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We offer coaching, mentorship and training
on healthy relationships,
emotional blocks, changing beliefs and resolving
mentor damage.
Coaching, Counseling & Therapy Contracts
Although your choice of a therapy or coaching style may be
made for you by an insurance company or a clinic, you can still ensure that it
is appropriate for you and your family. Good intentions, polite manners and a
positive outlook do not necessarily mean effective changework with healthy consequences.
Most service providers clarify their conditions with detailed offers
and service contracts. Helping professionals offering services such as life coaching,
marriage counseling and family therapy can follow similar rules.
Yet most therapy, counseling and coaching contracts often only specify that:
- a client must pay the practitioner
- a client must trust the practitioner
- a client must obey the practitioner
- a practitioner guarantees no results
Read some internet advertising for coaches, counselors and
therapists. You will find many offers for abstractions such as increase love,
generate enthusiasm or create positive impact. You will
rarely find offers for specific changes. While this might be appropriate for
people who cannot make decisions, most people
seeking help can and will make healthy choices - if choices are offered.
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How can you check which modality would be best
for you without learning all the methodologies? How can you check the professionalism
of a coach, counselor or therapist without purchasing sessions? Ask for detailed
offers and tests for success.
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Detailed Offers
You are the expert about what you want - and about how and
when you
want it. During our systemic coaching, we offer you many choices, and we
honor your choices. We help you explore the likely consequences of your choices
and check alternative ways that you can achieve your goal, and whether you prefer
to change your goals or your way of achieving them.
Tests for Success
If you are enmeshed in
transferences or
fixations or overwhelmed by abuse or trauma,
you may be unable to define your goals. You may even be unable to describe
your complaints. You may hope that a coach, counselor or therapist can magically
provide you with clarity or emotional maturity.
Nobody can guarantee your state of mind. As
you gain clarity about your life - you will likely find that all emotions
provide important information! You can find ways to resolve unpleasant feelings. If your
sense of life becomes programmed by medication, your good
feelings may come with the very high cost of losing essential information about your
life, not to mention the side-effects of many drugs.
Offers
Clarify what a coach, counselor or therapist actually offers.
You may read or be told rather abstract phrases, such as increase love, add
positive impact, generate enthusiasm or achieve enlightenment.
Ask for details. Ask for evidence of success. Ask about consequences.
Perhaps ask "How would I know if your offer of
increased love added to my positive impact?" (You may have to wade
through abstractions, psychobabble and medi-babble to understand
their answers.)
Or you can ask yourself,
"What exactly would convince me that I have generated enthusiasm
or achieved enlightenment, or whatever else was offered?" For
example, you might decide that you would be convinced if you can enjoy a healthy
partnership instead of shallow short-term affairs.
Check if you want that goal, and consider, once you achieve it -
what do you want next? If you have successfully increased your positive impact,
or whatever, what would you want to do with it?
Do coaches, counselors and therapists 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 success -
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
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as if you may otherwise distrust, prevent rapport or tell lies.
Does a practitioner demand your trust - or work to earn your trust?
Sometimes, "You can trust me" is a way of saying,
"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
alternative ways that you can fulfill your goals.
I generally trust people to do whatever is in their own best
interest. What could be in the best interest of someone who wants to control
you? (See Spiritual Abuse & Mentor Damage)
How long does it take?
Imagine a car 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 comprehend".
While you are more complex than any mechanical system,
you can risk being called a difficult client - and ask
for offers that include expected results, by when and how expensive. If the
answer is two sessions each week for three months that may cost you $2000 -
$5000. For what? For good intentions? Get specific answers!
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 choices and proof of success.
Resist prolonging paid friendship - learn to fly solo!
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After two of your 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 ... I forgot that I was paying her to be my Mom.
BC, Canada |
Page 2: Effective Therapy & Coaching
Some say that therapists thrive on incompetence.
It is true that well promoted, inefficient therapists may earn far more than those
whose clients achieve their desired goals in much shorter time frames.
Some people perceive therapy to be a waste of time and money.
The time to achieve a desired goal may seem interminable and
costly. There may also be a social stigma that people who need therapy
are weak, lazy or cannot 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 really wanted that
day was intelligent adult conversation about your important life
issues.
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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 can choose
between them.
Some therapists believe that they can intuit your goals. They
may infer, "I know better than you what you want!"
We 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 help with your emotions
until you can find your own way?"
Or maybe you have a better idea?"
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Boundaries and Limits
Coaching, counseling or therapeutic relationships
can help you achieve your goals. Yet a friendly word can become a
touch, a touch can become a caress, and a practitioner can become
a victimizer.
Maintaining boundaries is an essential part of healthy
relationships. Boundaries create a space for development and change, although
a contract cannot control a person's enmeshments, fixations or
fantasies. Despite good intentions, you may feel yourself drawn
outside unclear boundaries.
Contracts are boundaries! For example,
a contract may include or exclude massage or touching, meetings
outside sessions, sharing or withholding information and the
limits of confidentiality. Some questions provide useful feedback
for both practitioner and client.
- How might a practitioner avoid abusing a client?
- Which elements of a contract are merely
convenience?
- Which elements of a contract are essential to
maintain boundaries?
Coaching / Counseling / 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
opportunities to compare 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:
- Generate my own solutions
- Take action daily toward my goals
- Be present and prepared for my coaching sessions
- Request what I need for coaching to be effective for me
- Be honest about my challenges and what I want to achieve
- Speak up immediately if anything bothers me about my coaching
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.
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Coaching / Counseling / Therapy Contract B
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| This contract loosely defines how
a service may be provided.
This contract does not define any offer, nor criteria
for success.
Neither the practitioner nor client can determine whether
most of the agreements are fulfilled ... except the payment. |
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. |
A useful coaching contract can include a schedule for
sessions, costs and payment terms and which services are chargeable. We
find that our coaching is much more effective if we make careful
agreements detailing what a client pays for and what a client can
expect to receive.
Online Coaching & Mentorship
Plagiarism is theft. Copyright ©
Martyn Carruthers 2001-2012 All rights reserved.
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