Hi Friends,
I’m heading off to Nashville, TN, tomorrow to attend the American Association of Christian Counselor conference. I am speaking on The Emotionally Destructive Relationship as well as Domestic Violence: An Abuse of Power. I’d really appreciate your prayers if you think of me.
I’ll post some pictures on my Facebook page and put a few on next week’s blog.
Q. I’ve been married for 25 years to an emotionally and verbally abusive man. I feel angry and bitter toward him for the way he treats me, yet he still expects me to be loving and affectionate with him, especially in bed. I can’t do it. What does God expect me to do? Can I withhold sex as a consequence for his abusive behavior?
A. This is an extremely important question that many women face. In last weeks’ answer I spoke about being treated as an object instead of a human being. An emotionally destructive marriage is where the personhood, dignity and personal choice of the spouse is regularly diminished, degraded, disregarded or crushed.
No one likes feeling like an object, especially if you are in a committed relationship with the person who treats you as such. Husbands sometimes complain to me that they feel that their wives treat them like a paycheck. Wives complain that they don’t feel like a loved person but merely a sexual object or a slave. Marriage is the most sacred and intimate relationship we have apart from our relationship with God. When one person (or both people) continually disrespects, mistreats, or lies to the other, intimacy is broken. It can be rebuilt but not without genuine repentance and a lot of hard work.
From what you say, it sounds as if your husband believes he’s entitled to the benefits of married life, (sexual intimacy, your affection and love, not to mention normal care), without having to do his part. He doesn’t seem to understand that having a good and loving relationship requires two people who interact with one another with kindness and respect. His emotionally abusive behavior is driving you further away from him. Does he just want sex from you? Or true intimacy?
The Bible calls us to love, not hate. That command includes our enemies. But what does Biblical love look like towards your husband in this instance? Biblical love isn’t necessarily feelings of affection or warmth, but actions that are directed toward another person’s long term best interests.
So ask yourself the question, Is it in my husband’s long term best interests to be sexually available to him so that his sexual needs are met? If you answer “yes”, understand that meeting his sexual needs is not a solution to your relationship problem it is just a solution to his sexual frustration.
Another way to look at this situation is that it is in your husband’s best interests to let him experience the felt consequences of broken intimacy and tell him that when he treats you disrespectfully, you’re too angry to feel warmth and affection towards him. When he’s not sorry he treats you that way, it makes it impossible for you to feel affectionate toward him. You need to have a calm conversation with him regarding your feelings. Here’s a sample of something you might say.
I know you get very frustrated when I’m not responsive to your sexual needs. You want me to be sexual with you and enjoy our physical relationship, but the way you treat me much of the time makes me feel angry and hurt. When you call me names or degrade me in front of the children, the last thing I feel like doing is being warm and affectionate towards you. If you want genuine intimacy and affection, you will need to work on changing the way you treat me. Wouldn’t you rather have someone who wants to get close and affectionate with you rather than someone who is just doing her duty?
Most men I talk with want closeness with their wives. Try expressing your feeling about being just an object versus a person. This may help him see the impact of his behavior, not only on you, but on him. But if your husband won’t hear you and doesn’t care about what your feelings are, then what?
Hear me. I don’t believe in using sex as a weapon anymore than someone should use the silent treatment as a weapon. It isn’t good for the marriage. It is controlling and manipulative.
However, I do think sometimes we have to say, “I can’t talk right now because I’m too angry to do it constructively” or “I can’t talk with you because you won’t hear me or listen to me”. That’s not using talking as a weapon, but stating a problem either with you or in the relationship.
In the same way, if someone says, “I can’t have sexual closeness with you right now because I’m too angry to do it lovingly.” I think that is stating a truth. Or “having sex with you feels like I’m just being used as an object but you don’t really care for me when you treat me so disrespectfully other times” helps the one who is doing the hurting to know what needs to change in order to repair the relationship.
Friends, you who are in this type of marriage, share your thoughts and what you have done here.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
My mom's in an emotionally destructive relationship with my dad. What should I do?
