Coaching & Psychotherapy

Coaching and psychotherapy can provide effective and complimentary individual support. Psychotherapy focuses on understanding and coping with trauma from the past, while coaching intentionally strategizes in the present for achieving goals and outcomes into the future.

Just as is it important to identify the root cause of problems, it is equally important to acquire  personal agency and to move beyond trauma in the pursuit of goals. Goal-strategizing without understanding one’s past is equivalent to climbing a ladder only to find it is leaning against the wrong building. Equally so, achieving understanding without deliberate attempts at movement from trauma may be formula for sustaining inertia.

Bottom line: Personal understanding and intentional living are essential, in equal measure, for moving forward and realizing desired outcomes. 

When I was in my twenties, I had a deep need to find a worthy goal, to exercise my anxious body, and to exorcise my psychological demons. I found the means to satisfy all needs through daily, disciplined running. Initially, I agonized and procrastinated over training, but persevered and became a competitive, sponsored runner for several decades. Deciding to train is easy, committing to train for continued improvement is bloody hard to do. Until it isn’t. 

My wife tells on a weekly basis that I am very disciplined about exercise (with only a trace of bitterness). I think, really? Objectively, what I do on a daily basis can be regarded as both difficult and disciplined, I guess. But in my non-competitive phase of life, my present training regime is relatively easy. From the perspective of having faced and embraced difficult challenges, present and future obstacles become less threatening. Also—and this is a key piece for transformational change—lifestyle choices that have meaning, that can be parsed into achievable goals, and are bolstered by the power of habit over decades, provides a formula for living. 

Phobias are treated by gradual exposure over time under controlled conditions; that is, we can strategically face our fears until they lose their power to make us afraid. Discipline has been baked into my daily ritual, such that difficult becomes commonplace, and intense effort is embraced and acted upon without much deliberate thought. That took years, but it happened (at least according to my wife). Best of all, even minor ubiquitous success in one domain can correlate into success into all aspects of one’s life (education, career, and relationships).

We can address deep wounds with understanding and deliberate small steps towards large goals, over time. Whatever our personal goals, however long it takes to achieve our personal goals, acquiring personal agency through deliberate effort is perhaps the most satisfying goal of all.

I am an outcome-based coach and psychotherapist. I am interested in hearing and understanding your story, and working with you to craft and implement a deliberate, personal plan for realizing your evolving goals.