This Section Contains Important Information about the Personal Coaching process and Emotional Intelligence:

Executive or Personal Coaching or Consulting is not psychotherapy.  See this link for more information to determine if you are needing a psychotherapist versus a life or personal coach: http://www.planetpsych.com/zTreatment/coach.htm
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The Difference Between Coaching and Therapy/Counseling

Joe Whitcomb, M.A.
Doctoral Candidate:  PhD Psychology

Imago Dei Relationship Institute

www.joewhitcombtherapy.com

Relationship Coaches Prayer:

Philippians 1:9 So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush.

In what sense is it that the therapist can be a coach?  Among the Concise Oxford Dictionary’s definitions of a coach finds that a coach is “someone who gives hints, a private tutor” and that to coach is “to train or teach.”  These descriptions catch some of the flavor of what I mean by coach.  An emotion or relationship coach helps people by providing strategies for dealing with emotions and relationships.  The word coach was originally used to mean a carriage for a long journey.  A coach is something that moves people from place to place and, as a facilitator, a coach is someone who helps move people from where they are to where they want to be, toward agreed-on goals.  In the case of relationship coaching, the goal is relational fitness.  In this age of personal trainers, business coaches, and lifestyle consultants, the concept of a relationship coach as a trainer who helps people to be relationally and emotionally fit is highly contemporary.

What is the difference between coaching and counseling or psychotherapy?

Relationship coaches don't work on "issues" or dig into past experiences. Coaches do not focus on resolving past traumas, attachment injuries, or core schemas that affect personality development nor do they try to change personality structures. Coaches do not attempt to ameliorate emotional or psychic pain, anxiety, depression, or sexual dysfunction. These are issues that are dealt with in psychotherapy.

Whereas, psychotherapy focuses on the past and the present issues, coaching focuses on the present and future content goals. The personal coach maintains a focus on the goals that the client decides s/he would like to achieve. A relational coach’s collaborative effort propels the couple or individual to continually move toward the goal set. In psychotherapy the assumption is that there is something wrong that gets in the way of a person's functioning that needs fixing. In coaching the assumption that the client or individual is healthy, but the client wants an even better life and relationships. In psychotherapy the main focus is on the client's internal world, such as internal working models, core schema, or psyche. In relational coaching the focus is on the client's entire life including health, relationships, career, spirituality, etc., and how it all fits together.

A Relationship Coach focuses on:

·       Helping a couple set better goals.

·       Asking their couples to do more than they would on their own.

·       Helping their clients to focus better so as to produce results more quickly.

·       Providing couples with the tools, empathy, support, and structure to accomplish more.

The concept of coaching is based on the premise that individuals have source of growth and possibility within them and that these sources can be developed by coaching.  A coach focuses on strengths, possibilities and resources and uses language that is valuing and appreciative to help themselves. 

Other relationship goals might be:

·       To explore Relationship Strengths and Growth Areas

·       To learn Assertiveness and Active Listening Skills

·       To learn how to resolve conflict using the Ten Step Model

·       To help the couple discuss their Family-of-Origin

·       To help the couple with financial planning and budgeting

·       To focus on personal, couple and family goals

Relationship Coaches focus on strengths and area of growth

Relationship coaches help couples better know there relationship strengths and growth areas and to develop a balanced life. They do this through strengthening their client's personal foundation. Part of one's personal foundation is recognizing and clarifying one's core values within the relationship. Most of us seldom take the time to delineate and clarify our values, those beliefs that are at the center of our belief. Often we act in ways that our contrary to our internalized values and we end up feeling uncomfortable, guilty, or even ashamed. Frequently, we are not aware of the causes for our disquietude. On exploration we may find that we acting in ways that are contrary to our own value system. A coach can help a couple explore their values and assist in developing a set of goals and actions that comport with this value system such that you feel in synch with yourself.

Coaches have no agenda but that of their clients. It is one of the few relationships where the client's agenda is the only agenda that matters. Personal coaches want to assist you in actualizing your agenda on your terms. The objective of the coach to open new possibilities. The attention in coaching is solely on you and your agenda.

