Mind

Coaching
What is coaching and how does it differ from psychotherapy? 
The key difference between coaching and therapy has more to do with the mindset than the method. While both coaching and therapy can help people make major life changes, coaching does not focus on medical pathology of disorders or psychological assessments and diagnosis. Coaching is typically more goal oriented and while there are goal oriented types of therapy, coaching doesn’t usually address the underlying issues that can be related to behavior change.

The goal of a coaching relationship is to help people tap into and actualize their deepest visions of what they want and who they want to be.  Coaching allows one to focus on creating and maintaining behavioral change.  Coaching fosters self responsibility, accountability, and steps to be able to see progress toward the end result. 
Coaching is aimed at self-empowerment. 

Wellness Coaching

Wellness Coaching is a specialized coaching service that allows clients to work one-on-one with a practitioner who can help support and encourage behavior change around health and well-being.  Wellness Coaches can work one on one with individuals or as a team with other health professionals helping clients adhere to health practices for health promotion and disease management.  Wellness Coaching emphasizes a holistic model in working with the whole person and their wellness needs. 

Wellness Coaches are sought out to help people in the various areas:

• Health Promotion/ Disease Management
• Stress Management and Mindfulness
• Weight Management/ Healthy Lifestyle Change
• Work/Life Balance
• Family/ Partner Relationships
• Smoking/ Tobacco Prevention/ Cessation
• Nutrition Education/ Exercise Prescription
• Depression and Anxiety Prevention/ Management

Mindfulness Based Coaching
Mindfulness Based Coaching is a specialized coaching service that highlights the tool of "mindfulness" to achieve greater insight, health, and well-being.  Mindfulness is defined as paying attention in the present moment without judgment.  When one engages in mindfulness coaching, they are being taught how to better understand what is happening in the present moment so that they can react from a wise place rather than a reactive place. 

Mindfulness Based Coaching is helpful in the following areas:

• Enhance Your Focus and Concentration
• Develop Resilience to Manage Stress
  
• Emotional Regulation
• Mindful Eating and Weight Management
• Strengthen Your Relationships
  
• Build Self Confidence
  
• Increase your Gratitude and Appreciation for Life
  
• Develop Awareness of what truly brings you happiness!
  

Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is stemmed from a medical model of diagnosis and the aim for the client is to gain insight into how beliefs, feelings, and past events dictate their current life and behaviors.  Psychotherapy is about healing at a deeper level and then moving forward. The coach puts less emphasis on past memories, hurts, and trauma and focuses more clearly on just the behavior change.  If a person has a deeper issue of hurt or past trauma, coaching merely puts a band-aid on the problem.  

For example, a client comes in with the wish of weight management and help with emotional eating.  In a coaching relationship, the client would receive techniques and suggestions on what to do stop the behavior and ways to cope with desires of emotional eating.  If the same problem was brought to a psychotherapist, the client would also receive suggestions and techniques in how to decrease the behavior, but the psychotherapist would also assess resistance to change and underlying issues of past hurt, trauma, or experiences that continue to re-trigger the desire and create the barrier to meaningful change.

Working with a psychotherapist can allow a client to heal the underlying symptoms that can truly lead to personality and developmental change.  Psychotherapists have undergone a long course of education in human development, psychopathology, and have an extensive knowledge in the practice and implementation of various types of therapy with a variety of different clients. This type of training allows psychotherapists to help clients to create change in many aspects of their lives.  

Guided Imagery
Guided Imagery is a term used to describe a range of techniques from simple visualization and direct imagery-based suggestion, through metaphor and storytelling.  Guided imagery is used to help teach psychophysiologic relaxation, to relieve symptoms, to stimulate healing responses in the body, and to help people tolerate procedures and treatments more easily.   Guided Imagery CD’s and scripts can be seen to help with the following areas: healthy sleep, healing cancer, regulating mood, preparation for surgery, reducing stress, etc.

Interactive Guided Imagery is a specific approach to using therapeutic imagery.  The guide helps to create situations where clients can draw on their own inner resources to support healing, to make appropriate adaptations to changes in health behaviors, to find creative solutions to challenges they might have thought were previously insoluble. In summary, interactive guided imagery encourages clients an ability to gain better access to their strengths and resources and tends to lead toward greater self efficacy and empowerment. 

