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We present interactive training on
relationship management, systemic coaching, team entanglements and toxic relationship bonds.
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Coaching, Counseling & Therapy Contracts
Although your choice of a therapy or coaching style may be
made by an insurance company or a clinic, you can ensure that it is
appropriate for you and your family. Good intentions, polite manners or a
positive outlook do not necessarily mean effective changework with healthy consequences.
Most service providers use offers and service contracts
to clarify their conditions. Life coaching, marriage
counseling and family therapy can follow similar rules.
Yet therapy, counselling and coaching contracts often only specify:
- the client must pay the practitioner
- the client must trust the practitioner
- the client must obey the practitioner
- the practitioner makes no specific offers
Read the advertising for coaches, counselors
and therapists. You will find offers to increase love,
generate enthusiasm or create positive impact. You will
rarely find offers for specific changes. While this may be appropriate for
those people who cannot make decisions, most people
can and will make healthy choices - if choices are offered.
How can you check which modality of change would be best for
you without learning that methodology? And how can you check the professionalism
of a coach or therapist without purchasing sessions? You can seek detailed
offers and tests for success.
Detailed Offers
You are the expert about what you want - and about how you
want it. During our systemic coaching, you are offered many
choices, and your choices are honored. We help you explore
the likely consequences of your choices and check alternative ways that you can
achieve your goal, or whether you prefer to change
your goals or your way of achieving them.
Tests for Success
If you are enmeshed in
emotional entanglements or overwhelmed
by a crisis or trauma, you may be unable to
define your goals. You may even be unable to describe your complaints. You may
assume that a practitioner
can magically provide something you need - perhaps emotional clarity.
Nobody can guarantee your state. As
you gain clarity about your life - you may find yourself happy or depressed!
Your state provides important information! If you focus on unpleasant feelings,
you can find ways to resolve the causes. If your
sense of life is programmed, for example by hypnosis or medication, your good
feelings may have the high cost of losing essential information about your
life.
Offers
Clarify what is
actually offered. If you ask a practitioner for offers,
you may hear rather abstract phrases, such as increase love,
add positive impact, generate enthusiasm
or achieve enlightenment. Get details.
You can ask "How
would I know that your offer increased love or added to my
positive impact?" (You may have to wade through abstractions
before you understand the answer.)
Or you can ask yourself
"What would convince me that I have generated enthusiasm
or achieved enlightenment, or whatever else was offered?"
Check if you want that goal, and, if you do achieve it - then what comes
next? If you have successfully increased your love, etc, what
would you want to do with it?
Do practitioners walk their talk - or stumble their mumble?
Which practitioners enjoy happy relationships? Which practitioners
show emotional stability and empathy when talking about
difficult issues? Which practitioners focus on your goals and complaints -
instead of their own theories? Who offers tests for your success? Who
discusses alternatives to their psycho-theologies?
Trust & Compliance
A therapy contract may require that you establish trust,
build rapport or accept openness
as if you may otherwise distrust, prevent rapport or withhold openness.
Does a practitioner demand your trust - or work to earn your trust?
Sometimes "You can trust me" is a way to say
"Obey me without question"
Beware if someone tries to take a parent
knows best attitude about your life. Beware if you are asked to do
things without explanation. Beware if a practitioner ignores the
potential consequences of your choices, or ignores
alternate ways that you can fulfill your goals.
You can trust people to do whatever is in their own best
interest. What could be in the best interest of a person who wants to control
you? (See Spiritual Abuse & Mentor Damage)
How long does it take?
Imagine a mechanic who tells you "Just bring your
car in for an hour or
two every week until your engine is ready to change". Or a plumber
who says "I will intuit what is wrong with your water system and send
energy to your pipes in ways that you cannot possibly understand".
While you are more complex than a mechanical system,
you can risk being called a difficult client - and ask
for offers that include expected results, by when and how expensive.
[ Client
Abuse . Trainer Abuse . Flow Chart ]
When should you fire a service provider?
Do you want to contribute to someone's income stream
for an indeterminate time? Discuss the end of a service at the
start. Be clear that you want offers, choices and proof of success.
Resist prolonging a paid friendship - it is important that you fly solo!
