GPYB Coaching FAQ
Other coaches may answer these questions differently, but this is the GPYB response to questions received over the years:
What is coaching?
“Coaching” started about 30 years ago in the business and entertainment world. Many corporations (including major corporations such as IBM and JP Morgan Chase) found that hiring motivational coaches helped their employees to achieve their goals and excel in their positions and plan for promotion. Many celebrities hired coaches to help them succeed in their career goals, change their images and stay focused on their paths. Both of these industries took full advantage of the fact that coaching gives clients a goal to reach and a plan to get there.
As word spread that an excellent coach can make the difference in a person’s success and was touted by people such as Oprah, people sought out their own life coaches. Qualified coaches can make a big difference in a person’s life and are now available outside the business and entertainment worlds.
The main attraction of coaching is that it is usually done in a systematic way for a limited time. Because it originated with people who wanted to succeed in high-powered careers, the steps involved need to be clear and purposeful. Clients need to know when they’re going to get where they want to go. We understand that not everyone is on the same time frame and that they do not fit into the same box. Some people take longer than others to go through the same program. Many people retain their coach for years but set different plans and goals every few months. Many leave and come back when they’re ready for a new phase.
There are certain exercises that coaches and clients agree to work on together. In GPYB Coaching we have a list of things to go through before the coaching is “complete.” Coaches help clients to succeed in reaching their goals and focus on the issues at hand. When hiring a coach, a client usually has a specific goal in mind and a coach developed a structured plan for that client to reach his or her goals.
Since you are trained in both, why do you offer “coaching” instead of “therapy”?
Many therapists and coaches have very definitive answers to this question and are adamant about their point of view. Most coaches will say that coaching is about the future while therapy is about the past. Many therapists will say that coaches are simply using “coaching” as a way to practice therapy without a license. Some coaches and therapists take an adversarial position to the other, while some work together for the good of the client.
As a former therapist, I have my own take on the differences and similarities.
I was a therapist for years and found that clients came to therapy not clear on what to expect. They were depressed or anxious or just feeling a general malaise. They wanted to talk and to have the therapist guide them through their sessions and get to the source of their problem. Many therapists are trained to listen and to be empathic but not to advise or answer questions. (So many of my clients will say, “I went to this therapist for months and he/she didn’t SAY anything. That is actually the training some have…to be an empathic listener and hopefully give the client the supportive atmosphere to find the answers. It’s not “wrong” but it’s not right for everyone.) Other therapists are more pro-active depending on the modality they practice. Therapists often adhere to one school of theoretical thought (i.e. psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, rational-emotive etc) and learn one approach.
Before I was a therapist, I went to a therapist who specialized in psychodynamic therapy where we explored the past. I had a lot of unresolved issues from childhood and absolutely needed to be with a psychodynamic therapist. I learned a lot about myself but there were pieces of “healing” that were missing.
At the time I worked for a very large corporation. As I said before, businesses were clued into coaching before the “outside” world was. As a requirement of my job, I attended a motivational coaching program called “Investment in Excellence.” It was something that truly enhanced the work I was doing in therapy. IIE taught me about cognitive-behavioral techniques such as affirmations and goal-setting. I had such good results when adding IIE to what I was doing in therapy, I became an IIE facilitator and taught corporate groups.
While working there, I returned to school to get my Master’s in Counseling Psychology. There I was able to learn of all the theories, work in an internship and start to see private clients. While in graduate school I suffered a lot of losses in one year and started a grief group based on the method outlined in The Grief Recovery Handbook. Later that year, I certified as a Grief Recovery Specialist.
After graduate school I worked as an Emergency Services Psychiatric Clinician. My job was to evaluate and recommend treatment (sometimes hospitalization) for clients in crisis. I learned a lot about mental illness and personality disorders. I also worked with families of patients, especially the partners of personality-disordered clients. In addition I had a private grief counseling practice and a motivational seminar business. As part of my own goal-setting, I decided to go to law school and fulfill a dream I’d had since I was very young. Unfortunately while I was in law school 9/11 happened and the economy tanked and I did not have the opportunity to practice the kind of law I wanted to do which was mediation and mental health.
Even though I was a lawyer and no longer had a counseling practice, many people came to me wanting to talk about problems, knowing I was a former therapist. So, I started teaching classes again to help people achieve their goals and though I used a lot of the IIE formula, I added a psychodynamic component and a grief recovery component. I developed what was called the Getting Past Your Past system. It was observation, preparation and cultivation of the cognitive, behavioral and psychodynamic. Although most of the components of GPYP were not original to me, the format certainly was. I later started a blog for my students.
The blog became very successful after I answered a series of letters about breakups. Getting Past Your Past morphed into Getting Past Your Breakup, followed by a book published by Da Capo / Perseus Books, a New York publishing house.
After the book was published, I received dozens of requests for one-on-one counseling and resisted it for a long time. Many clients were seeking therapy in a traditional therapeutic setting. However, I found that even though GPYB has a psychodynamic component, for those clients that need it, the GPYB program was more like coaching than like therapy.
Getting Past Your Breakup is designed more like coaching because it’s very client-specific, structured and time-limited.