Good Monday Morning Friends:
I hope you had a beautiful weekend. I just finished reading a beautifully written new book by Michael and Gina Spehn, The Color of Rain. It is a true story of incredible loss, hope, and trust in God’s goodness. Both Michael and Gina lost their spouses to cancer at young ages. The shared grief turned to friendship and eventually to love. Their story is a testimony to the grace of God.
I have had the privilege of being on Michael and Gina’s weekly radio show, “Your Family Matters” (streamed live at www.FaithTalk1500.com.) as one of their Round Table Experts over the past year but didn’t know their full story. If you know someone who needs renewed hope, I highly recommend their book.
Also, if you want to read my next blog for the Association of Biblical Counselors, here’s the link. http://christiancounseling.com/content/a-new-way-of-seeing
Question: My parents are in their fourth year on the mission field, their "second" career after retiring from business and moving overseas to serve for an undetermined number of years. They've been married 40 years.
For decades, my mom has spent hours in the Word and in prayer daily, and has a track record of humble service to my father (and to her three kids as we were growing up). In fact, her reading habits have drawn repeated attacks and ridicule from my dad. He has a history of humiliating her (and us kids) publicly, explosive anger, and is restrictive of her freedom. But to anyone outside our family, this would come as a shock. He's a successful businessman, gregarious, and active in every little church they've ever been part of.
Mom convinced him to seek pastoral counseling with her about 20 years ago and no real change resulted. He rejects psychology wholesale, yet admits to not finding anything profound or new whenever he reads the Bible. I found out when visiting them this summer that mom's frequent trips to the bathroom were the result of frequent and prolonged sex (compounded by a long history of health issues which have rendered her "fragile", to put it gently), which I'm guessing is precipitated by dad's age and evening alcohol consumption.
I was incensed at the state of things mom was enduring, and told her she did not have to submit to dad's physical advances any longer. She acted on that after I left and has not been intimate with him since. She and I both struggle with whether that is right, however I maintain that after years of humble service met with nothing but fits of rage, humiliation, zero emotional/relational intimacy, and rejection/denial anytime she attempted to talk about these issues, she no longer needed to put herself through it.
This all has caused mom to start examining her own life, tracing the roots of these problems back to her own father's rejection of her (her mom told her that he just didn't like her). She met my dad in college, who even then was controlling and manipulative. After a brief tryst (none of the "falling in love" typical foundation for a marriage relationship), she got pregnant and they were married a month later. She's been working at it for forty years, and without having to explain much to my siblings, they immediately understood mom's position when she told them she was ready to stand up to him.
Knowing what action to take has been the daily question. Your description of "crazy making" has been so helpful in understanding what she deals with. Dad does not initiate conversation with mom, denies any wrongdoing when specific instances are presented to him (by mom), and just this week has informed mom that she has been abusing him.
Mom has a plane ticket home in October to visit her 90 year old mother. My dad has removed any legitimate and substantive responsibility from my mom in their mission work. She is fully devoid of any in-country support (she refuses to take this to her co-workers for fear they wouldn't believe her. While mom still cooks and cleans for my dad and tries to "help him", he does nothing to reciprocate her attention or acknowledge it with any gratitude (that's how it's always been). My mom says she sees "improvement" in him, defined thus: he is trying really hard to control his temper, he doesn't ask for sex anymore, he's "earnestly seeking after spiritual things" and he has shifted from a "know-it-all" to "docile resignation."
To me, that improvement is not reversing the pattern, it's just neutral. He has no accountability where they are. So I've implored my mom to stay here in the US when she comes home. They are already making preparations to extract themselves from their position with their missions agency anyway, and since she doesn't do anything work-related, it seems more important that she get help here.
Mom says she doesn't know how she would be able to live apart from him, that she would always be worrying about him. This is understandable, but not healthy. How do I help my mom get healthy? Should she return even though he'd likely be home within the year? Is this "improvement" reason enough for her to resume physical intimacy?