	Traditional Therapy or Counseling	Relationship Coaching
Primary Life Focus	Assumes the client needs healing. A person’s past, which usually includes some form of trauma. Deals with healing emotional pain or conflict within an individual or in a relationship between two people.  BUT: some forms of therapy, or individual therapists, do focus on the future.	Assumes a client is whole.  A person’s present, in order to help them design and act toward the future.  While positive feelings may be a natural outgrowth, the primary focus is on creating actionable strategies for achieving specific goals in one's work or personal life.  The emphasis in a coaching relationship is on action, accountability and follow through. BUT:  a responsible coach knows when it’s useful to look at the past, precisely because the past informs the present, as well as in order to help extinguish limiting belief systems.
Subject Focus	Focus on feelings and past events. Works to bring the unconscious into consciousness.	Focuses on action and future outcomes. Works with the conscious mind.
Model	Roots in medicine and psychiatry.  Medical or clinical, relying on diagnosis of pathology or relationship conflicts	Roots in sports, business, personal growth venues. Learning/developmental, focusing on attainable goals and possibilities
Nature of Issue	Identifiable dysfunction. Explores the root of problems.	A generally functional client desiring a better situation.  Focuses on solving problems.
Treatment of the Past	Understand and resolve the past. Works for internal resolution of pain and to let go of old patterns	Understanding the past as the context in which future goals are set. Works for external solutions to overcome barriers, learn new skills and implement effective choices
Questions Asked	WHY?	HOW?  WHAT?  Asking WHY, a form of seeking insight, is emphasized less than action
Client Goals	Works with people to achieve self-understanding and emotional healing Help patients resolve old pain and improve emotional states.	Helps clients learn new skills and tools to build a more satisfying successful future; focuses on goals. Works to move people to a higher level of functioning.
Accountability for Goals	The goals of therapy are often necessarily vague or intangible, or not easily measured. It can be difficult (even undesirable) to identify success with much particularity.	Coaching goals, like business goals, usually have to do with one’s external world and behavior, and therefore can be measured.
Relationship	Doctor-patient relationship (The therapist is the expert)	Co-creative equal partnership.  Collaborative, process consultant. (The coach offers perspectives and helps the clients discover their own answers)
Function	The Therapist diagnoses, then provides professional expertise and guidelines to provide a path to healing	The Coach stands with the clients and helps him or her identify the challenges, then partners to turn challenges into victories, holding client accountable to reach desired goals
Training or Educational Background	Therapists require extensive expertise in the subject matter of the therapy: marital counseling, childhood abuse, etc. A therapist can try to coach.	Coaches, who deal in process, do not require subject matter expertise.  But coaches cannot try to be therapists.
Style	Patient, nurturing, evocative, indirect, parenting, cathartic	The same, excepting parenting, but also catalytic, challenging, direct, straight talk, accountability
Rate of Change	Progress is often slow and painful because the issues are often subconscious and fundamental	Growth and progress are rapid and usually enjoyable
Responsibility for Outcomes	The therapist is responsible for both the process and the outcome	The coach is responsible for the process; the client for the results
Disclosure	Limited, if any, personal disclosure by the therapist	Personal disclosure by the coach used when relevant as an aid to communicating (a similarity with mentoring)

 

Integrative Therapy Models to Coaching

There are several therapy modalities which converge well with coaching models.  What makes these modalities applicable is that the focus is on “here and now” processes, future orientation/goal setting, and take on the role of either coach, teacher or process consultants.  For instance, solution-focused therapy, emotionally-focused therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy and some of the experiential and Gestalt modalities can be easily integrated into relationship coaching techniques.

Coach as Process Consultant

The relationship coach is a process consultant, respectfully following and leading the couple as they reshape and redefine their relationship.   Relationship coaching is a spiritual, collaborative relationship, solution-focused, results-oriented, systematic and enlightening process  in which the coach is working on one particular aspect of the couples life and that is to help the couple make decisions about their relationship. 

A relationship coach helps two people come together and learn how to flourish in love, to help a couple learn to love appropriately, to use their head and to help test feelings.  To think through the various challenges of their relational dynamics with sincerity and emotional intelligence, not base relationship on past experience learned from the world.

Some goals of the a coaching process are (Taken from PREPARE/ENRICH):

·       To explore Relationship Strengths and Growth Areas

·       To learn Assertiveness and Active Listening Skills

·       To learn how to resolve conflict using the Ten Step Model

·       To help the couple discuss their Family-of-Origin

·       To help the couple with financial planning and budgeting

·       To focus on personal, couple and family goals

Stages of Relationship Coaching

Coaching is well suited to goal-oriented therapists who prefer to enable clients to take responsibility for their process and outcomes. Therapy is ineffective when clients expect therapists to be experts who can fix their problems, a dynamic which does not occur in coaching. The pathology-oriented helplessness and stigmatization that occurs when a client associates therapy with the medical model also does not occur in coaching. The coaching paradigm seems aligned with the roots and purpose of the therapy profession.

