Well, would you look at the time it's Therapy Natters time. Half an hour of mental health and psychotherapy ramblings, from a couple of therapists who want to spread the word about the value of therapy and all of its offshoots. I'm Richard Nicholls and Fiona Biddle is with me as well as usual. Hey, Fiona, how's it hanging? You're hanging loose today.
Everything's absolutely fine here. Thank you. You.
Good stuff. Oh yeah. Alright. Right. The weather's took a change. Dunno about what it's like over in uh, in Chichester. Chichester. You're not in Chichester. I've got that on the mind at the minute. Flipping heck Ch Ch Cheltenham. cuz I'm going to an open day tomorrow in Chichester. You see the university,
I was
it's on my mind.
would be on your mind. It's a bit obscure, but that makes sense.
Freud would have a field day because the reason Chichester was on my mind is because my son will be flying the nest at some point soon, moving off to university, and he's probably. Looking Well, he's, he's looking at it, and he's probably gonna go to Chichester, which is to me, the other side of the world, because it's three hours away.
Louise went to Chichester.
Did she uh,
And she managed just fine with visiting family and so on. They found it wasn't that it was quite quick to get to surprisingly quick, and she loved it.
Nice. Well, I'm off there tomorrow stopping in an Airbnb, see what it's like. Scope out the area, soak up Bognor Regis, see what the beach is like. And yeah, see if my son likes it. I mean he's already made his mind up I think really, that he's gonna study there if there's a choice, cuz it does all the right sort of courses. And I think that's important to him.
Maybe he's picked that all up from me, but just in, in popular culture, we've got to a point where we recognize the value in learning the right stuff, that we don't just do something just for the sake of it, that we spend a bit of time looking at what we really, really want before we jump headfirst into it. How's that for a segue? Boom,
Pretty good. Pretty good as they go. Yes. Well done. Yes.
in the topic of go on Fiona. I'll let you
Okay, because today we have a guest Kate Jackson, who's based in Norfolk, but also works online or primarily probably works online. Kate is a life coach as well as a Hypno psychotherapist. So combining the two and we thought we'd have a good old natter with Kate today about the differences, the similarities, and what coaching can do for you as they say. So, hi Kate. Nice to see you.
Hello. Thank you very much for involving me and your natter. What a privilege.
It's an absolute pleasure. We've been waiting to get you on. Well, we only started having extra contributors when we got to sort of, oh, it was episode 50, wasn't it? We did 50 episodes on their own and went, should we ask a few other people if they want to jump in? And I thought we were just gonna do two or three, but then there was a fourth.
We found somebody else and then there was somebody else and we're like, We've got a lot of friends actually that we can invite onto this cuz there's a lot of expertise out there. And of course we're just therapists. Individually, we don't know everything. We don't pretend that we do We might know some elements of theory more than a client does.
But on the whole I tend to come into therapy with the perspective that the client knows pretty much everything they already need to know and I'm just there to help them unlock it all. Not always the case, but sometimes it is. But sometimes clients will say, and I don't mind it when they do, it doesn't stress me out anymore. I think in my early days it probably did. cuz they would have a therapy session and then they would say, so what do I do now? As if I'm supposed to tell them what to do next.
They wanted a solution. Not just their solution in mind, they wanted to know the steps they had to take. And as a therapist that wasn't what I was there to do. I didn't, I didn't know, and maybe I got freaked out and went, I don't know. I doubt it. I think I'd have held my cool and maybe do exactly what I do now, which is go, okay, well let's look at some, some strategies. Maybe there are things you can do, but that's to me still part of therapy.
But those steps and those logistical things, Kate, would that be more coaching?
I think there's a strong parallel isn't there, between the two and I find the two, you know, therapy and coaching, dovetail into one another, definitely. And quite often you'll find someone as just exactly as you described, they go to therapy because they want something fixing, they're not feeling right and comfortable in themselves, and they get to the stage when they think, Oh, I feel okay now. But now I'm the new me or really the true me. What do I wanna do with my life?
