Individual counseling is a personal opportunity to receive support and experience growth during challenging times in life. Individual counseling can help you deal with many personal topics in life such as anger, depression, anxiety, trauma, marriage and relationship challenges, parenting problems, school difficulties, career changes etc. Depending on the issues we are addressing, we might explore changing unhealthy thought or behavior patterns, delve into value and belief blueprints and whether these serve you today. You might learn and practice coping strategies, or we may work on changing your inner dialogue with yourself to a kinder more constructive and self-loving one.

Every couple experiences ups and downs in their levels of closeness and harmony over time. Sometimes these issues can put the relationship at risk. Couples counseling can help resolve conflicts and heal wounds. This can range from basic concerns of stagnation to serious expressions of aggressive behavior. Overall, couples counseling can help couples slow down their negative spiral and reestablish realistic expectations and goals. Depending on what couples bring into sessions, we might address conflict patterns, improve communication skills, or dig into childhood to understand how blueprints from your caretakers have impacted the relationship blueprint and work to recreate them to align with the desired relationship.

Psychotherapy typically involves regular sessions (weekly to start usually, then decreasing to every other week or monthly when appropriate), for a period of a few months, to a few years, depending on the person, situation and issues being addressed. Therapists can provide support, problem-solving skills, and enhanced coping strategies for issues such as depression, anxiety, relationship troubles, unresolved childhood issues, grief, stress or anger management. Therapists can provide a fresh perspective on a difficult problem or point you in the direction of a solution. The benefits you obtain from therapy depend on how well you use the process and put into practice what you learn. Some of the benefits include:

The International Coaching Federation (ICF), defines coaching as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. Professional coaches provide an ongoing partnership designed to help clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives. Coaches help people improve their performances and enhance the quality of their lives. Coaches are trained to listen, to observe and to customize their approach to individual client needs. They seek to elicit solutions and strategies from the client; they believe the client is naturally creative and resourceful. The coach’s job is to provide support to enhance the skills, resources and creativity that the client already has.”

Life coaching is typically shorter term, 4-12 sessions, over a few months.

Both professional counselors and coaches see similarities between the two fields, but also draw sharp distinctions. There is a spectrum of need. Counseling focuses on moving people from a state of dysfunction to one of being functional. But there are many people who are very functional, yet maybe not highly functional or achieving their full potential. Coaching provides an alternative.

Coaching has a narrower focus than counseling. It helps clients set manageable goals and reach them, especially someone who doesn’t know where to start or how to tackle a big change in their life.

Counseling is appropriate when someone is struggling such that it is affecting their daily life and relationships in meaningful ways that impact functioning. Psychotherapy is typically for people who are in crisis or struggling in their lives and would like to return to a place of stability. Sometimes the crisis is life altering, sometimes it is an accumulation of smaller events, sometimes it is a time of transition.

Life coaching is for people who are looking to launch into personal growth. There can be a prompting crisis or a transition, a turning point (whether internally driven or externally prompted) that creates a yearning for change. The person who is seeking life coaching may be destabilized, but is functioning day to day, however realizing they want to thrive instead of just getting through. Life coaching is appropriate when someone is looking for a neutral and safe space within which to deep dive into themselves in ways they haven’t before through meaningful guided self-reflection.

I do accept insurance for individual psychotherapy (I am paneled with several, but not all, insurance companies so please check). For insurance to cover, a client must meet medical necessity requirements (which means a diagnosis must be given and the symptoms must be affecting the individual’s daily functioning in some way or another).

I sometimes accept insurance for couples counseling. Why sometimes? Because insurance only covers 50-minute sessions for couples, and only if there is one partner of the couple who carries a mental health diagnosis, and the couple’s distress is worsening symptoms, or symptoms are impacting the relationship. This framing can be antitherapeutic in couples work, where we want to evaluate the dynamic neutrally and create a collaborative mutually supportive environment. Additionally, a 50-minute session is not always appropriate or sufficient for couples, depending on the work being done. This sometimes leads couples to opening up and being vulnerable without having time for closure on an issue, or to feeling rushed at the detriment of gaining depth and insight. For some couples I strongly recommend 90-minute sessions or a double session to be able to bring up, address, and work through an issue from beginning to end.

Insurance does not cover life coaching services.

If you are private paying for counseling or life coaching, please consider this a valuable investment in yourself or your relationship. This is not a frivolous expense. It is a commitment to growth, an important gift to yourself at a time when deeper clarity and insight can help you achieve more meaningful results.

This depends on whether you have a challenge you would like to overcome or a problem you would like to solve, and whether you are ready to tackle these issues now. The worth is yours to determine. How much do you value professional help on what you would like to achieve? Is a car repair worth going to the mechanic? Is the visit to the salon worth the haircut? Color? Nails? Is the visit to the ER worth the medical bills?

But let’s also talk research findings for a moment:

• A review of over 50 studies on the effectiveness of psychotherapy unanimously shows that it is effective for a variety of mental and behavioral health issues and across a spectrum of population groups. Psychotherapy teaches patients life skills that last beyond the course of treatment. The average effects of psychotherapy are larger than the effects produced by many medical treatments AND tend to last longer than psychopharmacological treatments.

• A review of 18 studies in 2014 investigated the relationship between various coaching interventions and individual outcomes. What they found was that coaching has significant positive impacts on all the outcomes they measured: performance and skills, wellbeing, coping, work attitudes and goal-directed self-regulation.

• A global coaching client study by the ICF found that “80% of people who receive coaching report increased self-confidence, and over 70% benefit from improved work performance, relationships, and more effective communication skills.”

Both therapy and life coaching are deeply personal and often challenging process.

Entering therapy or life coaching involves honest self-assessment and openness to addressing the personal and social challenges we face every day, the same challenges we often choose to hide from others and even ourselves. This requires trusting a professional with self-disclosure and welcoming their questions, reflections and feedback. It often pushes us to challenge our self-perceptions — and perceptions of those around us — and assess the thought patterns and coping habits that have become second-nature.

Therapy or life coaching cannot be nearly as effective without openness and a willingness to challenge one’s thoughts, biases, and preconceptions. But if you have been considering therapy or life coaching and feel open to an honest dialogue with a professional, you may find the process deeply rewarding. The most fundamental question to ask yourself is: Am I looking for and open to change? If the answer is “no, I’m not,” the timing might not be right at the moment. If your answer is “yes, I am”, then reach out!

Call me. We can assess that together. You can decide whether you would like to start a coaching or a counseling relationship with me and figure out whether I am the right person for you. The brief initial consultation is free.