There are 5 Stages Of Relationship Coaching that we have identified:

Self-Discovery and Relationship Readiness Coaching addresses the questions:

"Who am I?" "What do I want?" and "How do I get what I want?".

Coaching activities may include:

·       Identifying and eliminating limiting beliefs

·       Identification of life goals and needs

·       Clarify Vision, Requirements, Needs, and Wants

·       Assessing Relationship history for patterns

·       Personality assessment (traits, values, preferences, etc)

·       Development of Core Relationship Competencies

·       Develop profile of Life Partner

·       Develop "Relationship Plan" to manifest/attract Life Partner

 

Date Coaching focuses on effective dating skills and activities. Coaching activities may include:

·       Where and how to meet potential life partners

·       Becoming ready for a committed relationship

·       Effectively meeting people, developing networks, sorting potential partners

·       Staying on track with your Relationship Plan

 

Pre-marital Coaching (PREPARE/ENRICH):

This stage of coaching helps new couples become conscious and objective about the future of their relationship. Coaching activities may include:

·       Become clear about whether this relationship is right for you

·       Getting a reality check, being accountable to what you want

·       Developing strategies for testing, decision-making

·       Addressing emotional and compatibility issues

 

Couples Coaching helps a committed couple to co-create a functional Life Partnership.

Coaching activities may include:

§  Getting a committed relationship off to a good start

§  Effective communication and conflict resolution skills

§  Discovering and overcoming issues and obstacles around functional needs, such as parenting, domestic responsibilities, finances, etc.

§  Identifying and negotiating mutual wants, needs, and goals

 

Connecting and Emotional-Focused Coaching helps a committed couple with a functional relationship deepen their emotional intimacy, trust, love, and connection. Coaching activities may include:

Ephesians 4:

·       Increasing authentic expression of thoughts, feelings, wants, needs

·       Ownership of emotional reactivity

·       Increasing mutual support, trust, safety around emotional vulnerabilities and intimacy

·       Developing skills, rituals, and practices for deepening emotional, physical, and spiritual connection and fulfillment

Most therapists who examine the above differences will recognize they do coaching as well as therapy. Coaching is not foreign to psychotherapists once they are acquainted with the model. The primary skills and techniques of a coach include:

·       Accountability; obtaining commitment to action items that the client chooses and accounting for the results.

·       Challenging; requesting a client stretch beyond their self-imposed limits.

·       Clarifying; questioning, reframing, articulating what is going on.

·       Designing the alliance; assisting the client to take responsibility by deciding the form of support most beneficial to them. In therapy the therapist designs the alliance, in coaching the client does.

·       Forwarding the action; using a variety of skills to move the client a step forward toward their goal.

·       Holding the client's agenda; probably the most important and distinctive coaching skill. The coach becomes invisible and without judgment, opinion or answers, which allows the client to access their own answers.

·       Holding the focus; assisting the client to keep on-track when distracted by feelings, circumstances, etc.

·       Powerful questions; an open-ended question that evokes clarity, deepens learning, and propels action.

·       Requesting; forwarding the action by making a request based upon the client's agenda

·       Reflective listening

The true value of relationship coaching is in helping couples recognize and develop new skills rather than defining or fixing pathology.m place to place and, as a facilitator, a coach is someone who helps move people from where they are to where they want to be, toward agreed-on goals.  In the case of relationship coaching, the goal is relational fitness.  In this age of personal trainers, business coaches, and lifestyle consultants, the concept of a relationship coach as a trainer who helps people to be relationally and emotionally fit is highly contemporary.

 

 

 

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is essentially the ability to recognize, manage, and use your emotions in positive and constructive ways. It’s also about recognizing the emotional states of others and engaging them in ways that feel good to all and create mutual safety, trust, and confidence.

Emotional intelligence (EQ) vs. Intellectual intelligence (IQ)

Research shows that intellectual intelligence (IQ) has less to do with success in life than emotional intelligence (EQ). We all know people who are academically brilliant and yet are socially inept and unsuccessful. What they are missing is emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is what helps you communicate clearly, lead others, and build powerful relationships at work and in your personal life. Emotional intelligence also helps you motivate yourself, solve problems, and achieve your goals.