And suddenly it's opened up a whole load of new opportunities for them. So how do I set my goals? What do I want? So yes, it's, it's helping them then to work out what goals do you really want, not the goals you feel you should have. Cuz that's a really key point. It's the goals you actually want to achieve and that will mean something to you.
Oh, that's really interesting. Which reminds me of an email that we got sent in. I'll um, I'll acknowledge it and read it out actually, cuz it was from uh, podcast Listener Eden. Eden says, hi Richard. I've been a listener since you began your podcast, which I just need to pause and say Eden what really? I've been do that's like 13 years. So if you genuinely have been in it since I began, thank you so much. And then they say been loving, Therapy Natters with Fiona.
Never miss an episode and really trust your content and thoughts. For that reason, I thought it was worth a try reaching out for some advice, as I believe your advice would be sound.
I'm looking into life coaching as I'm finding I cannot get off the ground with reaching my goals, financial, weight loss, fitness, and feel that whilst I've been through therapy on multiple occasions, I thought I would benefit from having some allocated time with a professional to work through this, and I think it's worth me investing in. Any advice would be appreciated. Many thanks, Eden. And first off, oh, really super grateful. Thank you very much for sending that in.
Now, that's a similar sort of story cuz I do hear from lots of people who, as you say, Kate, they've had therapy. I've unpacked and understood myself a lot better than I ever have done ever before. I totally understand why I react the way that I react, why I feel the way that I feel, and I'm accepting of who I am as a human. And my self-esteem is going up, and up, and up. Now what? Now that I have this line in the sand that says you are in control of your life and your future now.
It raises that question, what am I gonna do with it? And who's gonna help me figure that out? Cuz I think psychotherapists, counselors, hypnotherapists particularly, would not really know how to help. It does need somebody who's got some specific life coaching qualifications and experience. And I know it's not a protected title. Anybody can call themselves a coach. Just like anybody can actually call themselves a counselor, anybody. There's no law stopping them or psychotherapist. Or nurse.
It's not a protected title. You can call yourself what you like with no training at all, with no qualifications. So how do the public know where do I go to find somebody that is genuine? We know that the secret to a good therapeutic outcome is the relationship you build with your therapist. So in theory doesn't really matter if they're qualified or not, cuz it's the relationship you're gonna build.
As long as their qualifications that they do have or their experiences is in how to build a relationship, it doesn't matter in theory, I don't think that always works in practice. What do you think?
So from that Richard then I'd like to ask Kate how much the therapeutic relationship is considered to be part of the process in coaching and what is your perception of how much that matters as a coach as opposed to as a therapist.
I think that matters hugely, I would say to anyone looking for a coach to definitely, speak to them beforehand. Don't just sign up straight away. Always make sure you speak beforehand and make sure that you've got that connection with them and you feel that connection with them. I think that's really important because coaching, just like therapy, is a very safe space where you can explore your fears freely.
You don't have to worry about what anyone else would think, and it's important that you have that trust and that confidence. And the other thing I would say, going back to what you were saying earlier, Richard was, I would say that I would always look for a coach that's had training and also is a part of either the International Coaching Federation or with the Association for Coaches. So look at someone who actually does want to invest. And is professional, that would be something I'd say.
but with the relationship wise Fiona, I think it's very, very important that you know that you can have a safe space to talk about what's concerning you and your worries, but also to know that you have the total confidence in that coach that they've got your back even when they're pushing you. Because I think that's the slight difference with coaching and therapy in my experience, is that with my coaching clients, I will sometimes be awkward.
I will push them To help them to achieve their goals because I know they are in a position where they're strong enough to deal with it and they've asked me to do it. So I'd say that's the difference for me with the relationship.
So coaching can be a bit more confrontational then?
