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What is Coaching?

How therapy differs from coaching

Coaching is the hot buzzword of the 21st Century. We find it mentioned in just about every venue and in every walk of life. The ATM machine at my local USBank® suggests seeking the aid of one of their financial coaches. Reality shows list Life Coaches as behind the scenes team members who work with the contestants during the filming of the shows. Business men and women hire a coach to help them perform better on the job. Everywhere we turn we hear the words coach and coaching in a way that has nothing to do with sporting events. But just what is this thing called coaching, and how does it apply to healing a marriage in trouble?

Coaching is not therapy
 First, let’s start with what coaching is not, and then we can talk about what it is. Coaching is not therapy or counseling. Both therapy and counseling are health care professions. Coaching is not health care, although it does help individuals and relationships achieve greater health. In therapy a pathology is diagnosed and the patient is led to a place of healing through a therapeutic model of talking about the issue, occasionally combined with drug therapy as well. Therapy often delves deeply into the patient’s childhood and background to identify recurring patterns and themes, helping the patient heal from the traumas of the past.

Although both coaching and therapy rely heavily on conversation as the vehicle to change, the focus and the methodology are different. In coaching we do not diagnose illness of any sort. As with other professionals there are times when we will see things which cause concern and we will refer our clients to the proper health care professional.

Coaches do not spend a significant amount of time in the client’s past. Although we all realize that the circumstances of the present are driven by events of the past and we need to understand and acknowledge that, coaching is present and future oriented. Where is the client today, where do they want to be, what is standing in the way of them getting there as quickly as possible, and what can we do to change that?

Coaching is…
Coaching then, is a sophisticated form of teaching, as Dave Buck, CEO of Coachville, says so eloquently. Not the kind of teaching where we lecture and fill our clients’ heads with tons of facts, but the most advanced form of teaching which expands the client’s understanding of herself by eliciting information from her in deeply engaged conversation. As coaches engage in this level of provocative and curious conversation, venturing into sensitive territories, we help our clients pull from their own minds and hearts puzzle pieces of information that we can then assist them in putting together to create an larger awareness. This larger awareness is aimed at discovering how both their own actions and the conditions around them inhibit them from creating the outcome they desire.

Awareness is great, no doubt about it. But it’s not enough. Many of my clients have told me that they spent plenty of time in therapy understanding what they do that sabotages their efforts and even why they do those things but they just didn’t have a model for making change. This, to me, is the heart of coaching. Along with the ability to draw from the client the understanding of what gets in their way is the very deep seated need to move into the next phase – that of designing a supportive environment that not only supports the change he wants to make but drives it. This is what makes coaching work. This is what seals the partnership aspect of it. This is the sheer beauty of the coaching model. Action.

Coaching, as a method of helping clients achieve their goals faster and more deeply than they would have otherwise, requires a level of expertise from the coach. For example, one would not want to shell out hard earned cash for a marketing coach who had no experience with marketing whatsoever. One would want someone who not only understood the concepts and methods of successful marketing, but had actually put those concepts and methods to use – effectively. The same is true of all manner of coaching - and life experience counts for a lot. Education comes in many forms and life is one of the best educators. Coaches come from all walks of life. Some are degreed (in a variety of disciplines) and some are not. All the masterful coaches have significant life experience over a wide range of subjects. The best of the best take that life experience and learn from it – not just about themselves but about the dynamics of life in general. They learn how to use their experiences to create their own lives and to help their clients bring their goals alive.

Coaching then, is not neutral. My clients don’t pay me to ask them what they think they ought to do about their spouse’s affair or drug addiction. They pay me to tell them what I think based on my level of expertise. They want me to offer options for solutions to tell them what I know about things that have worked for others, to tell them what the latest research says, to guide them through a terribly traumatic time. Coaches give opinions and suggestions. Because coaching is a partnership, a collaboration, we can explore with our clients different options and suggestions from both coach and client leaving the client free to choose what he or she believes to be the best choice in the moment.

Coaching not only elicits understanding of the what and the why of the problem – coaching solves problems and creates a stronger more fulfilling future.

Coaching :
A sophisticated form of teaching
Which expands the client’s awareness of the internal and external roadblocks and speedbumps in the way of reaching the goal
Assists in designing and supporting an environment which reinforces and drives the desired change
Dependant on a level of expertise of the coach in his or her chosen field
Expertise is education and experience based
Occurs in the context of deeply engaged conversations which venture fearlessly into sensitive subjects
Solves problems and manifests change faster than the client would have done alone

Coaching and Marriage

Using the model above describing coaching in general let’s apply it to marriage in particular.

