We both cried as she told me she was leaving me for a life coach.
We started working together when she was a young teen. She is now a young adult. We walked together through all the turmoil of growing from teen to young adult, traversing a couple of obstacles along the way caused by a diagnosis.
The diagnosis is manic/depressive. It’s one I share with her, although not with the same symptoms. Sharing the diagnosis helps me understand, and better able to help her and other clients with bi-polar disorder.
Early on, I used Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Gestalt to help her banish a voice in her head that was becoming abusive. Miraculously, that worked, and the voice has not come back for these six years.
Between our work together, her extremely supportive parents, and a gifted psychiatrist, she manages her bi-polar and is most often on an even plane. We had dropped back to a meeting once every two or three weeks.
During high school, she also acquired a service dog — a delightful golden retriever named Sylvia — who we were able to get permission for her to take to classes. That loyal doggie got her back into high school.
She successfully graduated and began work. She established friendships and let go of some that weren’t in her best interests. She started dating at age 19, and continues to maneuver through those situations while taking good care of herself and her emotions.
She reiterated this history to me in our final session. She had gone through her journal the night before to prod her memory of the mountains we’d ascended together, and the valleys I’d helped her across. She cried while doing that.
I also began to cry, out of gratitude and joy, but also because I saw what was coming. There’s a spidey-sense I get when a client is about to tell me they are leaving therapy.
With my longer term clients, I often develop a feeling of caring love for them. With younger clients especially, the love is maternal. It would be impossible not to love them when I witness them grow and become the light-filled beings they are meant to be.
She finally gathered the courage to tell me she had begun working with a life coach. I had similar mixed feeling to when a parent sends a child off to college. Pride, happiness, sadness, even grief.
The life coach had already gotten her interested in college, and filling out applications. She would begin studies in the field she’d loved as a kid, but hadn’t pursued. I was thrilled for her.
The difference in therapists and life coaches is that therapists are trained to lead clients through their own thoughts and feelings. To evaluate and recover from their traumas. We help them adjust to circumstances, and get them connected with good psychiatrists who can subscribe psychotropic mediations if needed. We help them overcome fears — including those of setting off on new paths. We can’t, however, push them onto those paths.
Life coaches can. They give assignments. They provide accountability, as they require clients to report on progress. After one of my clients has done the deep work, a life coach can then guide them on their path and give them the pushes they need to keep productively on their journey.
Therapists and life coaches can work together, or refer to each other, and many do. I’ve referred, but not collaborated, and this experience makes me want to collaborate. I can see the value. I can also picture the enormous progress a client can make while dealing with their emotions and issues, and simultaneously working with a life coach to make plans and follow through.
In fact, this collaboration would likely lead to the best outcomes.
It takes a team to guide people through rocky teen years and beyond. A good team needs a good coach. I hope she found a good one.
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This post was previously published on New Choices.
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