Yes, I think it can. I sometimes am very aware that I'm being quite annoying and my clients will say, you're being so annoying, and I know I am, because we all, I certainly do it. I, I know if well say Eden's point about wanting to lose weight, I know what I've got to do to lose weight, so, Why don't I do it? Well, you know, we are very good as human beings of having avoidance tactics, aren't we?
And kidding ourselves that we're on the right track and actually we need someone there, and that's what the coach does, to say, Oi are you really sticking to this? Are you doing what you know you should be doing? Really? Did you need that? Or did you really go for a run? And how far did you go?
and starting tomorrow does not work.
Yes, exactly.
By the sound of things coming at this from a, psychotherapist's perspective, when somebody comes to us with some of those things that Eden was talking about, about weight loss and motivation and things, as a therapist, we'd look underneath and go, okay, what's the blockages here? what's stopping you? A question that comes up a lot with weight loss is, you know, what are you really hungry for? What's really going on in those moments when you reach for food?
By the sound of things before somebody is gonna go for coaching, they need to have got all that sorted out. Either because they didn't have that many issues to work through or they've worked through them. Would that be right or is that something that a coach would also do?
Interesting this because I found, I work a lot with executives in the workplace. People who are trying to progress in their careers and they keep being passed by when it comes to promotion. Or it might be, oh, I have to do a lot of presentations in my work and how do I go about doing that? I've had clients before, especially with presentations. Where we can get so far and then once a relationship is established, they'll say, well, do you know what? This all comes from.
And they'll come out with something that happened the way they were brought up, or the way they were treated in the past when they stood up and did something as a child or something. And that's when before I trained in my psychotherapy, I would have to stand back and say you know, it would help you to go and see a qualified therapist here. This is where it's gone beyond me. I would suggest you get that help and that will get you over it, and then we can work on it.
I did have a particular client who said to me, well, the thing I really want to work on is my presentation skills. But I tell you I have been on every course possible. Everyone tells me I'm really good at it. But I don't think I am. And when we uncovered it, that was a classic case of when she'd been bullied at school. Whenever she stood up and the teacher used to put her in the corner of the room and she's never got over that, she always thinks that that's how people are judging her.
So we got to that stage and it was moments like those that made me want to go off and train in hypno psychotherapy.
Excellent. That's quite, quite eyeopening there's gonna be a lot of people that have been to a coach already that might have had similar experiences Not necessarily the opposite way round. We might go to a coach and we've got some of those previous issues that hold us back. But we don't necessarily go with those issues to a therapist and then go So, you are gonna then help me with my financial problems then are you therapist.
You're gonna tell me what to do and teach me how to handle my money better? that doesn't tend to happen. I've heard stories where counselors have had clients who have been sent to them and people have misunderstood what the counselor was there to help them with. And they've gone in there with forms for the benefits office and things like that and gone, I've been sent to you to help me fill these in. So, no, that's not what you're here to do.
Oh. I couldn't fill them in, so they sent me for counseling. Oh, that's interesting. But in private therapy, no, we don't tend to get those sorts of experiences, but any new therapist out there especially if you're gonna go into a placement, you might, you might have those experiences.
But still, I think any therapist still gets, especially hypnotherapists, do get the clients who come in and say, fix me. How do I do this? Going back to your earlier point, Richard of, well, how do I do that? Which is why in my book, the mix of therapy and coaching, as long as you're clear as to where the boundaries lie can be a real benefit. And I think your awareness of that differentiation, Kate, is, really your benefit because I've.
Been to coaching trainings where the trainers don't seem to have that awareness that there's something missing and feel that coaching is it. Whereas there are those gaps. And even if therapist is trained in motivational theory, If they're purely a therapist, they can't get into the, so what are you going to do? When are you going to do it? And the accountability, because that goes beyond their remit.
Hmm.
Have we really fully explained exactly what coaching is for listeners that, that don't know?
We probably haven't have we.
No, it's easy for us to think, oh, coaching, yeah, we know what that is. but Kate, from an outsider's perspective, how would we define what coaching is? What would be the experience of seeing a coach?
