What methodology do you use?

Recently, I had a person ask me "What methodology do you use in your therapy?"  I have to admit, it caught me by surprise.  Let me tell you why.  I'm a coach and hypnotist who also happens to be an RN (licensed in 3 states, currently).  I have extensive education and over 20 years experience in each of those areas. Question: With my credentials and experience, what therapy am I legally entitled to offer?  Answer:  None at all.  That's right.  None.  Zero.  Zip...you get the idea.  I am not a therapist.  I offer professional hypnosis and coaching services to my clients.  Now, I have experience in leadership.  I've done extensive work in mental health nursing.  I've led counseling groups and provided one-on-one counseling to mental health patients under the guidance and auspices of the institutions where I worked, but I am not a counselor or a therapist. On my website I note that what I provide is "vocational and avocational coaching".  Now, that certainly covers a lot of ground and it allows me to help a lot of people with a lot of different things, but it isn't therapy. For some reason it always catches me by surprise when people refer to it as therapy.  That's one reason I refer to myself as a hypnotist rather than as a hypnotherapist.  I want to help my clients avoid that sort of confusion.

Now, back to the question.  What methodology do I use?  This is how I answered the question.

While I've not been able to come up with a clever sounding title, my approach to coaching is to increase a client's awareness. That sounds sort of vague and “fluffy”. Since I try to avoid both vague and fluffy, let me explain.

In my experience, most people, regardless of how they define success and how much of it they have enjoyed, are profoundly unaware of:

• Their basic values
• Their passions
• How their underlying beliefs and attitudes affect their chances for success
  • How these same beliefs and attitudes have limited their success so far
• And the impact of their subconscious, acting in its capacity as a protective mechanism, on their lives

You'll notice that, at their heart, these are really “why” type questions (coaches are notorious for these, are we not?). This is where many of my clients wind up doing a significant amount of work during the coaching relationship. I use and teach specific tools and techniques to help them through what many people consider the least comfortable part of the process. It's after this that the “how” and “what” become not only easier to see, but far less tedious (or even enjoyable).

I hope this answers your question without being too long.

Thanks, again, for your comments.

Ken

A good portion of what you'll read on this blog reflects that approach.  I really believe that for most of us, being more aware of why we do what we do, why we want what (often think) we want and why we haven't achieved more than we have will bring us much close to achieving our goals than focusing so much on "how" and "what."  After dealing with the "why" questions, the others are easy.

Change your mind...change your life

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