Emotional intelligence consists of four fundamental capabilities:

• Self-awareness – the ability to be conscious of your emotions and recognize their impact while using gut feelings to guide your decisions.
• Self-management – the ability to control your emotions and behavior and adapt to changing circumstances.
• Social awareness – the ability to sense, understand, and react to the emotions of others and feel comfortable socially.
• Relationship management – the ability to inspire, influence, and connect to others while managing conflict.   

Emotional intelligence is the key to success and resilience

In studying people with strokes, brain tumors, and other types of brain damage, scientists have made some fascinating discoveries about intelligence. When the parts of our brains that enable us to feel emotions are damaged, our intellects remain intact. We can still talk, analyze, perform excellently on IQ tests, and even predict how we should act in social situations. But under these tragic circumstances, we are unable to make decisions in the real world—to interact successfully and appropriately with other people, to plan for the immediate or long-term future, to creatively solve problems, and ultimately, to succeed.

The difference between success and failure in life is less a product of what happens to you than how you react to unexpected, unpleasant, and threatening experiences. Those who can go with the flow survive and prosper.

Emotional intelligence isn’t a safety net that protects you from life’s tragedies, frustrations, or disappointments. Emotionally-intelligent individuals go through bad times and experience sadness, anger, and fear—just like everyone else. But they respond differently than less healthy people to these experiences. Emotional intelligence gives you the ability to cope and bounce back from stress, adversity, trauma, and loss. In other words, emotional intelligence makes you resilient.

Resilience gives you the ability to:

• Stay focused in a frightening or challenging situation
• Experience moments of joy in the face of sadness and loss
• Ask for and get support when needed 
• Quickly rebound from frustration and disappointment
• Remain hopeful during challenging and difficult times 

Emotional intelligence is the hidden factor in relationships and communication

For decades, we have viewed relationship obstacles through a flawed lens—one that fails to capture the real sources of connection and disconnection between people. When we look at communication from a moment-to-moment perspective, as new brain imaging technologies now enable us to do, we can see that what really keeps people connected lies beneath the surface.

Our emotions connect us to others

Emotions are the building blocks of every relationship in your life, and the power of those emotions cannot be overlooked. Emotions influence the way you relate and react to others—often without your awareness. If you are not keenly aware of the emotions you are experiencing internally and how you are communicating this externally—and similarly aware of the other person—you are apt to:

• Think that you are communicating one thing, while actually communicating something else
• Create confusion, insecurity, and mistrust
• Feel helpless and vulnerable when faced with conflict
• Use humor in a way that is off-putting or distances you from others
• Misinterpret what the other person really wants and needs  
• Appear unattractive to others because of the negative effect you have on them

Most relationship advice misses the real emotional issues

Many people seek relationship advice to find answers to problems they believe are responsible for their conflicts, without realizing there are more fundamental emotional issues at the core of those problems. They are attempting to heal the surface symptoms of their dysfunctional relationships, without examining the real emotional issues that are simmering beneath. But until those fundamental issues are addressed, the problems and conflicts will continue. 

Strong relationships are based on emotional intelligence

The more we learn about the brain, the more certain we are that humans are highly social creatures with strong needs for relationships and positive connections to others. We’re not meant to survive, let alone thrive, in isolation. Our social brains crave companionship—even when experience has made us shy and distrustful of others.

The ability to be aware of your own emotions and the feelings of others is the key to relationships that are engaging, exciting, fulfilling, creative, and productive. Emotional intelligence keeps your relationships strong and healthy. Without it, your relationships will always stall and break down. Fortunately, emotional intelligence is based on set of skills that you can learn at any time.

The skills of emotional intelligence help you:

• Build safety and trust
• Capture the attention and interest of others
• Respond to others with empathy and compassion
• Send and receive appropriate nonverbal signals
• Be more playful and creative
• Resolve conflict and repair wounded feelings

Developing your emotional intelligence: The five essential tools

While every relationship is unique, there are five emotional intelligence skills that are of vital importance to building and maintaining healthy relationships. With these tools in hand, you will be on your way to speaking the language of emotional intelligence—a language that will improve all your relationships—including your relationship with yourself.

