the coaching goal, where you are in relation to those goals in the beginning, and how we are progressing towards our agreed-upon goals.
Coaching vs. Psychotherapy
Here are some key differences between Coaching (what I do) and Psychotherapy:
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A coach:
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Does not diagnose psychological conditions, syndromes or diseases.
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Does not treat psychological conditions, syndromes or diseases.
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Does not accept health insurance, which requires licensure as a psychotherapist in order to provide a diagnosis to the insurance provider.
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A licensed psychotherapist:
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Can diagnose psychological conditions, syndromes or diseases.
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Can treat psychological conditions, syndromes or diseases.
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Can accept health insurance, because they can provide a psychological diagnosis to the insurance provider.
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