A sophisticated form of teaching which expands the client’s awareness of the internal and external roadblocks and speedbumps in the way of reaching the goal.

My number one basic concept for healing marriages is – If you want your marriage to change YOU need to change. In order for that to happen there first needs to be an understanding of the internal points of view, attitudes and behaviors that are causing roadblocks and difficulties. Through deep conversation the coaching relationship brings those things to the fore and allows the client to examine what is working, what is not, and what sorts of things need to change.

Most people come to marriage coaching with a very clear idea of what their spouse needs to do in order for the marriage to improve and heal. Most don’t examine their own contribution to the problems until they are carefully led to so in a way that is both caring and steadfast. It never ceases to amaze me that people think I can effect change in their mates without ever speaking to their partner. I can’t – but I can help create change in the client which will inevitably create change in the marriage.

In addition to looking at the internal landscape – we take a look at the conditions surrounding the marriage. We talk about everything from money and career to in laws and hobbies. The situation where the marriage exists directly impacts its health. As we move toward healing we need to take that into account as well.

Assists in designing and supporting an environment which reinforces and drives the desired change

Once we start digging out those things that need to change we can begin to talk about how the surrounding circumstances need to change as well. This covers an amazing array of situations and conditions. The most essential ingredient for rebuilding a marriage is spending time together as a couple. That’s a great goal – but it’s not going to happen spontaneously just because the couple understands the need for it. We need to create conditions that foster and drive that goal. I ask about things such as childcare, working hours, hobbies, finances, recreational preferences, and then we get to work. We talk about scheduling the time together – we make sure there is reliable, affordable child care, we talk about and plan for what the couple would like to do with that time, and then we monitor how it goes and make adjustments as needed. We could use a similar process for virtually any marital situation.

I personally love and excel at the art of negotiation (I was once a customer service manager for a packaging company and prided myself on negotiating mutually beneficial solutions to customer complaints that appeared to be stalemated with upper management) – so I am always working a trade with couples for the things they each would like to have. He wants to go out one night a week – she wants help with the dishes….. sounds like a deal in the works. But it’s not just a simple trade with one or both of them enduring something unpleasant in order to get what they want later – we work together as a team to figure out what part of doing something for the other person is pleasant, what part is not, and then we tweak that to create two mutually enjoyable experiences. Sometimes we get it right the first time – sometimes we do trial and error – but the couple is unstuck and moving in a direction of creating a marriage that is fulfilling.

Dependant on a level of expertise of the coach in his or her chosen field

Expertise is education and experience based

See my bio for education, credentials, and expertise

Occurs in the context of deeply engaged conversations which venture fearlessly into sensitive subjects

Coaching is a conversation. Masterful coaching is a conversation which shakes up the client’s preconceived ideas and moves them to an expanded view of life, love and marriage. The coaching proficiencies are built around the skills and talents of deeply engaged conversation. My favorite way of explaining what happens when coaching is flowing is this – Everyone has had the experience of being engaged in a conversation with a friend, colleague, family member etc. and suddenly hearing something they didn’t know they knew or some amazing new idea or point of view coming out of their own lips. This is the magic and the art of deeply engaged conversation – it allows us to not only draw from within but to create as we speak. It’s a lightbulb moment and it’s permanently etched in your mind when it happens. This is where the art of coaching begins.

I enjoy my clients enormously. I enjoy the stories of their lives and their marriages. I dig, I probe, I listen quietly and I venture down side roads in the conversation - sometimes looking for something in particular and sometimes just because I’m curious. These conversations help me and help my clients see the bigger picture at work in their marriage. They help define what the core issues might be and what are seemingly urgent problems but in reality are simply symptoms of something less blatant. I get to know my clients at a deeply personal level and we are both better for that.

I am not neutral. Every one of my clients knows that my goal is to save and heal their marriage and to keep their family intact. Sometimes that means being uncompromising on certain issues. Sometimes it means urging them to do things which are difficult and frightening – often it means being straightforward about what I see going on beneath the surface. My goal is not that the client feel great in the moment regardless of the impact on the marriage – in the end that is counter productive and contradicts the reason the client came to me in the first place. But I am always compassionate and respectful of the painful and terrifying place people find themselves in when confronted with infidelity, other addictions, control, abuse or neglect. I will never advise divorce, but I will support a decision to seek one if the steps to healing have failed and the client has done all I’ve asked in addressing his or her own changes.

Solves problems and manifests change faster than the client would have done alone

No other words needed.

© Penny R. Tupy 2004
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