How I Work With Clients

For many years, I have been helping people find and maintain balance, set and achieve their goals, and create the lives they wish to live.

Life coaching is a partnership. I am a deep listener, committed to accompanying my clients as they ride the sometimes smooth, sometimes roller-coaster-like pathways of their lives. I engender trust because my clients know, as the late Leonard Cohen put it, “I’ve been where you’re hanging, I think I can see where you’re pinned.” In the coaching relationship, I foster a structured yet dynamic environment in which my clients can  clearly envision their goals, deal creatively with present challenges, and achieve the lives they wish to live, one doable step at a time. 

In addition to 1:1 coaching, I invite my clients to access my course Mastering the Art of Balance: Stay Sane in an Insane World as part of the process. The course packs decades of experience and acquired wisdom, and the core system I use in my work with clients, into one place. It's a system that helps you keep balanced now and stay resilient regardless of what you encounter going forward. Please check out my free course Art of Balance Basic Training for a selection of the key concepts and techniques of the full course.

How is Life Coaching Different From Psychotherapy?

People sometimes ask me what the difference is between life coaching and psychotherapy. These methods have many qualities in common, but there are some basic differences.

Life Coaching focuses on envisioning your desired future and then making it your new reality. Coaching helps you identify and achieve specific life or career goals. It is more structured than psychotherapy, is sometimes more time-limited, and is typically not covered by health insurance. The life coaching I do is adapted from one of the methods I used as a therapist, Solution-Focused Therapy. You start by imagining what your life will be like if all the problems, concerns, or obstacles you have today are no longer there, and your goals have already been achieved. Then we move together toward this vision, session by session, step by step. 

The ultimate aim of psychotherapy is deep and lasting healing. Like life coaching, psychotherapy is about developing ways to live the best life you can, and sometimes similar strategies are used. However, in psychotherapy, progress often seems slower than in coaching because the needed changes are deeper and there is emotional repair work that must be done in order to build a firmer foundation. Psychotherapy typically combines past, present, and future work. In addition to helping clients solve current problems and overcome current obstacles, psychotherapy helps people identify self-defeating patterns of behavior, thought, and feeling, and to change them to more self-actualizing ones. In the safe and supportive environment of the therapeutic relationship, old wounds can be healed and untapped potential can be freed. Psychotherapy is covered by insurance as long as the psychotherapist takes your insurance and your treatment is considered medically necessary.

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