Psychotherapy and coaching-adding a new dimension to my therapy practice

A Lifelong Student

Last year, I took a year-long coaching training, Applied Existential Coaching, facilitated by my long-time Gestalt consultants. When I signed up for this training I wasn’t sure of my intention, although I was drawn to explore how I might officially incorporate coaching into my therapy practice. As I think of my journey as a therapist, even before I took this training, I realized that there are moments when I step into a coaching role.

My Experience with Coaching

I’ve been a client of coaching several times over the last 25 years, particularly when I was making my career transition from 15 years in biotechnology to psychotherapy. I worked with one coach, in particular, who helped me tremendously to move forward. He helped me set a clear goal and address the obstacles in my way of achieving that goal, which included facing financial abuse in my family that was keeping me from allowing myself to make money doing something I love.

Over 22 years later with a very successful private practice, my life is a living example of the power of effective coaching. 

The Integration of Coaching into my Practice

To be clear, I am not stepping away from my passion and work with trauma resolution. While the focus of psychotherapy in general is to resolve trauma and negative core beliefs that block happiness and effective functioning, coaching is more focused on helping clients to embrace their full potential to achieve a specific goal.

In my case, I had to resolve my “fear of the bag lady.” Having come from a family where money was used as manipulation and wanting nothing to do with that, I unconsciously sabotaged myself by not allowing myself to have, or like, money. I have a brother who died homeless on a street corner in Denver. My father, despite having achieved wealth, had a gambling problem. He lost it all and died indigent. In order to achieve my goal of making a successful career transition and working for myself, I had to address my fear of being homeless as well as my core beliefs about having money with both psychotherapy and coaching. There was a blending of the two approaches.

I have always known that our thoughts create our reality, although I had an internal conflict around manifesting. There seemed to be more to this than envisioning the thing we want and saying some affirmations. I knew there was something much deeper and more important.

When I met my teacher, Rod Stryker, I knew I had found what I was searching for with my interest in and draw to The Four Desires, a process based in Vedic teachings in yoga about living a life of purpose, abundance, happiness and freedom.

I embraced this process whole-heartedly, experiencing first-hand the truth of this process and teachings. The Four Desires is a process based on ancient spiritual teachings to connect with our soul’s purpose and not just material abundance, although material abundance may come when we are aligned with our dharma, our soul’s purpose. I also realized that I had been aligned with these principles long before I found The Four Desires, although The Four Desires gave me a concrete path to put the principles into practice. 

My Approach to Coaching

While the foundation of my coaching practice is based on the principles outlined in The Four Desires, I bring a broader spectrum of tools to address what blocks us:  

• The Hakomi method of mindfulness-centered somatic psychotherapy. Originally referred to as body-centered psychotherapy, the core premise of Hakomi is that the body holds internalized beliefs and thought patterns that have become unconscious. Hakomi changed my life over 40 years ago.

• Internal Family Systems, or IFS, developed by Richard Schwartz, PhD. I was first exposed to IFS around 20 years ago when IFS was small. More casually referred to as “parts work,” the focus in IFS is on how different parts of us hold traumas, burdens and belief systems that block the light of our true nature, the organizing principle as one of my clients referred to it, or Self energy. 

• EMDR therapy is an effective and powerful method to unblock and resolve traumatic memory.  While I am not able to incorporate EMDR therapy across state lines (I am licensed in Colorado), and able to encourage the application of bilateral stimulation, of BLS, without engaging in the formal EMDR process. BLS has a soothing and calming effect on the nervous system, engaging both hemispheres of the brain.  

• A committed student of yoga and meditation for over 25 years, I encourage specific breathing, meditation and some physical practices into my approach to therapy and coaching.  

As I embark on the journey of adding coaching to my therapy practice, my mission is to help people who are struggling to feel a sense of purpose either in life in general or in their current career, as well as helping people align with their true calling to create fulfillment and abundance. To learn more about life coaching with me, please complete the contact form.