Answer: Watching someone we love struggle in a destructive/abusive relationship is incredibly difficult. When it is our own parents, it is heartbreaking. I know you want to help your mom get healthy, but there are some things that she must do for herself and it sounds as if she is starting to do them.
You can help her, support her, and encourage her, but you must not push her to do something she is not ready or willing to do. If you do that, it will put you in the controlling role and she will once again stay in the passive role. Even though you mean well and only want her best, for someone to become emotionally healthy she must learn to figure out what she wants and to speak up for herself when necessary and not to be so passive, even when someone is upset with her for doing so.
What you can do is help her think through her choices and the consequences of those choices and then applaud and support her right to choose. For her entire marriage, she hasn’t believed she has the right to say “no”, or when she’s tried, she’s been manipulated, controlled, or pressured into giving in. You must not play that same role even if you fear she is making a poor choice.
You’ve asked a number of important questions but one in particular I want to spend a little time on. You asked how could your dad possibly accuse your mother of abusing him after all her years of patiently and passively enduring his humiliation, manipulations, verbal attacks, sexual abuse and controlling behaviors?
First, let me say that although your mother sounds like a saint, she is also still a sinner and there may be times when she does or is tempted to retaliate against your father, even if she does it more passively. The Bible tells us that people’s bad behavior rubs off on us and sometime, even if we’re not aware of it, we start to act like they do.
However, what I think is happening here is a common phenomenon I see once an abused woman stops going along with the abuser and begins to speak up for herself.
Let me give some background. When someone marries it’s understood that this person you married will have their own ideas, feelings, desires, goals, dreams and thoughts about things. If you’re healthy, you will not require the person you married to always think like you, feel like you, want what you want, or always do what you say. Instead you allow them to be different than you. The challenge of a healthy marriage is to lovingly blend two different people into a strong oneness that still contains each person’s uniqueness.
But this is not what happens in an abusive marriage. It sounds like right from the start, your father has not seen your mother as her own “person” to be cherished or loved but rather as an object to be possessed, owned, controlled and used. If this is the case, she isn’t allowed a separate voice, a personal feeling, a want apart from what he wants, or to disagree, or say “no”. As long as she stays true to the object role and shapes herself to meet every whim of your father, things stay relatively calm. Unfortunately this kind of wifely behavior has too often been applauded as biblical submission and a meek and gentle spirit which it is not.
It is not healthy to lose yourself in another person nor is it wise. Now as your mother is becoming healthier and realizing some important things she’s begun to assert herself. She is not just playing the “good Christian wife role” but is saying “I don’t like to be treated this way” and “That’s not acceptable”. However, as she begins to assert her needs, hurts, and feelings, he feels abandoned, rejected, unloved, and even abused.
The reason? In his mind, her sole purpose in being his wife is to please him, meet his every emotional need and always be available when he wants her. She has no needs of her own because she is not allowed to be a separate person. The more she speaks out about how she thinks, what she wants, how she feels and what she will or won’t do the more disappointed your father becomes.
This is not the helpmate he signed up for. And his “improvements” as your mother mentions are either an attempt to charm her to return to the object role, or as you suspect, “docile resignation” that things will never be the same again. This is still a far cry from a healthy marriage.
So do you encourage your mother to say in the States to receive support and help instead of returning to the mission field after her mother’s birthday? That is your mother’s decision to make, but you can help her think it through all of her choices and to know that if her marriage is to turn around, it is important not only that she continue to grow be the person God made her to be (not an object) but that her husband begin to value and cherish her as a person and not merely as someone who sole purpose is to take care of him, whether physically, emotionally or sexually.
I hope you had a beautiful weekend. I just finished reading a beautifully written new book by Michael and Gina Spehn, The Color of Rain. It is a true story of incredible loss, hope, and trust in God’s goodness. Both Michael and Gina lost their spouses to cancer at young ages. The shared grief turned to friendship and eventually to love. Their story is a testimony to the grace of God.
