Dear Therapist,
Let’s work together for the benefit of our mutual client thereby creating the Dream Team! One therapist put it this way: “Your coaching can be viewed as a support for the therapy process. Similar to that of EMDR. I send my client to you for specific estrangement work and can either work in conjunction with your coaching support or maybe I send them to see you for 6-8 weeks and then they come back to me for continued therapeutic support.”
* What qualifies you to coach my client regarding estrangement?
I am a trained life coach and have been coaching clients since 2003 (unofficially) and 2018 (officially with estranged people). I have completed levels 1, 2 and 3 of the estrangement coaching training with Dr. Becca Bland (estrangement expert) and am now certified as an estrangement coach. I’ve also completed estrangement facilitator training under Dr. Joshua Coleman (estrangement expert) (2020). In addition to these trainings, I am also a formerly estranged and now reconciled mother of two adult children AND a formerly estranged and now reconciled adult child. My personal estrangement experiences have provided me with an intimate understanding of the pain of estrangement as well as the practical actions needed to reconcile and transform the relationship between parent and adult child.
* How will your work with my client help them and not hinder their therapy process or cause harm?
The care and safety of my clients is my top priority. The last thing I want to do is to hinder a client’s therapy process or to cause them any harm. If they are not already in therapy, I highly encourage my clients to participate in therapy in conjunction with their work with me. This helps them to work on their own traumas which have colored the lens through which they view the world - to include their estrangement experience and how they may have parented their adult children. The majority of my clients (estranged mothers and estranged adult children) are in therapy and it’s not uncommon for me to encourage further exploration of a particular topic, with their therapist, that I feel might be hindering their reconciliation process and that is out of my scope of practice.
* What knowledge / experience do you have about psychology and the therapy process?
Professionally - I have seven and a half years as a practice coordinator / manager for small and large psychotherapy group practices where I managed and coached therapists. In these positions, I attended all educational presentations for therapists within the practice and worked with therapists for monthly Lunch & Learn presentations. One of the things a psychologist and several mental health counselors have said about me is that I have a deep understanding of the therapy process, the theories and modalities AND have a very clear understanding knowing of where “my lane is”. (I share this information with you to help define my healthy respect for therapists and the work they do with their clients.)
Personally - I have been and am currently a therapy client. This has been a part of my life, off and on, for 30+ years. I have a grounded & profound respect for the work of psychological therapy. Some of my favorite people are therapists! With an insatiable appetite for learning and an unending passion for psychology and human behaviors, my personal interests are: attachment theory, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN) and conflict resolution. My library is filled with books by Carl Jung, Gabor Mate, MD, Deb Dana, Dr. Jonice Webb and Richard Schwartz, PhD.
I welcome & encourage working collaboratively with you for the benefit of our client as well as our individual work with them.