How can career and leadership coaching help me?
Coaches can provide support, structure and direction in your career and leadership journey through enhanced problem-solving skills.
- Attain a better understanding of yourself, your goals and values
- Improve your satisfaction, effectiveness, and advancement in your career
- Find resolution to the issues or concerns that led you to seek coaching
- Improve critical skills and boost self-confidence
Which states are you accepting clients from?
I am currently accepting clients located in the following states:
Alabama Idaho Nevada Texas Arizona Illinois New Hampshire Utah Arkansas Indiana New Jersey Virginia Colorado Kansas North Carolina Washington Commonwealth of the Kentucky North Dakota West Virginia Northern Mariana Islands Maine Ohio Wisconsin Connecticut Maryland Oklahoma Wyoming Delaware Michigan Pennsylvania District of Columbia Minnesota Rhode Island Florida Missouri South Carolina Georgia Nebraska Tennessee
What is the difference between Coaching and Psychotherapy?
In addition to being a coach, I am also a licensed psychologist in Ohio and Colorado with training and experience in diagnosing and treating emotional problems. I have Authority to Practice Interjurisdictional Telepsychology (APIT) with individuals located in other Compact States. These states are listed at the end of this agreement. While there are some similarities between coaching and psychotherapy, they are very different activities and it is important that you understand the differences between them. Psychotherapy is a health care service and is usually reimbursable through health insurance policies. This is not true for coaching. Both coaching and psychotherapy utilize knowledge of human behavior, motivation and behavioral change, and interactive counseling techniques. The major differences are in the goals, focus, and level of professional responsibility.
The focus of coaching is development and implementation of strategies to reach client-identified goals of enhanced performance and personal satisfaction. Coaching may address specific personal projects, life balance, job performance and satisfaction, or general conditions in the client’s life, business, or profession. Coaching utilizes personal strategic planning, values clarification, brainstorming, motivational counseling, and other counseling techniques.
The primary foci of psychotherapy are identification, diagnosis, and treatment of mental and nervous disorders. The goals of psychotherapy include alleviating symptoms, understanding the underlying dynamics which create symptoms, changing dysfunctional behaviors which are the result of these disorders, and developing new strategies for successfully coping with the psychological challenges which we all face. Most research on psychotherapy outcomes indicates that the quality of the relationship is most closely correlated with therapeutic progress. Psychotherapy patients are often emotionally vulnerable. This vulnerability is increased by the expectation that they will discuss very intimate personal data and expose feelings about themselves about which they are understandably sensitive. The past life experiences of psychotherapy patients have often made trust difficult to achieve. These factors give psychotherapists greatly disproportionate power that creates a fiduciary responsibility to protect the safety of their clients and to “above all else, do no harm.”
The relationship between the coach and client is specifically designed to avoid the power differentials that occur in the psychotherapy relationship. The client sets the agenda and the success of the enterprise depends on the client’s willingness to take risks and try new approaches. The relationship is designed to be more direct and challenging. You can count on your coach to be honest and straightforward, asking powerful questions and using challenging techniques to move you forward. You are expected to evaluate progress and when coaching is not working as you wish, you should immediately inform me so we can both take steps to correct the problem.
Because of these differences, the roles of coach and psychotherapist are often in potential conflict and I believe that, under most circumstances, it is ethically inappropriate for one to play both roles with a client, whether concurrently or sequentially. Positive change is difficult enough without having to worry about role confusion. This means that if either of us recognizes that you have a problem that would benefit from psychotherapeutic intervention, I will refer you to appropriate resources. In some situations, I may insist that you initiate psychotherapy and that I have access to your psychotherapist as a condition of my continuing as your coach.
It is also important to understand that coaching is a professional relationship. While it may often feel like a close personal relationship, it is not one that can extend beyond professional boundaries both during and after our work together. Considerable experience shows that when boundaries blur, the hard won benefits gained from the coaching relationship are endangered.