Although the work has many similarities, my Life Consultation is a superior alternative to all forms of coaching.
If life coaches were more like the best sports coaches I had in high school, I'd be all for it. However, they appear to be more like personal project leaders. Life coaches encourage life balance (work, family, health, spirituality, and so on), they help create measurable goals in those categories, they help prioritize them, they ask you to show them when goals are completed, and so on. Life coaches actively engage with you by sharing interpersonal pleasantries and cheerleading success, but they can also be somewhat detached (asking "Do you want to recommit to the goal or drop it?", without actively giving advice). Finally, some coaches specialize. So, there are dating coaches, career coaches, sports-performance coaches, executive coaches, and so on.
Coaching focuses almost exclusively on the organizational part of reaching goals, and my Life Consultation places more emphasis on developing effective emotional approaches to goal completion. As a former manager in a Fortune 500 company, I can either do someone's project leading for them, or I can help them to remove obstacles from being their own, best project leader. I'd rather do the latter.
A second difference is that my experience is broad. In addition to having advanced training in teaching emotion management, I have expertise in dating consultation (finding a compatible spouse), career/executive consultation (I have worked with several CEOs and a Director of Human Resources), educational consultation (effective test taking, writing papers), and gay-lifestyle consultation (coming out issues, reconciling lifestyle with spirituality, and much more).
A third difference is that I'm not shy about offering my opinions and advice. Just like a personal trainer who sees you putting too much weight on the bar or a financial advisor who is concerned about a risky investment, I lobby strongly and sometimes emotionally for my point of view. After speaking up about my concern for you, I will honor your decision, even if it is different than what I advised: I'll quickly shift my focus and guide you on the path that you've chosen.
I have successfully worked with clients whose coaches blamed them when goal monitoring and cheerleading alone didn't lead to successful goal completion. Instead, my skill-building approach was quite effective for them. I welcome such clients.
No, I am not a psychotherapist. I am a Life Consultant.
When most people say "psychotherapy," they are referring to the type of therapy offered as part of medical treatment. With medical treatment, people find a state-licensed, mental-health provider; they usually use their medical insurance; the therapist diagnoses a disease or disorder in the patient; the psychotherapist develops a treatment plan (sometimes without much active participation of the patient); and the therapist treats the patient.
Psychotherapists often say as little as possible as a way to analyze their patients' impressions of them, they analyze past conflicts patients had with parents and lovers and others, they encourage patients to vent emotions in the session, and they verbally support the patient's current emotional state without teaching clear and specific tools for moving beyond it. Even if a medical provider wants to apply a different style of psychotherapy to the sessions (for example, CBT), the relationship and context for the meetings produce a similar feeling: there is a doctor and a patient, you should obey doctor's orders, and talking for an hour or filling out a form at home is supposed to be like taking a pill for your disease.
I don't work with patients, and I don't think in terms of diseases and disorders. Even if I did, the best research to date indicates that the "tell me how you feel" style of psychotherapy doesn't provide long-term reduction in depression and anxiety beyond the initial relief of having found a good listener (in research terms, this form of psychotherapy "does not perform beyond placebo").
When you participate in Life Consultation, we take a teaching-learning approach that is similar in spirit to hiring a personal trainor at the gym, taking a college course, or hiring a financial planner. You pay me for my expertise and guidance during sessions. However, the most benefit comes not from talking, but when you practice what you learned in between meetings. Although Life Consultation mostly involves learning how to turn down troublesome emotions and turn up positive ones as a way to reach goals faster, I also assist with strategy. Finally, I am actively using and furthering my learning with all skills that I teach to my clients. Think of it in this way: although we're both in the same boat, I have a bit more sailing experience.
Clients of mine making the transition from psychotherapy to Life Consultation often remark that, although they are glad they participated in psychotherapy and cared for their therapists deeply, they are now looking for more practical advice about getting on with their lives. One client recently remarked how much she has grown to like the term Life Consultation, because it best conveys how it feels to meet and work with me week to week.
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