With coaching I work more in the present and only take little short trips into the past with clients.
We (that would be you and I!) have a lot more flexibility with coaching.
With coaching I am working with people who are struggling or challenged by stress and anxiety, but not to the degree that they meet the criteria for being "mentally ill".
Coaching can be done in shorter chunks. Often clients will have sessions weekly to get started and then less frequently based on their individual needs.
With counseling you tend to spend more time working and healing issues from the past...
With counseling I am working with people with a diagnosable mental illness.
Insurance companies drive the train with therapy and in order to use your insurance you have to have a "medical condition", which is a "diagnosable mental illness" in the mental health arena.
From an e-mail reply to a potential client, I wrote:
"I understand your frustration with the insurance piece. In my opinion the way insurance works (or actually doesn’t work) is very flawed. I will resist the urge to get on my soapbox on a Sunday morning!
One of the reasons that I am moving the focus of my practice from “counseling” to “coaching” is for exactly what you are experiencing. Mental health providers have worked very hard to take away the stigma of seeing a counselor and to work with insurance companies to have mental health benefits included as “medically necessary”. Unfortunately that still makes people feel like they are seeing a therapist or counselor because something is “wrong” with them and they need to be “fixed”. It is the challenge of the medical model.
I believe that using a coaching model and leaving the insurance company to sort out more truly “medically” related issues allows for people, whether it be teens or adults, to see their issues as more of a matter of guidance. I like to see their thought process be more like “I’m feeling challenged by (fill in the blank here_____ )and I’m looking for someone to assist me in sorting this out so I can move forward.” For some of my teen aged clients I describe myself as being like that “cool aunt” they may or may not have. I’m not a parent or authority figure, just someone they can share with and talk to and who can gently guide them out of the fog and into a clearer direction. Does that make sense?"
Why wait until you have a diagnosable mental health disorder to work with a professional to learn how to deal with your anxiety? Contact Auntie Anxiety to see if Courage Coaching is for you!