I have had the privilege of being on Michael and Gina’s weekly radio show, “Your Family Matters” (streamed live at www.FaithTalk1500.com.) as one of their Round Table Experts over the past year but didn’t know their full story. If you know someone who needs renewed hope, I highly recommend their book.
Also, if you want to read my next blog for the Association of Biblical Counselors, here’s the link. http://christiancounseling.com/content/a-new-way-of-seeing
Question: My parents are in their fourth year on the mission field, their "second" career after retiring from business and moving overseas to serve for an undetermined number of years. They've been married 40 years.
For decades, my mom has spent hours in the Word and in prayer daily, and has a track record of humble service to my father (and to her three kids as we were growing up). In fact, her reading habits have drawn repeated attacks and ridicule from my dad. He has a history of humiliating her (and us kids) publicly, explosive anger, and is restrictive of her freedom. But to anyone outside our family, this would come as a shock. He's a successful businessman, gregarious, and active in every little church they've ever been part of.
Mom convinced him to seek pastoral counseling with her about 20 years ago and no real change resulted. He rejects psychology wholesale, yet admits to not finding anything profound or new whenever he reads the Bible. I found out when visiting them this summer that mom's frequent trips to the bathroom were the result of frequent and prolonged sex (compounded by a long history of health issues which have rendered her "fragile", to put it gently), which I'm guessing is precipitated by dad's age and evening alcohol consumption.
I was incensed at the state of things mom was enduring, and told her she did not have to submit to dad's physical advances any longer. She acted on that after I left and has not been intimate with him since. She and I both struggle with whether that is right, however I maintain that after years of humble service met with nothing but fits of rage, humiliation, zero emotional/relational intimacy, and rejection/denial anytime she attempted to talk about these issues, she no longer needed to put herself through it.
This all has caused mom to start examining her own life, tracing the roots of these problems back to her own father's rejection of her (her mom told her that he just didn't like her). She met my dad in college, who even then was controlling and manipulative. After a brief tryst (none of the "falling in love" typical foundation for a marriage relationship), she got pregnant and they were married a month later. She's been working at it for forty years, and without having to explain much to my siblings, they immediately understood mom's position when she told them she was ready to stand up to him.
Knowing what action to take has been the daily question. Your description of "crazy making" has been so helpful in understanding what she deals with. Dad does not initiate conversation with mom, denies any wrongdoing when specific instances are presented to him (by mom), and just this week has informed mom that she has been abusing him.
Mom has a plane ticket home in October to visit her 90 year old mother. My dad has removed any legitimate and substantive responsibility from my mom in their mission work. She is fully devoid of any in-country support (she refuses to take this to her co-workers for fear they wouldn't believe her. While mom still cooks and cleans for my dad and tries to "help him", he does nothing to reciprocate her attention or acknowledge it with any gratitude (that's how it's always been). My mom says she sees "improvement" in him, defined thus: he is trying really hard to control his temper, he doesn't ask for sex anymore, he's "earnestly seeking after spiritual things" and he has shifted from a "know-it-all" to "docile resignation."
To me, that improvement is not reversing the pattern, it's just neutral. He has no accountability where they are. So I've implored my mom to stay here in the US when she comes home. They are already making preparations to extract themselves from their position with their missions agency anyway, and since she doesn't do anything work-related, it seems more important that she get help here.
Mom says she doesn't know how she would be able to live apart from him, that she would always be worrying about him. This is understandable, but not healthy. How do I help my mom get healthy? Should she return even though he'd likely be home within the year? Is this "improvement" reason enough for her to resume physical intimacy?
Answer: Watching someone we love struggle in a destructive/abusive relationship is incredibly difficult. When it is our own parents, it is heartbreaking. I know you want to help your mom get healthy, but there are some things that she must do for herself and it sounds as if she is starting to do them.
You can help her, support her, and encourage her, but you must not push her to do something she is not ready or willing to do. If you do that, it will put you in the controlling role and she will once again stay in the passive role. Even though you mean well and only want her best, for someone to become emotionally healthy she must learn to figure out what she wants and to speak up for herself when necessary and not to be so passive, even when someone is upset with her for doing so.
