Life Coaching

 

Psychotherapy or  Life Coaching?  

            On 1/9/09, the Louisville Courier-Journal published an interview, "Lunch with Paul Schmidt," by Pam Platt, on the subject of New Year's Resolutions, from the perspective of a life coach.  A full reprint of this article is given at the bottom of this page.

            After the problems that led to the start of counseling have been substantially resolved, intensive psychotherapy can reach a comfortable plateau.  Attention generally shifts more toward maintaining

             personal balance,

 spiritual harmony,

 proactive parenting, and

progress toward long-term life goals. 

            To address these concerns, many clients naturally want to continue the rich dialog they’ve found with their counselor, because it has been built upon common values and beliefs, upon sharing life stories and discovering together what they mean. 

             But soon clients find that the format of one hour in the counselor’s office no longer fits their needs, and their enthusiasm for the dialog is weakened by commuting to a session that now lasts longer than they really need.  In light of these factors, I am offering life coaching for clients who seem to have reached an experience of wellness, and who may want to continue working with me beyond their active phase of exploring and solving their problems.  This coaching relationship can be conducted long-distance by way of the telephone and internet, by webcam through my granting email permission via Skype, or locally to include also face-to-face visits at my office or yours.

             One option of life coaching is coaching by telephone or webcam.  Such methods of remote counseling have traditionally been used in psychotherapy during periods of acute distress to supplement talking in the office.  Nowadays we see more people wanting prevention, wellness, and holistic health, and they are enjoying new technologies of computers and cell phones with virtually free long distance.  The reduction in secured privacy is made up for by the reduced need for that privacy, because the subject matter is more positive and forward-looking in life coaching

        Coaching by telephone/webcam is done by appointment, and billed at the same rate as face-to-face coaching.  One advantage is that it can be done and billed at smaller (5-minute) increments.  Life coaching, whether through telephone consultation or face-to-face in my office is billed at $125 per hour. The basic minimum for a telephone contact is $30 for 15 minutes, with $10 per 5 minutes after that.  Office visits at your place or mine for life coaching cost $30 per 15 minutes.  This includes my time traveling to and from you, but we can be talking on the phone then.  (The cost of a one-hour therapy session in my office is $150, as that involves overhead, state licensure, insurance liability and reimbursement.

             As insurance may not pay for these forms of service, and we may not see each other face to face to make payment, fees are collected in advance at the beginning of the month or quarter, or at the time of service for face-to-face visits.  The time and money costs for life coaching are cheaper than for traditional psychotherapy, because there is less stress, office overhead, hassle with insurance reimbursement, and with telephone consultation, less commuting time for you.   Per minute of direct contact, an hour of telephone consultation costs $30 less money, and 50% less time.

              Two hallmarks of life coaching are regular personal contacts and periodic review of the focus and format for those contacts.  The coaching relationship is typically set up during an open-ended face-to-face session or a phone call to establish the goals and the format of our contacts.  Our contract can be set up any way you like, and re-negotiated at whatever interval you choose.  Here are some examples of possible arrangements (we'll customize yours to suit):

1.  A 3-month long-distance contract  for monthly 30-minute phone calls, fully personalized e-messages from me before and after each phone call

Cost   $60 per month

2.  A 3-month local contract  for regularly scheduled monthly 45-minute contacts (office visits or phone calls), fully personalized e-messages from me before and after each phone call or visit, and ad lib open-ended visits at your home/office or mine

Cost   $90 per month + ad lib visits

3.  A 6-month long-distance contract  for every other week 40-minute webcam calls, plus a fully personalized e-message before and after each phone call

Cost   $170 per month 

4.  A one-year local contract      for weekly phone calls of 15 minutes, monthly office visits of 45 minutes, and personal letter from me by postal mail after each visit:  

Cost   $250 per month 

5Any type and length of contract you wish.

Note that the term of the contract (how long) and the terms (what type of contact, how often) is totally negotiable.  The examples above are just that, not an exhaustive menu of your options.  What would you like to do?

There's no charge for the time we spend setting this up, so

get your goals in mind, sharpen them up to be specific, and 

Call me at the office some Mon, Wed, or  Thur (244-4407),

or call me any other time on my cell phone  (633-2860),

To get started, send me a brief email at 

 drpaulschmidt@earthlink.net   

Soon by phone or email I will need:

1.  Your name, email address, phone number(s), age, occupation, brief work and school history, marital status and brief marital history, and the names and ages of your children (noting which ones live with you)

2.  Your goals for the coaching relationship:   Think about both   

        OUTCOME GOALS (future events) such as 

            getting married in 12-18 months, getting a better job, 

            losing 20 pounds, or moving to a new home.

        PROCESS GOALS (new habits to help reach those outcomes) 

            such as starting to exercise regularly, doing a daily devotional, 

            improving conflict management skills, improving control of 

            sexual urges, or perhaps forgiving yourself or someone else

3.  What variation of the arrangements above you would like, and any questions or suggestions you might have about the terms of our relationship.  Note when might be good times for any regular contacts you might want.

You're welcome to call me 

"Paul", "Dr. Schmidt", "Doc", "Brother', or "Coach".

