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Relationship coaching not well-known
If you are like most people, when you seek help for your relationship,
you first think counseling. You may well never have heard of relationship
coaching, which is a relatively new approach.
Actually for people who are tired of the blame game, ready to
take responsibility for their own behavior and willing to work
for change – relationship coaching may be the best choice.
How is coaching different from counseling?
One way to understand relationship coaching is to distinguish
it from counseling - a somewhat chancy undertaking, because some
forms of counseling are very close to coaching, and coaching at
its sensitive best is counseling-like.
Despite the risks of over-generalization, here are some rough
distinctions between counseling and coaching:
- Counseling stresses understanding. Coaching stresses
action.
- Counseling asks why? (Why can't we be happy?") Coaching
asks how? (How can we achieve happiness?")
- Obstacles are prominent in counseling. Opportunities
are prominent in coaching.
- Counseling is psychological. Coaching is behavioral.
- Counseling is therapy. Coaching is education.
- Counseling is cure-oriented. Coaching is success-oriented.
Knowing those differences, how does coaching look to you so
far?
Counseling elements in our coaching program
The program developed by Dr. Sanford and taught on this site
is clearly coaching. However, because he has done relationship
counseling for many years with couples and individuals, Dr. Sanford's
approach contains counseling elements, which are available to
those coaching clients who need them.
In relationship coaching, creating solutions to problems, opening
up new options and restoring relationships to health are the primary
goals. However, as a long-time counselor, Dr. Sanford understands
the need sometimes to pause, honor feelings and seek healing.
His approach is useful when coaching clients get blocked in
their forward movement toward a goal and need to process their
fear, confusion, pain, anger or resistance before resuming goal-directed
effort.
Is coaching or counseling best for you?
If your fundamental goal is more psychological understanding
than learning new skills and changing yourself and/or your relationship,
you may be helped better in a strictly-counseling program, rather
than our relationship coaching one. On the other hand, if "doing
it differently" is ultimately your goal, you may well have come
to the right place.
For further reading -
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