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What is Growth Coaching?
Growth coaching is a service that establishes a non-therapeutic relationship with a helping professional (like a therapist). Coaching allows helping professionals to utilize their expertise in human thoughts, feelings, and behavior outside of a traditional clinical treatment model (e.g. psychotherapy).
Our therapy programs promote health and happiness by reducing the suffering caused by hardship, trauma, and mental illness. In contrast our coaching program promotes health and happiness by helping clients remove the daily mental, emotional, and external obstacles they face towards their growth.
How does it work?
Your coach gains a deep understanding of your needs, hopes, desires, frustrations, fears, and concerns. Together, you'll identify goals and objectives with action steps. Additionally, you'll choose how coaching can best serve you along that journey.
Our coaches believe that you are the expert in your own life and that sometimes all you need is help organizing your strengths to move forward. Here are some skills coaches use:
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Breaking down big goals and aspirations into smaller, actionable steps.
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Organizing your thoughts so you can maximize the intellectual work you've already done to solve your own challenges.
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Challenging you where you might need it while encouraging you to have reasonable expectations in areas you might be too hard on yourself.
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Teaching you skills to increase a level of self-awareness that will help you make more informed decisions about your life.
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Providing encouragement and support through achievements and setbacks.
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Listening and creating a non-judgmental space for you to sort through your strengths and challenges.
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Embedding a systemic, liberationist, and anti-oppressive lens that witnesses the struggles of clients with marginalized identities.
What are common coaching goals?
Some examples of some aspirations our clients have brought with them to coaching. Using these aspirations, we create concrete goals and strategies to achieve them.
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"I want to discover why I keep doing this and how I can do that instead."
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"I want to be a better supervisor/leader/boss."
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"I want to navigate adoption reunion with the most sensitivity possible."
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"I want to make it though this competitive school/program application."
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"I want to navigate disagreements in ways I'm proud of in retrospect."
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"I want to develop skills to see my needs as equally important to those of others."
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"I want to advance my social skills and problem-solving skills to the next level."
What makes coaching different from therapy?
Therapists and parenting coaches may sometimes work on similar needs and problems; however, their approaches are different.
A therapist establishes a therapeutic relationship with a client and provides ongoing treatment for mental health or emotional concerns. A coach establishes a non-therapeutic relationship with a client and provides ongoing support through insight, advice, education, encouragement, and skill transfer.
Please note that coaching will not benefit, and may actually harm, someone whose most pressing needs are better addressed through therapy.
Can I attend therapy and coaching at the same time?
Yes! Coaching can complement other services you may receive from other professionals.
Please note, our therapists and our coaches ethically cannot hold “dual roles.” This means that your coach cannot also serve as your therapist or the therapist to any member of your family (nor vice versa). This is with the exception of our tween/teen therapy program where a child's therapist may offer coaching sessions to the parents that are related to enhancing the child's therapeutic progress outside of sessions.
What do you Specialize in?
Our main areas of focus include:
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Navigating adoption reunion / open adoption.
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Identity reconstruction for adult adopted/fostered/donor conceived people.
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Professional growth for Millennials and Gen X.
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Leadership and supervisory growth for counselors, social workers, and therapists.
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Empowerment for QBIPOC people.
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Parenting (see Parenting Coaching).
How do we Connect?
Coaching sessions are available nationwide through our secure virtual video portal. You will receive an account and log-in for this portal to make it easy to meet with your coach anywhere. Sessions are also available in-person to those who would like to meet at our location in Parkesburg, PA. For the texting add-on, clients can use their regular texting service - or - download our secure texting app for additional privacy and security. The portal and the app have no additional/hidden service or download fees.
How do I pay for sessions?
All sessions with a coach are billed per session (55 minutes) at the time of each session. We accept debit and credit cards. The fee is $180 per session.
Please note that insurance does not cover coaching services.
How often do we meet?
Coaching typically takes place on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. Forming a solid relationship and understanding of how to help is key to success. Because of this, we start out working with coaching clients on a weekly basis for at least the first 2-3 consecutive sessions before revisiting the session frequency.