Carley is a licensed marriage and family therapist intern, nutritional counselor, certified guided imagery practitioner, and certified Wellness Coach. Carley received her masters degree in Health Psychology, which blends the prevention of disease and health promotion through counseling, education, and supportive therapeutic practices. Carley integrates her education and experience in all of these professional roles to help empower, heal, and guide her clients to greater happiness and compassion towards themselves and others.  Carley specializes in the following topics:

    • Weight Management
    • Improving Self- Esteem
    • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy/ Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy
    • Coping with a chronic illness
    • Pain Management
    • Insomnia
    • Life Transitions
    • Emotional Eating
    • Mindfulness based psychotherapy/ coaching
    • Stress Management

3 Levels to Coaching

1) Accomplishing Tasks and Goals
Coaching at this level is helping one stay accountable. This may entail helping clients to clarify goals, creating an action plan to move one forward towards their goals, and then setting up a structure to keep one on track.

This is a fine system for keeping one on task with helpful reminders and support, but it doesn’t instill a person with the belief that they can create lasting change.

2) Developing Confidence in your ability to change
This second step could also be called self-actualization- which refers to one’s ability to fufill one’s potential. At this level of coaching, we help clients learn something new. We can work with a person so they’re not just able to accomplish a goal or task one time, but so that the can continously do it on their own. The aim here is to teach someone how to do something rather than just telling someone what to do.

3) Changing how you relate to yourself
At this level, we might work with how you relate to yourself and others and your world. By achieving insight in this, one can create lasting change.

Example of coaching model used with weight management

At levels one and two, a coach may address a client’s relationship with food, calories, and exercise, whereas at level 3, the focus is shifted to the relationship with themselves. This might include understanding how they relate to their body and how they seek out nurturance and comfort outside of food. At this level, techniques might be brought in to allow one to slow down and get in touch with what is really needed or desired. This new perspective into themselves allows a greater sense of accomplishment, freedom, and potential.

Coaching structure
In the first session, we will do an in-depth intake to address your specific goals and interests. Then in session 2 or 3, I will present you with an outline to how we can address your specific concerns, as well as focus on patterns, beliefs or ways of living that may be interfering with you living your goals, vision or optimal potential.

I will suggest specific practices and techniques to explore the issues and create lasting healthy solutions in your life. We’ll then explore these themes as the weeks progress – particularly working with obstacles that arise in order to support a deep transformation.  Coaching clients typically commit to a time period of 2-3 months to be able to create real healthy change. 

COACHING PACKAGES

Whole Body Healing
Create a plan that nurtures a healthy body and mind.

This 8 session package embraces the physical and emotional aspects of your health. 

This package can be structured according to your individual goals and needs.

• Personal Training
• Nutritional Counseling
• Mindfulness Based Coaching
• Effective Tools to create deep and meaningful change in your health and well-being.  

Be FREE

Tap into peace and calm.

If you would like to learn how to be less reactive, calm, and present for the people in your life and situations in your life, then this package is your answer. 

This 8 session package emphasizes:

• learning self awareness, mindfulness, and increasing ease and confidence in the midst of pressure. 
• what triggers your stress response and how to combat stress
• develop a customized program with tools you can access anywhere for work life balance 

These services can be arranged into a package that works for you and addresses your unique goals and desires. Additional sessions can be purchased for additional support and wellness.

Right Eating
Learn how to quit emotional eating for good!

If you would like to learn how to choose wisely around food and your own self-care, then this package is for you.

Right Eating, stems from the Buddhist teachings of the eightfold path to enlightenment. In the Buddhist teachings, "right" means appropriate, beneficial, leading to happiness and freedom. 

This 8 session package will uncover how we use food for comfort and ways to meet those needs without food. In this package you will discover:

• how to work with trigger foods and know when you are full.  
• understand the link between cortisol, stress, and cravings
• learn to discern between feeling tired and hunger
• develop practices in mindful eating
• learn how to be with difficult emotions vs. turning away from them
• learn how to work with judgments and how our thoughts can impact our food choices. 

These services can be arranged into a package that works for you and addresses your unique goals and desires.  Additional sessions can be purchased for more support.  

Pleaes call or e-mail me to set up an appointment and indicate which service you are interested in and provide a few dates and times that you prefer. Telephone: 415-971-7556