Gosh, that's a difficult one because when I was studying to do my coaching, there were so many different definitions of coaching, that makes it quite hard. Because obviously there's a crossover as well say a tennis coach or a golf coach as to what a coach who's gonna help you with your career or help you with your life because I have a tennis coach who's fantastic and he will say, well, you must do it like this, and you must do it like that, and you must do it like that.
And it works when I remember to do what he tells me to do. But with a, coach, a coach well, in my opinion, should not be dictatorial. They are working with the person. They have that relationship. And just as you said earlier with the therapy relationship, you trust in that client and you want them to bring out what they can do and the best of them and to help them.
But if I had to define it it's a supportive role that helps people to clearly define their goals and to not just take them for granted, to actually unpack those goals and make sure that they are something that they really, truly will benefit from. Cuz we all say we're gonna, we said earlier, lose weight or whatever, and then I'll feel great. Well, will you really feel great at whatever your target weight is? Let's just really explore that. What is it that a route to do for you? If I lose weight?
Does that mean that you'll feel happier in yourself? Yes. Great. If that's what it is, but if you just wanna do it for the sake of doing it. Dunno. So I'd wanna unpack that. And then once you've decided clearly on the goals the coach will hold you accountable and they'll help you to be accountable and make sure that you achieve them step by step. And it's a safe environment.
And some of my clients who work as very busy chief executives at high levels, they've got so much going on in their heads with so many things they have to do, and they have to be so supportive to so many different people, and they have to put on a performance when they're trying to raise money to investors or if they're trying to be very supportive to a member of staff who's come in and is not well.
And actually they haven't slept all night either because they've been exhausted working on some presentation or whatever they've been doing. And the time they have with a coach just to unwind and just let it all go and actually be themselves just for a moment and say, do you know what? I know I tell everyone it's all roses and everything's fantastic, but it's tough. It's tough. And then the coach will then help them to go, yeah, get that. We've got your back.
Now let's look at how we pull you back together again. So you can go out and be the wonderful smiley person that you are and get on with it and be totally in control of what you're doing. So that's not very clear definition, but that's my rambling way of telling you what I think coaching is.
Oh, sound. So although coaching isn't therapy, we'd still say it's therapeutic.
Definitely,
Yeah. Where do we sign up? I mean, I, I, I've often laughed and joked that, no, it's not laughing and joking. It's quite serious that everybody should see a therapist. If you get to a point in life where you've had experiences. You will benefit from learning about how those experiences have shaped you. You will learn how your defense mechanisms either help you or hinder you, and if they're hindering and they're causing a problem, then you can become aware of it.
Become more aware of yourself and challenge it, move on, and feel genuinely better and happier. That's everybody. We don't have to wait until we are depressed or anxious before we see a therapist, everybody can benefit.
But it sounds like coaching as well can sit in that umbrella that actually for most people, almost at any age to a degree, No matter how few or many experiences they've had, if they're living in a modern world with modern expectations and modern pressures, sounds like everybody genuinely could benefit from coaching.
I think there's a lot to be said for that. I think I personally was someone who was quite guilty of thinking in the past. And I still do. I can do this on my own. I'm capable, I should be able to do this, I should be able to do that. Of course, I can. Get promotion on my own. I know how to do that. Or of course I can stick to a fitness regime or whatever. I should be able to do that myself.
And it, yeah, it, we always put so much emphasis on myself and what I should be able to do and what you are capable of doing. And so it's hard sometimes to actually let go and say, do you know what? I could really do with someone in my camp to help me do that. And that's all it is. It's not admitting a weakness, we all work together. As human beings. We all know we work together, we work much better together than solo. that's, who we are. As human beings.
So it's, it's overcoming that stigma of thinking. It's a weakness to ask for help.
