Expanding Services

I am expanding my help services to include life coaching and consulting. I’m going to explain what these services are about and how they fit into my current practice of counselling/psychotherapy. I have a new website that is mostly finished (a couple things to do) so please stop by and check it out. Also, if you know of anyone that can use any of my services, please pass it along!

Coaching

I’m adding life coaching to my services because I find that a lot of my clients who come in for counselling are not necessarily looking for what I would call therapy. I am finding that people are looking for a push, people are looking for perspective, and people are looking for a way to bring movement to their lives. Sometimes this means working through tough emotional baggage but a lot of the time it does not. I think it has become harder and harder for people to make decisions in such an existentially complicated world. It has also become harder for the average friend or family member to help a loved one who feels lost.

But why call it coaching and not counselling? Does it really matter? Well, yes and no. No, it doesn’t matter because it all happens within a conversation between my client(s) and me and will sometimes feel no different. Yes, it matters because of the approach and mindset I will take as well as what my client and I decide is our goal. To me it is about utilizing the correct paradigm of helping. My training is in counselling and letting the client lead the way. My training is in psychology, which can often look only at problems but not so much at solutions or strengths. I will continue to follow the client’s lead in coaching but I will take a much more active and direct role in helping them find solutions. I will be in some ways an accountability partner as well. In other ways I will be an outside perspective. Ultimately my training taught me to gain perspective while in a system, so part of my overall expertise is in offering perspective while in dialogue. Obviously it is somewhat biased by who I am, but that is why it is a conversation between two people (sometimes more), mostly focused on the client.

Life coaching is different from counselling or psychotherapy (terms I use interchangeably) in that counselling is often about working through deeper emotional issues that keep one stuck. Coaching might touch on those but for some they would have already done that work, and for others, it’s just not what they are looking for. People will utilize me for perspective, good questions, and compassionate understanding.

Consulting

The way I approach consulting is not as an expert might. It is the same way I approach counselling or coaching – it is a process dialogue that enables the client to figure out their own problems with an outside perspective assisting in the process. It is not necessary for me to have had all the problems my counselling clients have in order to help them because my help is not in offering advice on the best way to go. My help is in bringing about the answers one might have within themselves, or at least the abilities a person or group has to solve their own problems.

What can become difficult when managing a company, small business, or family business, is not being able to see the forest for the trees. When we are immersed in the system, or problem, it can be difficult for any of us to process it in a way that is most helpful. My consulting assistance will be focused on helping leaders, managers, and groups step outside their own box long enough to create their own solutions. Also, many times what is needed is a partial or full paradigm shift and systems can begin functioning at high levels again.

Further, I can help businesses and groups work through conflict. As we all know, most problems within a group are relational. My work with families and couples helps me to stand outside the relationship and help the system to understand part of what is going on. Only they can fill in the rest.

Lastly, I bring a humanistic/existential philosophy with me. What does that mean? Well, it means that I bring an understanding that humans are whole, not parts, and that those whole humans make up parts of a system. We often miss this when in systems and so human beings are left misunderstood, left behind, and left unappreciated. It is also about understanding the deeper human needs many of us have and how they drive everything we do, from within families, romantic relationships, and the workplace. I feel it is extremely important to live life and manage others from a compassionate place.

Please stop by my website and have a look around or suggest me to someone who might be in need of these two new services.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.