Question 1

What is coaching?

Accepted Answer

Going to the equivalent of Merriam-Webster, I’ll start with the International Coach Federation’s definition of coaching:

“Coaching is an ongoing relationship between the professional coach and the client, which focuses on the client taking action toward the realization of their vision, goals or desires.  Coaching uses a process of inquiry and personal discovery to build the client’s level of awareness and responsibility and provides the client with structure, support and feedback.”

​As a coaching client, you are capable and responsible.  You discover and generate your own solutions, the ones that will work best for who you are and the situation in which you find yourself.  I foster the conditions that nurture your discovery of your wisdom and path, professionally or personally.  I ask incisive and thought-provoking questions that get you to shift your perspectives of yourself and your situation, allowing you to reframe both.

My coaching helps people move from doubt to confidence, uncertainty to determination, and hesitation to excitement.  If requested, I will offer information, feedback and suggestions for you to consider.  At all times, you’re in the driver’s seat, and you’ll become increasingly aware of the choices you are making (even when it comes to word choice and the powerful impact that has).

Question 2

How is coaching different from therapy/counseling, consulting or mentoring?

Accepted Answer

One way to distinguish coaching from therapy/counseling is to view coaching as future-focused while therapy/counseling directs you to examine your past. I would add that coaching asks you as the client to consider what you can do in the here and now to manage whatever past events may be hampering your progress, whereas therapy seeks to heal old wounds.

In consulting, the client expects to receive an analysis of the problem, a breakdown of the options, and a recommended set of actions to take. The consultant is the expert. In contrast, with coaching, you are the expert in yourself and your life; the coach helps sharpen and broaden that expertise.  That’s why coaches don’t have to be experts in or even know a good deal about their clients’ fields.

Mentors have “been there and done that.” Based on their experience and connections, they guide their mentees by advising and facilitating relationships. Coaches don’t need knowledge of the client’s field or area of business; they help the client develop the strategies and seek the resources that will help them move forward. People are people, and as a psychiatrist, I know about people and relationships.

Question 3

What are Tapping and Hacking Reality?

Accepted Answer

Tapping is a practice derived from traditional Chinese medicine, which holds that energy travels through the body in certain lines or meridians. Blockages of this internal energy at certain points cause distress, which can be alleviated by tapping on these points (acupuncturists use needles).

Tapping is unique because it can help release the negative energy (held in the body as tension) connected to negatively formative experiences.  In that way, tapping differs from traditional talk therapy, which can be re-traumatizing as simply repeating the events can lead to reliving the associated feelings.  At a superficial level, what you do is tap on certain spots on points on your head, face and torso in sequence as you talk about what is bothering you. Tapping this way on its own can provide effective stress reduction for some.

At a deeper level, tapping can help you release the stress and negative energy you may be holding and reframe the situation or reinforce a healthier perspective. The work that is needed to engage in tapping on this level is an exploration of what you are thinking and feeling and a readiness to experience difficult emotions so that tapping can help you release them.  Here, while tapping on the same spots while repeating a script of statements I craft in which you first acknowledge and then lean into the thoughts and feelings you may have been trying to avoid.  While these thoughts and feelings are often distressing and painful, voicing them is necessary to release the negative energy those thoughts and feelings carry (“feel it to heal it”).  The script then pivots to reframing and reaffirming you, replacing the negative thoughts and feelings with positive and hopeful ones.

At its deepest level, tapping with Hacking Reality (a practice developed by Rob Nelson) involves tapping on a younger self who is in distress. I use the present tense deliberately as Hacking Reality requires accepting the propositions that all things are happening at once, that what you perceive as past experiences are still present experiences happening to your younger self, that your younger self has an effect on the present you, and that by tapping on your younger self, you can have an effect on your younger self--and therefore your present self--for the better.  By engaging with your younger self, you can undo untrue and unhelpful beliefs that you absorbed from those hurtful experiences and rewrite a better perspective for your younger and present selves, leaving that younger self (and you now) in a better place.

Question 4

What is hypnosis?

Accepted Answer

Hypnosis is a state of deep relaxation and focused attention in which, according to Dr. David Spiegel, professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, a person is cognitively flexible in that they are able to think of themselves in new and different ways that are more useful.   Hypnosis is not mind control.  You cannot be made to believe, say or do anything that you don't truly want.

I have been certified in a unique form of hypotherapy called Rapid Transformational Therapy, created by Marisa Peer.  Under hypnois, you will be invited to review past incidents that have left you with eliefs about yourself that you are not enough, that you cannot connect with others, or that you cannot achieve what you want.  you are then encouraged to adopt beliefs about yourself that can help you become the person you want to become, the person more likely to believe in themselves and more likely to achieve their goals.

Question 5

Beyond coaching and therapy, what services to do offer for leaders and executives?

Accepted Answer

Leadership is more than a set of skills put into a toolkit to check off boxes on the way to the next promotion. Successful and effective leadership requires authenticity underpinned by emotional intelligence (EI), the ability to understand and manage yourself as well as understand and influence others. In short, good leadership takes self-awareness, empathy and communication—all things I’ve spent 20 years helping people develop.

If you want to assess your EI, the EQ-i 2.0 and EQ 360 (the most researched measures of EI) are for you.  The EQi 2.0 (a self-assessment of EI) allows the person taking it to take a step back and see the thought patterns and behavioral habits that make up their leadership style.  The EQ 360 gets a person’s direct reports, peers and manager(s) to give them feedback about how they are viewed as a leader.  With both the EQ-i 2.0 and EQ 360, people see themselves more clearly and completely as well as through the eyes of others.