And sport is a good parallel for that because no golfer is without a coach, no tennis player is without a coach. There've been some occasional ones who, I can't think of the names with any confidence right now, so I won't try. But there are some who occasionally go it alone. But only for a little while, and then they get a coach again because they recognize that it's necessary. I wanted to just ask you about goals.
It's really easy to see the goals that might be around for somebody who's, let's say mid forties and in a career and wanting to progress and financial goals, career goals, life goals, but not everybody has those sorts of goals do they? Because at different points in life, we might not be reaching towards specific goals. I'm thinking of let's say somebody who's got a couple of very, very small children, let, let's say a newborn and a two year old.
Well, they might well not be working towards goals. Or of older people who might be retired and living their lives. Would there still be a role for a life coach when you are not working towards specific goals?
I think my thoughts on that would be, it depends on whether they want specific goals. So if you are quite happy, just drifting, and you are very happy in your life just exactly as you are then absolutely great. But if you find yourself in that situation where I'm thinking the examples you are giving there. Often I'll get someone who they've given up work, they no longer work, they've retired. That's what they've always dreamed of doing, is retiring, and they come out and they, this is all great.
they're living wherever they wanna live. And then they go, something's missing. Something's missing. I, I, I, I, I don't know what it is. I, I don't know what I want. Then that is a goal because they want to know what they want. So that's good. In this scenario, again, I've had clients who have been juggling with young families, and in those cases, sometimes it's just, I'm just so exhausted. I can't think what I want. I, I, I don't know, and I don't know whether I'm coping with this, right.
People in that situation so often you get this fear that you're not doing enough. You know, am I a good enough parent? Am I spending enough time doing that? Oh, should I be going out earning more money and bringing more income in? Should I be doing that instead? Well, I'm having a go at it, but I'm not very good at it, and I'm not very good at parenting either. Oh my gosh, oh my God. The whole, everything just implodes.
And sometimes, again, it's having that chance to just, let's look at the facts. Are you really that bad a parent? Or are you really doing your absolute best and doing a wonderful job?
So your coaching goal might actually be to let go of a goal.
Yeah, absolutely. That's very powerful. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I always think of goals as being dreams with legs because we can all have dreams. We can all have dreams of what we think we'd always like to do. So it might be, I've always dreamt of I dunno, living in a house beside the sea, and I've always wanted to do that. And that's, a dream unless you have a plan to get to that dream. And unless you make a plan to get to that dream, then it doesn't happen.
So you then spend your time always feeling like you're a bit of a failure because you've never achieved your dream but if you start putting legs on it and start getting a plan and putting steps in place to do it. Sometimes very often I'll find with clients, they start putting their steps together and think, Do you know what? I don't think I really do wanna live by the sea.
I actually, I really like it where I am now, and I've got this, and I've got that and I've got my friends around me and I don't want to.
And there's also something with those sorts of dreams that I found is to, to look at what the feeling is that comes with the dream, and then to see if there's a way to get that that's not. I think probably for most people to live in a house by the sea is, is a big step cuz most people don't. And it's expensive. But you can have a look at what that feeling is and see if they can get that feeling met by more realistic goals. It's the same with money goals, isn't it?
Because money in and of itself is meaningless. It's what it does for you. And so, I'm sure you've had this many a time, Kate, where people's goal is to make their first million or their next million or whatever it might be, but without examining what that means for them and what that gives them, where's the meaning?
Exactly. So, you know, I'll sometimes get people saying, well, I want to retire. by the time I'm 35 or something like that. Okay, and then we do exactly as you are saying. Now, let's unpack that. Let's have a look at, well, what does retirement at 35 look like? What's that going to enable you to do? A hundred percent. There are other people who want to apply for a promotion and they want to have the top role in the business. So what does that involve? So you'll be working all of these hours.
It means you'll be traveling around the world where you'll be, you know, what does that actually mean? And they go, oh, I dunno whether I do want that job after all, really. But sometimes they do, and then they make a plan to, let's see how we can make that happen. Yeah.
