Behavioral Health Coaching IS NOT therapy or a replacement for therapy
What IS Behavioral Health Coaching?
Behavioral Health Coaching (sometimes called “Mental Health Coaching” or “Emotional Wellness Coaching”) provides clients with tools they can use to build a life worth living- and then live that life! It’s an excellent resource for those who may be feeling “stuck in a rut” - struggling to manage stress, worry, life transitions, work/life balance, unhelpful patterns in personal/professional relationships, negative thinking patterns, destructive lifestyle habits, etc. We don’t just help you cope, we help you improve how you think about and perceive life’s challenges.
BH coaches work collaboratively with you to set realistic and achievable wellness goals, and create strategies to help guide you towards those goals. To maximize effectiveness, coaches may even recommend tasks to complete outside of coaching to practice what you’ve learned. In this process, you can also learn how to coach yourself.
BH Coaching uses proven modalities like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques, mindfulness, and motivational interviewing to assist clients in meeting their personalized goals.
BH coaching is action-oriented, addressing various life challenges. Unlike therapy, it focuses on the present and future, and addresses only non-clinical symptoms.
With the help of a Behavioral Health coach, improvements can be achieved in:
Your coping mechanisms
Your self-concept (including body image, self-worth, self-compassion, self-love)
Your mental clarity
Your communication skills
Your core beliefs and automatic thinking styles
Your ability to manage your work/life balance
Your personal and professional relationships
Your focus and enthusiasm for your life and well-being
Your emotion regulation skills
Your self-care routines
Your diet/sleep/exercise routines
Your overall quality of life
What ISN’T Behavioral Health Coaching?
Behavioral Health coaching IS NOT therapy or a replacement for therapy.
Behavioral Health coaching is different than therapy in that it helps you to address non-clinical mental health issues that may be negatively impacting your personal or professional life. It helps you look forward instead of dwelling on the past, and looks at current triggers that may be affecting your emotional and physical well-being.
Therapy is the process of meeting with a Licensed Mental Health Clinician for the treatment of moderate to severe mental health symptoms and often times diagnosable mental health conditions. Therapy is introspective and often involves process based goals as opposed to BH coaching’s outcome based goals. Therapists tend to ask more open-ended questions that may lead to new discoveries & insights. Therapy is broader-reaching than coaching, often including a deeper understanding of the client’s past experiences and relationships. By exploring the past and present, therapy helps clients start to understand why things are the way they are.
BH coaching, on the other hand, is more focused on making a change to the client’s present emotional and behavioral challenges OR pro-actively supporting mental health and wellness to avoid developing emotional and behavioral challenges.
BH coaching can discuss similar topics to therapy, but the key difference lies with the severity of the issue. BH coaching is for when you are doing okay but would like to do better, while therapy is for when you are not doing well and need to get better.
If you are struggling with your own mental health, receiving the appropriate level of care is of utmost importance. If your mental health symptoms significantly impair your everyday functioning, therapy may be the best fit for you.
Therapy can provide treatment for conditions such as mood disorders, anxiety disorders, substance use disorders, personality disorders, etc. Therapists can and do provide coaching, but coaches CANNOT provide therapy. BH coaching can be appropriate for those in the maintenance phase of therapy who could benefit from ongoing practice and partnership.
The bottom line? Behavioral Health coaches offer valuable takeaways to help clients discover and achieve their full potential. While therapy is often more about healing from the past, BH coaching is action and future-oriented.
Who is a good fit for Behavioral Health Coaching?
Behavioral Health Coaching is a valuable choice for clients who aren’t experiencing a pressing mental health concern but are still looking to improve their quality of life. These clients may be struggling with problems that are mainly situational or temporary (such as work stress or burnout) or they may be seeking a pro-active approach to maintaining their mental health and overall well-being. With a BH coach, clients can gain confidence, further explore their self-identity, cope with daily stressors or life transitions, and focus on building a life worth living.
BH coaching could be a great option if you are functioning fairly well in your day to day life, but feel you could benefit from a greater sense of emotional well-being. BH coaching is also a good option for clients wanting to supplement their existing mental health treatment (in a situation like this, it’s important to have a transparent conversation with your therapist and coach to ensure the care you’re receiving in each location is unique and appropriate for separate concerns). Clients who have “graduated” from therapy but want ongoing support also make excellent BH coaching clients. My BH coaching clients typically feel stuck or stagnant in one or more areas of life (relationship, family, career, holistic health, identity, personal happiness, etc.)
Behavioral Health coaching is NOT ideal for:
Those who are located in Texas or Oregon (I only provide therapy services for clients in these states)
Those who are looking for (or need) a friend or therapist.
Those who are not ready to invest in their healing or are financially unstable.
Those who are not ready to show up for themselves and do the work!
Coaching Services
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Individual Behavioral Health Coaching
With a BH coach, clients can gain confidence, further explore their self-identity, cope with daily stressors or life transitions, and focus on building a life worth living.
Sessions are one-on-one, via Zoom, and varying lengths (15-30-45-60 mins) based on client needs. In each session I use a number of different therapeutic and coaching modalities, based on client goals.
Virtual: Anywhere outside of Texas or Oregon
15 mins: $40 | 30 mins: $80 | 45 mins: $115 | 60 mins: $150
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Couples/Dyad Communication Skills Coaching
Is it hard for the two of you to talk about important topics without fighting? Do differing communication styles make it hard to feel heard, understood, and supported- even though you know your partner cares about you?
Communication skills coaching can help. Drawing on skillsets from various EBTs like EFT, CBT, & DBT- we will work together to create a shared language that will help you have healthy conversations about difficult topics, listen to one another with generosity and openness, respect each other's experience and regard it as valuable as your own, and do the work needed to achieve your desired communication and relational outcomes.
Available virtually or in-person
60 mins: $175
PLEASE NOTE: While therapists can and do provide coaching (usually in the maintenance phase of treatment), coaches CANNOT provide therapy. As such, I do not provide individual coaching in the states where I am licensed to provide therapy. Therapy is a fuller and more comprehensive behavioral health service and being a therapy client allows for a much broader range of treatment options.
DISCLAIMER:
In order to ethically offer coaching services as a licensed therapist, I must:
Treat coaching clients as therapy clients in terms of ethics, and abide by all state laws and rules governing my therapy licenses, including but not limited to mandated reporting, dual relationships, and record keeping.
Educate clients and potential clients about the limits of coaching as a service, and how we will proceed if it becomes clear that they need therapy (i.e. I will refer you to another therapist).
Reiterate, that although I am a licensed provider, I am not providing therapy, mental health services, or health care services to coaching clients.
Inform clients that I will honor their confidentiality to the extent allowed by law, but that coaching clients may not be afforded the same legal rights to confidentiality as therapy clients.