What you can do is help her think through her choices and the consequences of those choices and then applaud and support her right to choose. For her entire marriage, she hasn’t believed she has the right to say “no”, or when she’s tried, she’s been manipulated, controlled, or pressured into giving in. You must not play that same role even if you fear she is making a poor choice.
You’ve asked a number of important questions but one in particular I want to spend a little time on. You asked how could your dad possibly accuse your mother of abusing him after all her years of patiently and passively enduring his humiliation, manipulations, verbal attacks, sexual abuse and controlling behaviors?
First, let me say that although your mother sounds like a saint, she is also still a sinner and there may be times when she does or is tempted to retaliate against your father, even if she does it more passively. The Bible tells us that people’s bad behavior rubs off on us and sometime, even if we’re not aware of it, we start to act like they do.
However, what I think is happening here is a common phenomenon I see once an abused woman stops going along with the abuser and begins to speak up for herself.
Let me give some background. When someone marries it’s understood that this person you married will have their own ideas, feelings, desires, goals, dreams and thoughts about things. If you’re healthy, you will not require the person you married to always think like you, feel like you, want what you want, or always do what you say. Instead you allow them to be different than you. The challenge of a healthy marriage is to lovingly blend two different people into a strong oneness that still contains each person’s uniqueness.
But this is not what happens in an abusive marriage. It sounds like right from the start, your father has not seen your mother as her own “person” to be cherished or loved but rather as an object to be possessed, owned, controlled and used. If this is the case, she isn’t allowed a separate voice, a personal feeling, a want apart from what he wants, or to disagree, or say “no”. As long as she stays true to the object role and shapes herself to meet every whim of your father, things stay relatively calm. Unfortunately this kind of wifely behavior has too often been applauded as biblical submission and a meek and gentle spirit which it is not.
It is not healthy to lose yourself in another person nor is it wise. Now as your mother is becoming healthier and realizing some important things she’s begun to assert herself. She is not just playing the “good Christian wife role” but is saying “I don’t like to be treated this way” and “That’s not acceptable”. However, as she begins to assert her needs, hurts, and feelings, he feels abandoned, rejected, unloved, and even abused.
The reason? In his mind, her sole purpose in being his wife is to please him, meet his every emotional need and always be available when he wants her. She has no needs of her own because she is not allowed to be a separate person. The more she speaks out about how she thinks, what she wants, how she feels and what she will or won’t do the more disappointed your father becomes.
This is not the helpmate he signed up for. And his “improvements” as your mother mentions are either an attempt to charm her to return to the object role, or as you suspect, “docile resignation” that things will never be the same again. This is still a far cry from a healthy marriage.
So do you encourage your mother to say in the States to receive support and help instead of returning to the mission field after her mother’s birthday? That is your mother’s decision to make, but you can help her think it through all of her choices and to know that if her marriage is to turn around, it is important not only that she continue to grow be the person God made her to be (not an object) but that her husband begin to value and cherish her as a person and not merely as someone who sole purpose is to take care of him, whether physically, emotionally or sexually.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Topic: When I am afraid, what should I do?
Happy Monday Friends,
This weekend I’ve been on a much needed respite. My dear friend Dee Brestin opened her home to me and I have been blessed. She lives in a lovely house situated on a great lake in Wisconsin and we’ve biked, kayaked, prayed, read, and rested. Sometimes we need breaks in our hectic lives in order to regain our strength and sense of God’s purpose. Dee provided that much needed break for me.
Last night we watched some of the 911 memorial services. They were very moving and brought back many traumatic memories and feelings from that horrible day ten years ago. I started to feel afraid of my flight home today. “What if the terrorists try something today – the day after 9/11?”
We all struggle with fear. Whether it is in these moments of national crisis, or just personal moments of crisis when we can’t reach a loved one for several days or we get a scary diagnosis or our marriage is falling apart. So instead of answering a question from a reader today, I’m going to share with you God’s answer to my fearful heart. He spoke these scriptures to me several weeks ago when I was fearful about a personal crisis, but I reread them this morning and reminded myself of his faithfulness.
