What is relationship coaching?

Hi!

I frequently get asked, “what is relationship coaching? Isn’t it just like therapy?”

The answer to that second question is…no.

Therapy provides us a container to work through our mental health issues, trauma, etc. Therapists or counselors ask you questions and then sit back and listen. They don’t provide advice or feedback, no structured plans or specific tools. They’re a safe sounding board.

Therapy is absolutely wonderful. I think all of us would benefit from seeing a therapist.

But coaching is different.

While coaches are also a safe sounding board, they are going to provide you very specific advice and feedback. They will give you a plan and help teach you the tools and skills you need to get where you want to go. They also provide support and accountability to make sure you’re making the strides you need t.

As a relationship coach, I help people recognize and identify unhealthy/toxic relationship behaviors, how to respond or address them, how to communicate in a direct fashion, practice healthy conflict-resolution skills, set and enforce boundaries, move on from breakups, and show up in their current or future relationships in a healthier way.

Here are two case studies of mine.

Individual:

Erica L. had been in a trauma-bonded/narcissistic relationship that had lasted 5 years. During that relationship, she’d felt small, minor, inconvenient, and irrelevant. She also felt like “love was enough,” which was why she’d put up with escalating psychological, verbal, and sometimes physical abuse. After being painfully discarded, she was still trying to parse out what was her partner’s and her’s part and how to recover and heal. Having her experience validated, being listened to, and given tools helped her to face the true reality of her relationship and her need to rebuild herself. Partnering with me and a trauma therapist, she was able to reclaim her sense of self and began to set boundaries. Now she’s actively dating, and she has found that she can more easily identify red flags, enforce boundaries, and assert her wants and needs. What used to attract her isn’t attractive to her anymore, and she would love to find a forever partner, but she’s unwilling to settle for someone who isn’t going to improve her now great life.

Couple:

S. and E.’s marriage was at rock bottom. Even though they’d been together over a decade and had two children together, they could barely be in the same room longer than 10 minutes before arguing. Their fights often ended up being abusive, and they now slept in separate bedrooms. They wanted to figure out if they should just divorce or if their marriage could be repaired. Over the course of 12 sessions, we addressed very old attachment wounds that were negatively impacting their present. They learned how to communicate in a healthier fashion and implemented a fair fighting agreement, which included how to stop escalating behaviors, follow through on time-outs, and how to resolve and repair. They also started reconnecting, for really the first time in years, and began sleeping in the same bed again. In our follow-up session, S. told me, “I don’t think we’ve ever been this happy together. We can go days and days without fighting, and when we do fight, it’s nothing like what it was and we actually resolve things.”

If you’ve been curious about coaching and if it’s the right fit for you, consider applying to work with me.

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