Mental Health Coaching
Some areas you may focus on in mental health coaching include:
- Building resilience
- Setting boundaries
- Breaking destructive cycles
- Reaching educational/professional goals
- Practicing self-love
- Building stable relationships
- Identifying healthy desires and pursuing them
An Overview of Mental Health Coaching
Mental health coaching is a form of mental health support that emphasizes goal-setting and empathetic communication between client and coach. In a coaching session, an individual will usually meet one-on-one with a mental health coach. However, family coaching sessions can also be beneficial, especially in addressing issues in family dynamics.
Coaches aim to educate, encourage, and guide their clients through the process of recovering from mental health issues and/or substance use disorder (SUD).
Mental Health Coaching vs. Therapy
As you search for treatment options for your mental health issues, you may find yourself asking what the difference is between mental health coaching and therapy. It’s important to understand that both approaches can be beneficial, and neither is the “right” one to choose. In fact, coaching can be used in conjunction with therapy and often is. How or if you integrate mental health coaching into your treatment plan depends on your unique needs and goals.
The main difference between mental health coaching and therapy is how you will focus your energy and what topics you’ll spend time addressing. Coaching is typically more future-oriented, while therapy is more past-oriented. For example, in therapy sessions, you might talk a lot about childhood experiences related to trauma. In coaching sessions, however, you’ll usually talk about your goals for the future and the progress you need to make to reach those goals. Therapy asks you, “What is the underlying problem, and where does it stem from?” Coaching, on the other hand, asks, “What do you want from your recovery journey, and how can we change to get there?”
That doesn’t mean that talking about your past is forbidden in coaching sessions. Your coach might redirect your thoughts about past trauma to a more forward-thinking perspective. For example, a mental health coach may ask you, “What did you learn from that experience, and how can it inform your actions moving forward?”
Modalities and Coaching Techniques
One of the most common techniques used by mental health coaches is personalized goal-setting. Together, you and your coach will come up with goals for you to work toward. Your coach will help you craft these goals so that they are specific, realistic, and achievable. This is important because if you set goals that you cannot realistically achieve, you’ll be disappointed in the long run. On the other hand, setting achievable goals will give you realistic milestones and boost your confidence. You’ll then create a plan to tackle these goals and monitor your progress in every session, celebrating your wins, whether they’re big or small.
Another approach that may be used in mental health coaching is mindfulness practices. These are techniques that help to ground you in the present, resetting the mind to a neutral and gracious attitude. That may seem counter-intuitive for a modality that is future-focused, but mindfulness is incredibly helpful for mental health coaching. When you get caught up in thoughts about the past, such as your perceived failures and regrets, you’re spending mental energy on things that can’t be changed. Once you ground yourself in the present and let go of the past, you can calmly turn your attention to the future.
Holistic Care Through Personalized Coaching
At Sisu Healing Partners, we believe that mental health care plays a crucial role in whole-being healing. We strive to address issues in the mind, body, spirit, and family unit. These facets of life are interconnected, and wellness comes from caring for each aspect. Mental health coaching focuses on not only addressing underlying issues in these areas but also creating goals and plans to improve each individual’s health.
Change is a Click Away
A consultation is the first step to getting help for someone with addiction or mental health issues. Call Sisu Healing Partners at 503-847-9836 to learn more.