My Eclectic Background & Orientation to Coaching
In order to understand how I work with clients I want to tell you a little about my professional evolution. It truly has been an evolutionary process that has had many interesting twists and turns along the way. The journey has been tremendously interesting and a lot of fun so far. I look forward to seeing how it plays out in the future.
I was a terrible high school student and was told by my high school guidance counselor to "join the army" and "forget about college." While I think military service is a wonderful teacher and a great experience on a number of levels I wasn't convinced that I couldn't make it in college so I chose that route despite my guidance counselor's advice.
Undergraduate Years
I started at a local junior college (my grades were too poor to get into a four-year school). I did really well and made Dean's List every semester and loved college (I hated high school). In my four semesters of junior college I had two majors. I started out as a Health/Phys Ed major and switched to Social Sciences. I transferred after four semesters to a NJ state four-year college and switched majors to Psychology. After one semester I switched to Art as a major. After a year at this four-year state college I transferred to William Paterson University (then Paterson State College) and changed majors yet again to Elementary Education. After a year of that (and a teaching practicum that convinced me I could not teach at that level) I switched back to Psychology and graduated after 5 years, 4 summers, six majors, and three colleges with a BS Degree in Psychology in 1973.
Early Work Experience (sexuality education and counseling)
My first job out of college was as a "Field Investigator" for the NJ State Department of Health in the Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) Control Program. In this job I worked with people infected with STDs and their sex partners. I did face-to- face counseling, public education (schools, community centers etc.) and some clinical work (took blood samples, did microscopic examinations of specimens etc.). In 1973 there was no licensure for professional counselors in New Jersey. My initial training in health and sexuality counseling came from medical professionals associated with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), STD Program in Atlanta and representatives of the NJ State Department of Health.
My initial counseling experience involved working with people who were infected with a variety of STDs ranging from syphilis to gonorrhea. I had to help these clients cope with the fear, guilt, shame and other emotions associated with sexually-transmitted diseases. I had to help them work through these emotions and ensure that they and their sex partners were examined and treated properly. Each case posed a different set of needs and problems to work through.
Graduate School Years (formal counseling and health education training)
My initial experiences with STD counseling motivated me to begin graduate work in counseling at Seton Hall University the next fall (Fall Semester 1973). The counseling program at that time was run out of the School of Education and the actual degrees were in Education with specializations in some form of counseling (for example I have an MA in Education ). Over the next three years I used my graduate training in counseling to enrich my casework with clients in the clinic. I also obtained additional training at the CDC in Atlanta in advanced interviewing techniques.
At this point in my career, in 1976, there was no professional credential available in counseling. The only professional credential available was for a Clinical Psychologist (which I wasn't interested in). Over the next four years I held various positions within the NJSDH STD Program. In my last position with the STD Program I worked directly under the Program Director and was responsible for all statewide staff and public education and training. At this point I developed and implemented a series of training programs for staff throughout the state. I instituted an orientation program for new employees that included topics such as sexuality counseling, integrating birth control counseling into STD interviewing and a host of others. Much of this early work dealt with training our staff in how to work with people from diverse cultural backgrounds and sexual orientations.
It was at this time that I decided to pursue my doctoral studies. I chose Temple University’s EdD program in Health Education for my doctoral studies because it was described to me as a program tailored to “working professionals” and allowed up to 12 credits of work in another discipline. I had a long-standing love of health education and was fascinated about how the dimensions of health (physical, social, spiritual, emotional. Intellectual, environmental and occupational) interacted in health and wellness. I wanted to learn more about this interconnectedness.
I chose counseling as my second area and worked with faculty from that department to craft independent study counseling projects in asthma counseling, STD counseling, and herpes self-help group work. All of my doctoral level work revolved around health counseling. Much of it was tied directly to the work I was doing at the NJ State Department of Health. I was very interested in patient counseling and compliance and tailored all of my work around these issues.
Each of my independent study courses at Temple had a counseling component. My Asthma Counseling project revolved around leading an asthma self-help group at the Freehold NJ Wellness Center. As a life-long asthmatic it was very gratifying for me to help others learn how to manage the problem and the emotions associated with it.
My herpes self-help independent study project had a direct tie-in with my work at the NJSDH. At this time (1983-84) I was charged with developing a state-wide self-help program for clients attending our clinics to help them cope with genital herpes infection. At this point in time there was no effective treatment available for genital herpes. The disease was managed with self-care using topical drugs that minimized the duration of and symptoms associated with outbreaks. I personally established a network of regional herpes self-help groups across the state. I was responsible for setting up the groups, training group leaders, co-facilitating the groups for the first six months and overseeing the groups until I could turn them over to someone who was an actual sufferer (I was not).