I've, I've never seen a coach. I've often wondered if I would benefit, I must admit, but I've, I've been tending to coach myself. Are there benefits in learning about coaching so you can be your own coach? Is that possible? Or does everybody really need the professional to sit with and go, this is how you do it.
You can help yourself as your own coach. But I certainly, I still have a coach because I don't challenge myself maybe as much because my immediate reaction when you were saying what you were saying just then was I would say, well, I challenge you Richard. You know who is challenging your thoughts who's making sure that you are thinking right? Who's gonna help you to look at any blind spots that you might have.
You may continue after the conversation with your coach to carry on doing exactly what you are doing, but that challenge arises something else for you to search and look at alternative ways that you may not have had the time to have done. So that would be a benefit. And I think as, as I mentioned earlier, I know in my business there are things that I'm really not very good at making myself do because I don't particularly like doing it. So I'll just avoid them.
Whereas I know when I meet my coach, I meet my coach regularly. He always gives me a very hard time that I don't do enough marketing. All my clients come from word of mouth. And he is always saying to me, you know, get your system up to date, contact these people. Have you done it? Have you done it. And I'm going, oh, no, no, no. Right. Okay. And then I might send some emails off just to say, hello, how are you?
And it always results in people coming back and, and even if it doesn't result in business, it's great to hear from them and just engage with them. So I wouldn't do that without a coach telling me what to do. I'd find something else that was much more important to do in my mind.
Yes. And when I'm, when I'm my own coach, I'm exceptionally skilled at excuse making and fooling my coach into thinking I am actually doing what I say I'm doing when I'm not doing it. My coach is a bit dumb when it comes down to it. He doesn't get it.
I can absolutely procrastinate as an Olympic sport. I I must admit. And yet at the same time, I say I used to, I don't do this quite as much anymore. Say yes to everything. Would you like to do that? Yes. Because it's true. I would like to, so I will. And that's not always good. Whereas the coach would go, it looks like your to-do list is unworkable. Unmanageable. Completely unrealistic by the looks of that. Oh yeah. It's ridiculous, isn't it? Yeah. How do you
And a coach can help you prioritize, can't they?
Yeah, they certainly can. And I think that opens up something else on the other extreme. I used to be, and I still have that tendency, but luckily my coach keeps me in check, quite a perfectionist. If I'm gonna do something, I want it to be a hundred percent right. So what happens? Results in procrastination. So, I don't do it. Whereas my coach will say, Hmm. does it need to be that good Kate? Or is good, good enough?
And helps me to work out what is good enough, realistically, not with my high expectations, cuz if I carried on the way I was going, which has been a complete perfectionist and wanting to do everything all at once. I was heading for burnout, it would've just all got too much. Whereas now the coach has helped me to put it into perspective,
Wonderful stuff. Well, Kate we need to bring the, episode to a close. What I'll do is I'll add some links into the show notes of organizations where people can go to get some ideas. I'll add your links in there as well if anybody wants to see you cause you've hopefully got some availability for people if they'd like to see a coach cuz you work online so they can be almost anywhere. Can there be anywhere in the UK or can there be worldwide? Are there restrictions?
coaching. No restrictions? They can be anywhere in the world. So yes, I have clients in China and I have clients in South Africa actually,
Oh wow. Quite a little bit different to the way we work as therapists. We've gotta be a little bit careful with, with where our, our clients are cuz of legal stuff, but with, with coaching, wow. They can come from anywhere. And we've got listeners all over the world. Anything to add before we disappear for another week?
All I'd say is it's been a great natter. It's been wonderful to speak to you both. I've really thoroughly enjoyed my time and thank you very much for inviting
Yeah, it's been lovely to, It's been lovely to have you here. It's really great, so thank you.
Right, shall we disappear away for another week? Fiona?
Okay. I guess we have to,
Leave everybody to it. Have a good week you know where we are if you need anything. And we'll talk to you next time anyway. Bye for now.
Bye.
Bye.