In order to be successful in coaching others in their relationships, you yourself will have to source your own issues, so that you don’t project them onto your clients. Just like a massage therapist in training gets to have a lot of massages done to them and doing it to others, those that seek to have an effect on other’s psyches, need to be familiar with their own.
The word Psyche, as defined by Freud has to do with our essence, beyond the physical, into the invisible realms, where unseen forces affect our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. Psyche in a more religious context refers to our soul. Without knowing our deepest self we are at a loss in self-knowledge, and scripture clearly delineates that self-knowledge is the highest truth, and that truth shall set you free. So if you want to realize as a human being, you really need the whole package.
Most schools of therapy and psychology today focus on manipulating the individual. Their aim is mostly to integrate them into society as a whole, very few question the axioms that the very society is running upon.
It’s like the difference between Western Medicine and Eastern Medicine, or Allopathy and Homeopathy. In both examples, the former tries to palliate the symptoms of discomfort, whereas the latter aims to remove the cause of the disease… Any counseling that has an end-game purpose is bound to fail because if you don’t address the underlying issues that are affecting the relationship negatively you will only postpone the inevitable.
Cognitive Therapy
I believe in cognitive therapy. When you gain awareness of the root cause of the problems, you gain the ability to change, whilst you walk around in ignorance, you repeat the same patterns…
In relationship coaching training we teach you to understand yourself and others, beyond the functionality of relationships, to the root core of who you are. Only when you understand yourself fully will you be able to understand others, and only when you see yourself fully will you be able to see others fully.
Therapy Skills
There are several important skills to gain for those that want to coach others in attaining successful relationships.
Sometimes relationships are stuck, both parties are like children sparring in need of proving the other “wrong”, and they seek a therapist (parent) that will give them the reason in order to prevail against the other. This is a common pattern in couples therapy, and sometimes even a sharp therapist can get caught in this debacle, favoring one “child” over the other.
These sessions are bound to fail because inevitably the unflavored “child” will quit the therapy or the relationship altogether.
One of the skills that I have learned from Marshall Rosenberg calls “compassionate communication”.
It’s a technique that he has successfully utilized in bridging the gap between the Arabs and the Israelis. The whole precept of compassionate communication is to re-humanize the opponent so that you can feel the similarities that unite you rather than the differences that separate you. Our minds are very adept at compartmentalizing and dividing.
The military knows this, that’s why the aim is to demonize the enemy and disconnect the soldier from their own human feelings, turning them into an unfeeling, inhumane killing machine, it is no wonder that soldiers come back from battle DE-humanized and traumatized, at times even taking their own lives like they did the lives of others.
Re-integrating them into society after they’ve lived the high-stress, high-octane life of a warrior on a battlefield is no small task, yet re-integrating with their own humanity and developing self-compassion is key! In the same way, after we’ve been exposed to our own mind’s reasoning for adversity against our beloved, you need a strong tool to bridge that gap! And just as the mind is most adept at creating separation, the heart is at bridging it! When we have pulled away from our natural state, there is always a part of us that doesn’t feel quite right!
Conclusion:-
Happiness is our natural state, and as we stray away from it, our longing increases! That’s why it’s essential that relationship coaches are in touch with their own true nature! That’s where the relationship coach training is helpful not just in counseling others, but in attaining personal goals as well…