Presence: He said, I will be with you always, even to the ends of the earth (Matthew 28:20). I will never leave you or forsake you. (Hebrews 13:5).
Protection: He said, “If God be for you who could be against you? (Romans 8:31). He will shelter you with his wings, his faithful promises are your armor and protection (Psalm 91:4).
Provision: He said, The Lord is my shepherd, I have all that I need (Psalm 23:1) My grace is sufficient for you (2 Corinthians 12:8) Seek the Kingdom of God above all else and live righteously and he will give you everything you need (Matthew 6:33). And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you (Matthew 6:30).
Purpose: He said, And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them (Romans 8:28). We can rejoice too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love (Romans 5:3-5).
Peace: He said, I will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stead on him (Isaiah 26:3). My peace I give you, not as the world gives, let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid (John 14:27). Don’t be anxious for anything, but by prayer with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace that passes all understanding will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:6-7). May the Lord of peace himself, give you his peace at all times and in every situation (2 Thessalonians 3:16)
Friends, I’ve discovered that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but fear So I must ask myself once again, am I going to believe what God says or am I going to believe my own fearful emotions and scary thoughts?
The psalmist says, “When I am afraid I will trust in you “(Psalm 56:3,4). I choose to trust God. How about you?
Monday, September 5, 2011
Topic: What is the difference between coaching and counseling?
Happy Labor Day,
Since today is a holiday and the last weekend of the official summer season, I thought I’d keep the topic light this week. Since I began offering coaching services, I’ve had quite a number of people write and ask me the difference between coaching and counseling. Instead of responding individually, I thought I’d answer this question in this week’s blog.
And, this week my newsletter will be sent out. If you have not signed up to receive it, go to my home page at www.leslievernick.com and sign up. The topic is on holy listening. Do you know how to listen for God?
Question: What is the difference between coaching and counseling? I have been in counseling before but I see you are now doing coaching too? Is it the same thing? Does my medical insurance cover it?
Answer: Coaching is a relatively new profession, it began in the 80’s but is really growing as more and more people recognize its value. It is not covered by one’s medical insurance but sometimes covered by employers, especially with career coaching, performance coaching and/or executive coaching.
Perhaps most of us are familiar with a sports coach. The coach helps a player gain the skills to enhance his or her performance. The coach also provides encouragement, accountability and structure so that the athlete develops to his or her fullest potential.
In the same way, personal coaches or relationship coaches work with people who want to enhance their current life but lack specific skills necessary to make the progress they desire. They may also feel stuck doing it all alone and want accountability and structure to reach the results they want. A person hires a coach when they need more clarity, greater confidence, better direction, and accountability to reach their desired goals.
Coaches are action oriented. They come along side someone who has specific goals and help them get there. They aren’t necessarily dealing with someone’s past issues or something that is “wrong” but rather they focus on what impedes someone’s progress forward. Most coaches are not counselors but have been trained in the process of coming along side someone and being able to help move them toward a desired result.
There are many different kinds of coaches, life coaches, relationship coaches, business coaches, weight management coaches, clutter coaches, parenting coaches, marketing coaches, etc. Depending on your goals, you would choose a coach that would best help you get where you want to go.
Many counselors see the value of incorporating coaching into their practice, (as they may already do some of this with their counseling clients) however coaching is distinct from counseling. Counseling is usually sought when someone is experiencing emotional pain and struggling with problems in living that they have not been able to solve, get over or get through. Counseling’s focus is primarily healing of past hurts, understanding of present and past problems and resolving any trauma or relationship wounds. There is often an identified mental health diagnosis such as depression or anxiety disorder, especially when insurance coverage is used.
Counseling focus on feelings, coaching focuses on action. Counseling often focuses on the question of why this happened, or why am I feeling this way? Coaches don’t usually look for why, but instead look for how to move forward and what to do next.
