Coaching vs Therapy
Kristin Casey • August 23, 2017
While there is some overlap, for the most part coaching and licensed therapy are two different beasts. Both modalities facilitate emotional healing and growth, yet with distinct differences in how they're applied and integrated. The simplest explanation is as follows.
As a coach, I do:
- respect clients' rights to privacy, and practice strict ethics & confidentiality protocols
- focus mainly on present issues and future goals
- promote shorter term series of sessions (3 to 12 usually, versus ongoing therapy of an indefinite term)
- interact with clients in experiential ways that are outside the parameters of licensed therapy
I do not:
- diagnose behavioral health or treat any form of mental illness
- focus unduly on a client's past (beyond what is helpful to inform our present moment work)
- enjoy the same legal protections regarding client-confidentiality as licensed therapists do
The collaborative aspects of coaching are something I enjoy and believe in. Also, the freedom to individualize sessions based on decades of personal and professional experience, finely-honed instincts, and moment to moment inspiration.
My clients tend to be highly motivated and proactive, thus, conventional therapy's slower pace and (justifiable) restrictions can feel limiting to them. The restrictive structure of a classic therapeutic environment either doesn't appeal to coaching clients or (in many cases*) is something they use in conjunction with short term coaching.
Talk therapy can be incredibly helpful, even lifesaving. It's exactly what many people need, for many years myself included. I had a phenomenal therapist for 15 years, whom I saw during good times and bad, but I don't pretend to have her same skills (or PhD), nor desire to work in that vein. The world needs both coaches and therapists. Some clients need one, the other, or both.
*One third to one half of my coaching clients also see a therapist or have seen one in the past. All my Surrogate Partner clients see a therapist with whom I’m also in contact on a biweekly basis, since that very triadic relationship is a requirement and integral part of Surrogate Partner Therapy.
Here's another recent interview I did for Casey Dancer, this one with Houston's incomparable Outlaw Dave! https://open.spotify.com/episode/46RWIubCCjv9OYBDudcR2n
Here are a couple short (10-12 minute) radio interviews I did last week about my new book, Casey Dancer. One is with Amanda Bacon from Seattle's KONP, and the other with iHeart Radio's amazing Arroe Collins. https://www.myclallamcounty.com/episode/ms-kristin-casey-author-recovering-addict-intimacy-expert/ https://www.iheart.com/podcast/53-arroe-collins-like-its-live-52808613/episode/self-discovery-through-stripping-the-book-273283931/
Come see me read from, discuss, and answer questions about my new book Casey Dancer: A Memoir About Dating, Stripping, and a Little Hot Yoga, tonight at Greedy Reads Remington location (on 29th St.), 7pm, in Baltimore Maryland! I'll be "in conversation" with the amazing Charlotte Shane, former elite companion and author of An Honest Woman: A Memoir of Love and Sex Work. I'll be signing books after the reading and would love to see you there!
In my new book Casey Dancer I write about my year long relationship in 2007 with a man named Lalo, a recently reformed drug dealer, drug user, problem drinker, and big time player. He was both a guy's guy and a big time ladies man. All the ladies loved my Lalo! And with good reason, as he was very cool, sexy, funny, charming (in an authentic way) and incredible in bed. What he wasn't was much of a philosopher or particularly psychologically astute. His emotional IQ was average at best, but one time he said something that really resonated...a sociological observation that to this day I find as profoundly true as anything I've ever heard: "Honey," he said. "The entire fucking world runs on two things: the pink and the green. They are all anyone really cares about or will lift a finger to obtain." He was referring to pussy and cash, of course. Sex and money, or in broader terms, love and power (since money and power pretty much go hand in hand). Lalo never had much of the latter, though, hot as he was, he rarely had to work hard for the former. And if you read my book you'll see I not only busted my ass for as much "green" as I could earn for us both, I rarely hesitated to provide him with as much "pink" as I had to give on a daily basis. (Spoiler alert: that ridiculous imbalance of effort was wholly unsustainable and ensured that Lalo and I were never going to last.) All that being said, I only bring it up now because, last week, the fantastic marketing team I hired to build my new website suggested a pink and green color scheme and I couldn't be more delighted by the coincidence. Hope you enjoy the site! Be sure to click "LEARN MORE" on the Homepage to purchase either of my books online today.
Full Stop.
In the mid/late 90s I lived in Las Vegas and worked as a stripper at the Crazy Horse Too,
Shortly after my book came out in 2018, I was approached by a fellow writer who asked if he could interview me as research for his next book (on a somewhat similar topic to ROCK MONSTER). Today I stumbled across our Q & A and this exchange in particular stood out to me. The strong intuition you had of a fate connection with Joe from just hearing his voice on the radio is very compelling. From the long perspective, do you think artists and muses are drawn together by destiny? Do you believe fate maps a person’s life. Do you follow astrology or numerology? Do you believe in the Eastern notion of spirit destiny and reincarnation? I tend to think that some events are fated, meaning unchangeable from birth. But also, that we manifest much of our own destiny. Maybe I was fated to meet and fall in love with Joe (I don’t really know), but if so, our toxic relationship was a manifestation of our own doing. I think muses and artists are generally more attuned to subtle energetic frequencies (it’s been studied in musicians, actually), so maybe they feel a sense of kismet more readily…? The average civilian living a conventional milquetoast life maybe doesn’t recognize romantic destiny the way a poet and his muse might. The muses I’ve known had an abiding longing to find their counterpart. I think longing is powerful and that it facilitates manifesting. Of course, artists experience longing too, since an inspirational muse is crucial to keep from being mired in performance anxiety or fan expectations. Self-identity is a powerful thing. When it’s on the line your antenna is always attuned to finding what it needs. When these two halves finally meet, they’re like magnets. It feels like becoming whole, right? Like “destiny.” I’ve had my numerology chart done twice, both by women who had numerology in their lineage (their mothers and grandmothers, etc., were numerologists). Both insisted on doing it free and were bizarrely spot on (I still have one; it’s 11 pages long.) I read Rob Brezsny’s weekly horoscope and am a fan of the Secret Language research. (I don’t necessarily think a person’s birthdate determines who they are, but maybe who you are [going to be] determines your birthdate.) I believe karma is less “you get what you give” than you get what you think, feel, believe (yet again with the manifesting). Now, reincarnation…hmmm. Well, if time doesn’t really exist and all things are happening at once, then all possibilities exist and what we focus on is what we experience. So maybe reincarnation is just a manifestation of quantum physics. As for my car radio experience, maybe I time traveled into my future for a millisecond and came back with a taste of the heartache I was destined to later experience. Elite baseball players swing at fastballs before they’re actually thrown. There is more to life than meets the eye… I believe this to my soul.
I want to make clear that by "porn reliant" I'm not referring to "porn addiction."
The following is my review of the recently released John Entwistle biography, THE OX.
In the years we were together Joe made a few appearances on Late Night With David Letterman.