Question 6

I want help in the form of advice and guidance. Isn’t that what coaches and therapists provide?

Accepted Answer

Therapy can have the reputation of the therapist telling someone what’s wrong with them and what to do.  The therapy I do is called tapping.  Unlike traditional therapy, tapping is intended to be time-limited. I never tell people what they should do, so people should not look to me to fix them.

As a coach, I start by helping clients understand themselves better and unearth things they on some level know but may not want fully to know or completely to accept. I ask permission to make observations that the client then tries on for size. I also share information and knowledge, not to direct, but to provide additional material for decision making. When we are at the point of figuring out what to do, I ask the client to generate options. If there is something I think may be an option that the client has not already considered, I ask permission to share. I may help them work through the advantages and disadvantages of an option, but in the end, the decision is theirs.

Whether working with people as a coach or therapist coach, my goal is that I eventually make myself unnecessary by helping them develop the insight and skills that will carry them forward.

Question 7

Do you work only with LGBTQ individuals?

Accepted Answer

Absolutely not!  While I specialize in working with LGBTQ individuals, I work with all adults.

Question 8

I just want therapy. Do I have to engage in coaching?

Accepted Answer

Absolutely not.  While I’m impressed with the power of coaching, I’m still a firm believer in therapy.  I’ve practiced and had traditional talk therapy, and though I’ve found it to be helpful (for both myself and others), I’m convinced Tapping (a unique form of therapy) can do more and do it faster. 
 
By choosing to engage in Tapping, you acknowledge that you seek to confront the difficult and likely painful experiences that lie at the core of the problems that brought you to treatment, and the unfair or unproductive thoughts and beliefs that have contributed to the difficulties you are currently experiencing. Like many other therapies, Tapping may stir up difficult emotions such as grief/sadness, anxiety/fear, anger, shame and guilt. At times, Tapping may bring about a realization that a previously unresolved issue or long forgotten experience may contribute to your current situation. The process can include change, which may take unexpected forms and feel threatening not only to you but also to those people close to you. The prospect of giving up old habits, no matter how destructive or painful, can often make you feel very vulnerable.

Question 9

How does undertaking tapping and/or Hacking Reality affect our coaching relationship?

Accepted Answer

Coaching + therapy clients should consider me a therapist.  Interventions such as tapping and Hacking Reality are considered psychotherapy by the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine, and the International Coaching Federation does not endorse (though does not prohibit) coaches also treating people in psychotherapy.  The client determines whether to engage in conventional leadership coaching alone or to combine it with therapy.

In our work together, I will carry all the responsibilities a therapist.  I am required to take specific action (including sending someone to an emergency department against their will) if I think someone is a danger to themselves or others or is unable to provide for their own protection in the community.  I am also mandated to report suspected child or elder abuse.  As a therapist licensed only in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, currently I can only work as a therapist with people physically present in Massachusetts.

Question 10

Why don’t you prescribe medications?

Accepted Answer

In my career in inpatient psychiatry, I have seen medications (and other interventions such as electroconvulsive therapy) work wonders because some biochemical imbalances can be fixed only by meds (bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, for example). My interest now is to work with those conditions that do not require medications. Indeed, I have seen medications often prescribed for conditions where the core issues are psychological and where confronting hurts from the past is an essential (and unfortunately unacknowledged) element of treatment. As psychologist John Welwood put it, “apart from a few biochemical imbalances and neurological disorders, the diagnostic manual for psychological afflictions, known as the DSM, might as well begin, ‘Herein are described all the wretched ways people feel and behave when they do not feel they are loved.’” My work now is to help people fix themselves.

Question 11

What about results?

Accepted Answer

I do not promise outcomes because outcomes aren’t fully in my control. Only the client can control the client.  My promise is to be fully present with my clients, to listen attentively and to think deeply.

As I learned early in residency, “you can lead a horse to therapy, but you can’t make him think.”  Whether clients choose to open their minds to new perspectives, to use a skill they learned, or to leave their comfort zones for a growth experience is completely up to them.  I’ve known people who have been through coaching (or what seems more like finishing school for C-suiters) only to relapse back into old patterns of behavior.

Question 12

Do you accept insurance?

Accepted Answer

No. Insurance doesn't cover coaching.  I do not accept insurance for therapy.

Question 13

Why is the cost so high?

Accepted Answer

It is certainly difficult to put a price on the outcomes possible with coaching and therapy (like deeply loving and completely accepting yourself or having clarity about the direction in which you will take your life). I myself spent 15 years paying privately for traditional therapy. With the techniques that I now know, I think I could’ve achieved that result in much less time. Therapy with me is intended to be much briefer than traditional therapy (usually between three and five sessions).  Coaching, too, should be self-limited,  aiding in the discovery of self-knowledge and imparting the skills for the client to continue self-development and self-fulfillment.

Question 14

What’s the difference between a client and a sponsor?

Accepted Answer

A client is the person engaging with me in coaching or therapy. A sponsor is the person or entity covering the cost of the engagement, if the client is not paying themself. A sponsor is most often an employer. In any case, as my relationship is with the client, my priorities are for and responsibilities are to the client.

Sponsors understandably often want particular outcomes, which are far from guaranteed. Before starting the coaching engagement, the client, sponsor, and I all must agree on expectations and understand the requirements and limits of confidentiality (e.g., I would share information with the sponsor only with the freely given consent of the client).

Figure Out

Forward

Frequently Asked Questions