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Do You Need A Therapist Or A Coach

You have been in therapy before and know you have issues.

Not exactly messed up, but let’s just say you are on a first name basis with words like depression and anxiety. Your next of kin could be described as narcissistic, abusive or some other variety of dysfunction. Yes, you have worked through some stuff with a capital S. And the reality is, you needed to get clear on your issues. There is no telling where you might have ended up if you hadn’t had access to therapy when you needed it.

Still, you are on some level, unfulfilled.

You know what you should do but can’t make yourself. You feel like you are blocked from really living full out in JOY.

You wonder if you should get back into therapy but the old school model of therapy involving a diagnosis, possibly a medication regime frankly just depresses you.

You want to focus on the positive, on your strengths. You want to live in possibility! You want fulfillment.

So, you wonder if a coach might be the answer for you.

Yet you are suspect of all the hyperbolic claims some of them make.

 FABULOUS, AWESOME, GROUNDBREAKING CHANGES IN A COUPLE OF SESSIONS! It sounds naively positive and too “law of attractiony”.

 You’d feel like a sucker if you signed up and you don’t want to be anybody’s fool.

Besides, who can you trust on the internet?

Yet…. some coaches are very talented and can promote lasting change.

They can probably coach you through getting a better job or strategizing your next career move. But your emotional upset makes you wonder if you need some real therapy?

 And what about your particular issues? How do they factor in?

And who, but your therapist, knowing your inner workings is better equipped to coach you?

Well, the good news is, you don’t have to choose. It doesn’t have to be an either-or situation.

You need to do the important work of understanding exploring and uncovering the pain of the past as well as expanding and creating the possibility in the present.

  Mixing up uncovering work with dwelling and creating in the realm of the possibility is a powerful alchemy of healing.

In reality, at times you might need the catharsis of unloading and exploring . You might need to be heard and understood.

There is good neuroscience for understanding this need.

 You need a nonjudgmental place to safely speak your mind and open your heart.

If you are not first mirrored and understood no positive overlay will take effect. That is the science of it.

However, in the midst of the hurt place, you might just find what makes you tick, what gives meaning to your life.

For instance, one client who had her creativity ignored by narcissistic parents found a life’s passion for creating space and opportunity for children to explore their creativity.

This is an example of how the pain of the past can be transformed into the passion for the present. 

I have found that a person’s greatest wounding often gives that same person his or her reason for living.

And sometimes you need creativity to throw you a rope out of your pain.

You need to laugh and dream with a therapist who knows there is the positive, the possibility in the midst of your pain.

So in my sessions-whatever, you are needing is most important. And that may change several times in one session. And that is OK, as it should be.

As your therapist, I won’t miss that the past and its effects matter. As I coach you I will explore possibility and imagine a different life with you.

As Rumi says “ the wound is the place where the light enters. “

For me, it just makes good sense that you would get therapy from a therapist that can coach and coaching from a coach that is also your therapist.