Hiring a coach has nothing to do with having deep psychological problems or dysfunctions, but everything to do with wanting to become all that God has called you to be.
Sometimes when there is an overlap, a coach that is also a counselor can help someone through a short bump in the road, but if the client becomes emotionally unstable, overwhelmed, depressed, or unable to function, he/she is referred to a counselor. That doesn’t mean the coaching can’t continue, but the coach doesn’t do the counseling.
On a personal note, the reason I began coaching is that I receive many inquiries from people all over the world who are looking for specific help to become the best possible person they can. Or, they're ready to making some significant changes and need structure and accountability, or they want help moving their relationships forward or rebuilding their life after relationship loss.
If you’d like more information on my three (3) and six (6) month coaching programs please e-mail me at www.leslievernick.com and I’ll send you the information.
Since today is a holiday and the last weekend of the official summer season, I thought I’d keep the topic light this week. Since I began offering coaching services, I’ve had quite a number of people write and ask me the difference between coaching and counseling. Instead of responding individually, I thought I’d answer this question in this week’s blog.
And, this week my newsletter will be sent out. If you have not signed up to receive it, go to my home page at www.leslievernick.com and sign up. The topic is on holy listening. Do you know how to listen for God?
Question: What is the difference between coaching and counseling? I have been in counseling before but I see you are now doing coaching too? Is it the same thing? Does my medical insurance cover it?
Answer: Coaching is a relatively new profession, it began in the 80’s but is really growing as more and more people recognize its value. It is not covered by one’s medical insurance but sometimes covered by employers, especially with career coaching, performance coaching and/or executive coaching.
Perhaps most of us are familiar with a sports coach. The coach helps a player gain the skills to enhance his or her performance. The coach also provides encouragement, accountability and structure so that the athlete develops to his or her fullest potential.
In the same way, personal coaches or relationship coaches work with people who want to enhance their current life but lack specific skills necessary to make the progress they desire. They may also feel stuck doing it all alone and want accountability and structure to reach the results they want. A person hires a coach when they need more clarity, greater confidence, better direction, and accountability to reach their desired goals.
Coaches are action oriented. They come along side someone who has specific goals and help them get there. They aren’t necessarily dealing with someone’s past issues or something that is “wrong” but rather they focus on what impedes someone’s progress forward. Most coaches are not counselors but have been trained in the process of coming along side someone and being able to help move them toward a desired result.
There are many different kinds of coaches, life coaches, relationship coaches, business coaches, weight management coaches, clutter coaches, parenting coaches, marketing coaches, etc. Depending on your goals, you would choose a coach that would best help you get where you want to go.
Many counselors see the value of incorporating coaching into their practice, (as they may already do some of this with their counseling clients) however coaching is distinct from counseling. Counseling is usually sought when someone is experiencing emotional pain and struggling with problems in living that they have not been able to solve, get over or get through. Counseling’s focus is primarily healing of past hurts, understanding of present and past problems and resolving any trauma or relationship wounds. There is often an identified mental health diagnosis such as depression or anxiety disorder, especially when insurance coverage is used.
Counseling focus on feelings, coaching focuses on action. Counseling often focuses on the question of why this happened, or why am I feeling this way? Coaches don’t usually look for why, but instead look for how to move forward and what to do next.
Hiring a coach has nothing to do with having deep psychological problems or dysfunctions, but everything to do with wanting to become all that God has called you to be.
Sometimes when there is an overlap, a coach that is also a counselor can help someone through a short bump in the road, but if the client becomes emotionally unstable, overwhelmed, depressed, or unable to function, he/she is referred to a counselor. That doesn’t mean the coaching can’t continue, but the coach doesn’t do the counseling.
On a personal note, the reason I began coaching is that I receive many inquiries from people all over the world who are looking for specific help to become the best possible person they can. Or, they're ready to making some significant changes and need structure and accountability, or they want help moving their relationships forward or rebuilding their life after relationship loss.
If you’d like more information on my three (3) and six (6) month coaching programs please e-mail me at www.leslievernick.com and I’ll send you the information.
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