Interview with Pam Platt,

re: New Year’s Resolutions

Louisville Courier-Journal, 1/9/09, p. A6

Pam Platt:  It's the first of the year, a time many of us set goals for ourselves.  Who better to discuss New Year's resolutions than a life coach?   We contacted Paul Schmidt, Ph.D., a longtime psychotherapist and also a life coach to discuss why some goals work and why some don't.   The conversation - held over coffee at Bistro 535 in Shelbyville - also took some surprising and rewarding turns, which included some of Schmidt's personal successes and failures, what he learned from them and how pain and survivorship are lessons and experiences to embrace.   (His website is mynewlife.com.)   Read about it here; more excerpts online.

Pam Platt:  What does a life coach do?

Helps people prioritize their goals, and identify what's getting in the way of achieving them, and then discovering the motivation to work through obstacles.

PP:  Do you do a lot of work with people at the beginning of the year?

Oh, yes. Everybody now needs to re-balance, restore a balance to life. Everybody's life seems like it's out of balance most of the time if you're an American. This is a society that spawns a lot of addictions and excesses, I think.

PP:  Is it a good thing that people look at the beginning of a new year as a new start, and to seek and find that balance, or is it kind of a cop-out to look at the first of the year as a way to start again?

Both. Because it comes at the end of the holidays and it comes at the end of the winter solstice, when there are very short days and long nights to ponder life, and less social interaction because the weather inhibits it - this is a great time to take stock.

PP:  Is it your experience that most people who start the New Year with goals or resolutions succeed or fail by the end of the year?

So much failure that few people dare to set goals.

PP:  Why do they fail?

I don't think it's very cool to succeed anymore.

PP:  Why do you say that?

It's not a trait that people seem to want anymore. It seems that what's cool is to have some excesses in life, so I don't hear people setting many goals. They may say, "I want to make some adjustments," but they don't call them goals or resolutions. If someone is really setting one - such as losing weight, which is the most common one at this time of year - it's much more difficult for someone to go to friends and family and say help me with this, I want to lose some weight, and this is what you can do to help me. That's just unusual.

PP:  Why is that?

We are a more competitive society than we were a generation ago and we are less community-minded and family-oriented. So to feel as if there is someone I can trust not to compete with me and not to undermine my goals, there's fewer people we have trust in.

PP:  As a life coach, would you tell people not to make a resolution, to avoid that word?

It is not cool to resolve anymore, because that whole thing is about willpower. That was a very popular concept in the '50s, willpower; we celebrated John Wayne, who had a lot of it. Now just creating something new in your life is more what is celebrated.

PP:  So would you just call it a goal or a priority, or is that even too strong?

If I am going to teach someone to re-balance their life, I'm going to have to find some theme of self-fulfillment in it. Most people have a strong sense of self that they want to fill full of life's pleasures, attention, admiration, affection. Most people, including me, want to do that, so I'm going to have to ask, which self are you fulfilling?

PP:  What should people not do at this time of year? Should they not bite off more than they can chew?

That's definitely a good tip right there. You can only work on two or three aspects of your life at once. That's a common problem - trying to do too much.

PP:  So if you wanted to lose weight and to get organized, would you pick something that is a bigger issue, like getting things in order, whether that's your calories or your bills - or would you make it more specific?

You have to get the bigger picture. If you're going to put something in place of something you're giving up - whether it's comfort food, or a bad relationship, or whatever you're trying to detach from - you need to look at "what was that doing for me and how else can I do that for myself." So a person has to look at positive things that will make them feel this way, and I need to set up some negative consequences for myself so that when I go back to this I'm going to pay a stiff price. There are lots of things you can do. If you have a habit like smoking that isn't good for you, you can set up a little thing that says, if you go back to smoking, let's say you hate Rush Limbaugh or you hate some liberal person, you're going to send some money to someone you don't agree with as a consequence.

PP:  So you have to set up your punishment.

Oh, yes. And telling your friends and having a plan set up.

PP:  It really has to hurt.

Yes. It makes it worth your while.

PP:  Then you have to get social consequences. A lot of times we won't do it for ourselves but we will do it for somebody else, so you need that involvement.

And the last thing is to have some big reward at the end, a vacation, or a new set of clothes you're going to buy or someone is going to do something for you.

PP:  What are some of the things you've done?

All of us need to learn how to simplify.

My wife and I spent most of our lives in big houses in subdivisions. Now we live in a three-room log cabin surrounded by woods. I cut my own firewood. We don't see any neighbors, we don't hear any neighbors.

PP:  What difference has that made in your life, getting rid of the big house and living more simply?

Huge. Just coming up our driveway, we feel it as soon as the trees envelop us, as soon as we can't see anything but God-made things.

PP:  What was it in your life that made you and your wife decide to say, we're sick of this, we're not doing this anymore, we want to live in a more real way?

(Laughs) Failure in business, and failure in love, and failure in health.

I'm a cancer survivor, I'm a divorce survivor and I'm a survivor of a business I used to run and I came to realize, I'd better not have any employees now. I'm self-employed.

You take advantage of the hard things that come in life and you look at what matters the most, and that's all you have to hang onto.

(Cancer) makes you live one day at a time. It makes you not count on the future. It makes you not postpone things that ought to be done sooner.

PP:  What would you tell people from your experiences as they sort of encounter their own mortality, gravity, everything else this year?

I would tell them that the best things in life are, indeed, free. Let's start looking at them and let's start listening to them. That would be a good New Year's resolution. Which ones of these things are growing in my life? You could start with the fellowship of friends, the affection of my loved ones, the laughter of children, the beauty of nature, the wonder of music, the thrill of ongoing learning, the satisfaction of service to others, lovemaking, religion. These things are free.

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