Many readers of the GPYB blog will request 1 or 2 coaching sessions, which is certainly acceptable and I welcome that. However most GPYB clients typically attend weekly coaching for 4-8 weeks. After 4-8 weeks clients either terminate in a structured manner (1 or 2 sessions) or reduce coaching to once or twice a month and thereafter, on an as-needed basis. Coaching is much more flexible than therapy and we discuss the best way to go about the coaching schedule. As we enter a different phase of the program, we will talk about the schedule. Everyone is different and some may benefit from a session or two where others want to stay in coaching until they have completed all the inventories. I’ve had clients check in for one or two coaching sessions and I’ve had clients stay for over a year while we worked on the inventories. If you choose to do all the inventories, it will take more time. But we talk about this and we don’t ever want a client to feel forced into coaching. You can schedule GPYB coaching as often as you like or stretch it out more. If you’re unsure, we can talk about it together.
I do believe that as coaches we’re here to champion the willing clients. As therapists we may spend much time trying to deal with a client’s resistance to change. That is part of being a therapist. As a coach, I will accept clients who are still in their relationship or hoping for reconciliation, but both of those things will need to change in short order. I can’t do “breakup” coaching for people who are not actually in a breakup or in denial that they are in a breakup. Everyone goes through denial to some degree but if a client is not willing to face that it’s over within a few weeks and doesn’t want to be coached in that direction, I think we are both wasting time by continuing. Unlike my therapy practice, I don’t spend a lot of time battling a client’s resistance unless they are really working to overcome it.
As both a therapist and a coach I have clients who leave and never come back. It’s part of the territory, especially in therapy. As both a therapist and a coach, I have welcomed back clients who have left whether we talked about it or didn’t. I welcome back clients who couldn’t go on because of their resistance or clients who left because they really weren’t ready to do the work or something I said or something that they thought I said or whatever. But if the client comes back, we discuss their willingness to stay this time around. But I don’t take it personally when people leave and almost always welcome them back (unless they’ve been abusive or inappropriate…then, no).
I never felt, as a therapist, that therapy, other than crisis counseling, worked well over the phone. However, GPYB coaching works well in-person, over the phone or via Skype except for couples counseling which must be done in person.
What do you recommend for people who have been in the mental health system or in therapy for years?
I recommend that they keep their relationship with their therapist and/or doctor and when we talk for the first time, tell me they are under a doctor’s care. I cannot work with someone who is not compliant with medication treatment or who is supposed to be under the direct care of a doctor and is not.
What Kind of Coaching Do You Do?
I specialize in Relationship and Breakup Coaching but as you go through the GPYB program, you will touch on all areas of your life because rebuilding is a very important part of moving forward. GPYB coaching includes raising self-esteem, establishing boundaries in all areas of your life, grieving your losses (not just your recent breakup) and learning self-soothing techniques. You will work out the bad while working in the good and will be well on your way to a happy and healthy life.
Part of Relationship Coaching can include parenting coaching. If you are having issues with your children, we include sessions to make you an effective parent who can raise healthy, happy children.
If you are in an abusive relationship or getting out of an abusive relationship, following the GPYB coaching program will be the best defense against finding yourself in another bad relationship. You can move on from this hurt and become happy and healthy.
I coach clients who are returning to the world of dating to help them make good choices and establish boundaries.
I also coach families, especially blended families that have issues with ex partners and children.
I have a special coaching program that is done in-person only called “For Couples on the Brink” for couples who are on the verge of breakup but both partners are committed to finding ways to make it work. This requires a weekly in-person commitment.
Can Coaching Be Used In Conjunction with Therapy and Support Groups?
Absolutely. Most GPYB coaching clients see therapists or psychiatrists or attend 12 step or other support groups. Some clients have life coaches who help with their career goals. Many therapists and even other coaches have recommended GPYB coaching to their clients.
Who Are Your Clients?
My clientele includes men and women, young and old, gay and straight. My clients are from every socio-economic background from high-level executives to students. My oldest client is in her 60s and my youngest in early 20s. Some of my clients are coming out of long-term relationships and some out of short-term relationships.
As part of my coaching agreement, which my clients and I sign, I adhere to the highest standards of confidentiality. I am also a licensed attorney so any ethical breaches of my coaching clientele would affect my law license. I adhere to the highest standards of ethics with my coaching clients.
When Are You Available?
My schedule changes weekly, but I usually have hours every day, including weekends. Many of my clients are in other countries and I work my schedule around their time zone and those hours are not usually published. My in-person schedule is more limited, but clients are welcome to mix in-person and phone coaching if need be. I work with my clients to schedule coaching at a time that is most convenient to them. If you need coaches during what you might consider “odd” hours, email me and we can discuss it.
What Do You Charge?
A consultation is $49 for 45 minutes though you are welcome to send me the issues in email prior to the call.
One hour of phone or Skype coaching is $69 but there is a 4 session package available for $240. Clients are welcome to send email between sessions.
In person coaching is $79 an hour for the first time and $69 thereafter. For couples it is $149 a session which is 90 minutes.
GPYB Coaching takes Visa, Mastercard and PayPal. You do NOT have to use PayPal to pay. There is also another method of payment. Email me and I will send you the link.
In-person clients may pay cash, check or credit card and will receive a receipt.
You may schedule an appointment and pay through the scheduler or call me to book an appointment. All appointments must be paid for prior to the session.
Any more questions, feel free to email me.
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