1. The Elastic helps you reduce stress and avoid emotional overload

Out-of-control stress triggers knee-jerk “fight or flight” responses that make us feel like running or fighting, but limit our capacity to think and communicate clearly, solve problems, and behave in a productive way. Stress can also make our emotions and the emotions of others seem threatening and overwhelming. So the first step in raising your emotional intelligence is learning how to very rapidly and dependably calm down under pressure.

Imagine your nervous system stretched like a piece of elastic to a point of breaking that will leave you feeling out of control. Now imagine that you have learned how to relieve the pressure so that the elastic eases back into a relaxed shape. The first tool of emotional intelligence, The Elastic, gives you the ability to recognize when your stress levels are out of control and return to a calm and energized state of awareness.

2. The Glue helps you stay emotionally connected to yourself and others

Emotion points us in the direction of what we really need and serves as our primary source of motivation. Remove the emotional parts of the brain, and people lose their desire to do much of anything. Emotions are also the glue that holds the communication process together. Being able to recognize and manage core emotions—such as anger, sadness, fear, joy, and disgust—is essential for communication that engages and moves others.

We use glue to bring things together and to keep them together. Imagine the second tool of emotional intelligence as a warm, flowing means of connection to ourselves and others. The Glue helps you understand yourself, “read” what others are feeling, and communicate you true needs.

3. The Pulley helps you attract and hold the attention of others

Nonverbal communication is the lifelong pulley that, consciously or unconsciously, sends either positive or negative signals to others. Nothing reveals more about us, or attracts the attention of others, than wordless communication. Nonverbal communication is expressed through body language, the way your words sound when you speak, the appropriateness of your touch, and most of all, the emotion that comes across when you communicate.

Imagine the third tool of emotional intelligence as a pulley, always moving in two directions at once—receiving and giving, giving and receiving. The Pulley helps you keep relationships on track through the use of nonverbal signals that show your care and interest.

4. The Ladder helps you rise above life’s difficulties

All emotional sharing strengthens relationships, but sharing humor and the delight of play adds a unique restorative and healing element. Laughter and play fill you with joy and delight the nervous system, relaxing the body and relieving fatigue. Mutual playfulness reduces stress, defuses anger, mends fences, and lifts spirits.

A ladder allows you to get to more places than you normally can. Imagine the fourth tool of mutual humor and playfulness as giving you many more options for easing and overcoming frustrations and differences. The Ladder helps you get through tough times, stay positive, and keep your relationships spontaneous, creative, and fulfilling.  

5. The Velvet Hammer helps you handle conflict in a positive way

Conflicts and disagreements are an unavoidable part of life. But conflict resolved in a respectful and positive way strengthens the bonds between people. When conflict isn’t perceived as threatening or punishing, it fosters freedom, creativity, trust, and safety in relationships.

The head of a hammer is always hard, but in the hands of a skilled craftsman, it creates opportunities for new beginnings. Imagine the fifth tool as a velvet hammer, a source of growth, rather than destruction­ — an opportunity that can be at once difficult and rewarding. Softened and empowered by the skills of emotional intelligence, the Velvet Hammer enables you to gracefully overcome relationship challenges, without resorting to criticism, contempt, or defensiveness.

Learning the language of emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence is not learned in the standard intellectual way — it is learned by engaging the emotional parts of the brain, a kind of learning that is based on what we see, hear, and feel. Our brains are uniquely structured to absorb information from people who are important to us. Human survival has always depended on the quality of our relationships with others. Physically vulnerable creatures that we are, we also need to adapt quickly; the ability to read and respond appropriately to the emotionally-charged nonverbal cues coming from others is a key to that success. All of this explains why the human brain learns best in emotional, socially-relevant contexts.

The difference between learning and changing

There is a difference between learning — a process of intellectual absorption — and changing — a process of applying what you have learned to the varying circumstances in your life. Change is a more complicated process. There are many things we know and want to do, but can’t — or can’t when we’re under pressure. This is especially true when it comes to the skills of emotional intelligence.

To learn in a manner that produces real change, you need to engage the emotional centers of the brain in ways that connect you to others. Intellectual learning isn’t enough. This means that you can’t simply read about emotional intelligence or memorize the skills in order to master them. Intellectual interest and understanding is an important first step in becoming emotionally intelligent, but incorporating the skills of emotional intelligence into your everyday life requires interactive, sensory, nonverbal learning as well.

 

 

You can't be spiritually mature
while remaining 
emotionally immature...

Personal Coaching can help you know
yourself so that you may know God:
becoming your authentic self.