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Feedback |
After two Soulwork sessions,
I said goodbye to my therapist of four years. She helped me do so many
little things that I came to depend on her. She was so nice to me
that I forgot that I was paying her over $100 per hour to be my Mom.
BC, Canada |
[
Coach Failure .
Therapist-Client Codependence ]
Page 2: Effective Therapy & Coaching
Some say that therapists thrive on incompetence.
Well promoted, less competent therapists may enjoy a better income than those
whose clients achieve their desired goals in less time.
Others perceive therapy to be a waste of time and money.
The time to achieve a desired goal can be perceived to be interminable and costly.
There may also be a social stigma that "people who need therapy" are weak,
lazy or unable to cope with ordinary life challenges.
Sometimes paid friendship may be exactly what
you want. Do you want to feel understood, to feel accepted, to feel open without
fear of rejection or criticism? You may leave a session happy
if what you wanted that day was deep human conversation.
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Offers & Outcomes
Coaching agreements help practitioners and clients define
coaching goals and therapy plans, and to test for success of defined goals.
You may be asked "What do you want?"
as if you know all possible choices and their consequences, and that you can
easily choose
between them.
Some therapists
believe that they know or can intuit your goals. They may say or infer, "I
know better than you what you want!"
A systemic coach can enquire into your situation and
offer choices. e.g. "Do you already know what you
want; or do you want to explore what possibilities exist; or do you want
guidance through life until you can find your own way?"
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Boundaries and Limits
A coaching or therapeutic relationship can facilitate
your goals. Yet a friendly word can become a
touch, a touch can become a date, and a practitioner can become
a victimizer.
Maintaining boundaries
is an essential part of a healthy relationship. Although
boundaries create a space for development and change, a contract cannot
control a practitioner's or your entanglements,
thoughts or fantasies. Despite good
intentions, you may feel yourself drawn outside your boundaries.
Contracts can focus relationships. For example,
a contract may include or exclude massage or touching, meeting
outside sessions, sharing or withholding information and the
limits of confidentiality. Some questions can provide useful feedback
for both practitioner and client.
- How might a practitioner avoid harming a client?
- Which elements of a contract are essential to
maintain boundaries?
- Which elements of a contract can only be described as
convenience?
- When would a contract become an obstacle to
creativity and change?
Coaching / Therapy Contract A
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| This coaching
contract ignores the client's goals, the practitioner's
role and the services to be offered.
This contract relieves a practitioner of
responsibility and denies both practitioner and client
the benefits of comparing offers with results. |
I, <client's name> take
full responsibility for all actions that I take as a result
of coaching. I understand that <coach or therapist's name>
is not qualified to give legal, financial or medical advice.
I agree to:
- Take action daily toward my goals
- Be present and prepared for my coaching sessions
- Be honest about my challenges and what I want to achieve
- Generate my own solutions
- Speak up immediately if anything bothers me about my coaching
- Strongly request what I need for coaching to be effective for me
I commit to work with
<practitioner> for a minimum of ... months, in ... sessions per
calendar month, from ... through ... I agree to pay the
coming monthly fee by the 1st of each month. |
Coaching / Therapy Contract B
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| This contract loosely defines how
coaching may be provided.
This does not define any offer, test, nor criteria
for success.
Neither practitioner nor client can determine whether
most of the agreement is fulfilled. |
The coach, therapist or practitioner
undertakes:
1. I will not solve your problems.
2. I will work to help you make the changes that you choose
3. I will help you develop the skills you wish to master.
4. I will treat you with respect and consideration.
5. I will regularly review your progress.
6. I will keep your personal contact information private.
7. I will not disclose information about you
The client undertakes:
1. I take full responsibility for resolving my own problems.
2. I will be punctual for sessions and give notice of cancellation.
3. I will pay the session fee if I cancel a session with less
than 48 hours notice.
4. I will complete assigned exercises and homework
5. I will consult with a medical doctor if advised to do so
6. If I do not complete my work, my coaching may
be terminated.
7. I will pay all fees, in full, at time of session or in
advance. |
[
Consequences of Relationship Coaching ]
Do you want relationship coaching or systemic coach
training? We can train you to coach individuals, partners and teams to resolve
emotional, educational and relationship challenges.
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