What is Coaching?

Coaching is NOT therapy. Though my ability to observe and counsel has been honed by my education and experience as a therapist, Collaborative Coaching is a way to help clients who have had prior treatment for their addictions, but who continue to face difficulty in their life free of chemical dependency. I work with the client's inherent strengths and help guide them, encourage them, and at times even take them to support meetings in the community.

Coaching may involve phone conversations, homework practices, computer correspondence, and when appropriate, one-on-one sessions in my office.

My style of coaching utilizes assessments, asking the right questions, listening to what you tell me, identifying your strengths and resources, helping you overcome barriers to success, helping you develop a high degree of self-care, and assisting you in clarifying your goals. I use a step by step strategy and will help you continually evaluate your progress.



Specific differences between coaching and psychotherapy

  • Coaching
  • Phone or face to face
  • Short-term
  • Goal-focused/action-oriented
  • Structured with assignments
  • Email contact between sessions
  • Strengths-based/wellness model
  • Emphasis on present to future
  • Expansion toward the future
  • Psychotherapy
  • Face to face
  • Short-term or long-term
  • Feelings/process-oriented
  • No specific structure
  • Minimal contact between sessions
  • Deficits/pathology model
  • Emphasis on past to present
  • Healing of the past