My final independent study project at Temple revolved around developing an effective counseling intervention to ensure that STD patients complied with their treatment plans (take medication, get sex partners evaluated, etc). As part of this study I developed patient counseling guidelines, handouts, and other patient education materials that were used in all of the public STD Clinics across the state. I conducted training sessions across the state in all of the clinics on how to use the materials to counsel clients with STDs
This independent study project ultimately became my doctoral dissertation which resulted in a CDC grant-funded study of men with gonorrhea in the Memphis Tennessee STD clinic. The CDC was very interested in interventions that could help stem the spread of STDs by increasing compliance with treatment regimens among STD clinic populations. The study demonstrated a significant relationship between my counseling intervention and increased compliance with an STD treatment regimen. The study was published in the discipline’s most prestigious peer-reviewed journal (Sexually Transmitted Diseases).
I came away from my doctoral work with a clear understanding of how the dimensions of health (physical, social etc.) interacted in a host of health problems and really began to integrate this understanding into my stress management work.
Working as a College Professor
After obtaining my doctoral degree in 1986 I was recruited by William Paterson University to accept a faculty position in the Department of Community Health to teach Epidemiology, Counseling Skills for Health Educators, Human Sexuality and Stress Management. During my first few years at William Paterson (late 1980’s) I worked extensively with the CDC-funded National STD Training Center established at the Newark Health Department’s STD Clinic and run under the supervision of St. Michael’s Medical Center. As one of five national STD training centers, this institution served clinicians from all over the world. I taught courses at the center (STD Patient Counseling, The Clinician-Patient Interaction, Sexuality and STD Risk and others) with a host of clinicians who specialized in different aspects of STD diagnosis and treatment.
I spent the decade of the 1990’s at William Paterson writing textbooks and refining my teaching and counseling skills. I wrote three textbooks, one each in the areas of Stress Management, Human Sexuality, and Health Counseling. I also discovered distance learning and fell in love with online teaching and learning. I developed several online classes and became the department's online education resource person.
Mid-Life Career Shift
At the age of 50 I decided to shift gears again and explore different avenues for working one-on one with clients to help them manage their stress. I took a sabbatical from work, wrote my first trade paperback book (Seven Weeks to Conquering Your Stress), produced a relaxation CD of the same name, and developed an approach to working one-on-one with people that was an outgrowth of the classroom teaching I had been doing for the past decade. The approach was wellness-based and revolved around my Five R's of Coping Model (developed for my textbook).
In addition, I began to pursue my Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) credential. I was also fascinated by the new Distance Counseling Credential (DCC) that merged the two areas I have expertise in; distance teaching and counseling. I obtained my NCC (National Certified Counselor) DCC ( Certified Distance Counselor) credentials in 2006.
Somewhere along the way I became exposed to the Japanese Therapies (Morita and Naikan self-reflection) through the writings of David K Reynolds and Gregg Krech of the ToDo Institute in Vermont. I became so enamored with the Naikan and Morita therapies that I spent two years becoming certified by the ToDo Institute in these approaches. They became a key component of how I view and treat stress.
Becoming a Coach
As I was working my way through the steps involved in becoming a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) I took a training course in Life Coaching that changed my life forever. It made me realize that I was on the wrong path. I realized that Life Coaching is very similar to health education but much more tailored to working with individuals one-on-one. I found out that Life Coaches work with people who are "well" (do not have DSM -caliber mental disorders) and need help achieving their goals and managing minor psychological issues (like stress, worry, mild anxiety). Coaches look and move forward (don't spend any time analyzing the past or focusing on problems) starting with discussing the goals (personal and professional) people have and want to start working on.
I decided to become a Certified Professional Coach (CPC) and spent the next couple of years training and becoming certified. I love coaching because I found out over the past few years that I was never really interested in focusing on problems, attaching diagnostic labels to these problems, and becoming mired in clients' histories. I am much more interested in finding out where clients want to go, what barriers stand in their way, and helping them move forward, overcome their obstacles , and meet their goals.
The final piece of the puzzle was learning about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). ACT is a new form of psychotherapy that has tremendous value in helping clients suffering from serious mental disorders. It also can help average people who experience stress and mild worry or anxiety that diminishes the quality of their lives and stands in the way of meeting their goals.
Often people get "stuck " (ACT term for being psychologically-inflexible) due to stress, anxiety, worry etc. and have trouble moving forward. ACT practices help people get unstuck (become more psychologically-flexible), accept what they can't change, and keep moving forward towards their goals and dreams.
My Eclectic Approach to Coaching
Coaching and ACT are perfect fits for me and present a way for me to work one-on-one with clients both in-person and at a distance in a professional helping capacity without being licensed as a professional counselor. My approach to coaching is eclectic and reflects my background, training, and experience. My coaching looks at the whole person (health education focus), and combines Eastern (Morita and Naikan) and Western (ACT and Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy) psychotherapeutic techniques with proven relaxation strategies (mindfulness, meditation, visualization, systematic muscular relaxation etc.). It is unique, highly effective, and gives you a variety of tools to meet your goals and live your dreams.
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