Skip to content

Symbiotic Collective One to One Coaching FAQ

What is the commitment for one to one coaching with The Symbiotic Collective?

Coaching engagements will be a minimum of 3 months, but 12 months is recommended.

Sessions will take place every 2-4 weeks, depending on the situation.

Coaching is most effective in person, but virtual appointments are also available.

What is the difference between coaching and therapy?

Coaching is explicitly targeting emotionally healthy people. If someone is dealing with some kind of emotional issue or past trauma, then I would refer them to a therapist. I’m credentialed by the International Coaching Federation, and there’s an entire ethical code of conduct that we’re required to uphold, which includes referring people to the appropriate practitioner.

This isn’t mentoring. This isn’t sponsorship. It really is teaching people how to use the tools that are in their toolbox.

How much information is confidential?

Everything we say in a coaching session is confidential. If your company is paying for the coaching services, they can provide input and tell me how the client is progressing, but I’m still not allowed by the ethical standards of ICF to provide the company any information about what takes place in the coaching session.

What is the role of a coach?

I’m not going to talk to your boss for you, right? I’m not giving you advice. There’s accountability for outcomes and you have the ownership of the action and the outcome. And what we’re talking about are maybe different ways that you may want to approach or experiment with, but the ultimate accountability is with the coachee.

What is Gestalt?

Gestalt by definition is a physical, biological, or symbolic configuration or pattern of element so unified as a whole that its properties cannot be identified from a simple summation of its parts.

Gestalt approach has the basic premise that life happens in the present—not in the past or the future—and that when we are dwelling on the past or fantasizing about the future we are not living fully.  Through living in the present we are able to take responsibility for our responses and actions.  To be fully present in the here and now offers us more excitement, energy, and courage to live life directly.

Gestalt principles commonly referenced are:

Similarity – We tend to group similar items together.

Continuation – The law of continuity holds that points that are connected by straight or curving lines are seen in a way that follows the smoothest path.

Closure – If something is missing in an otherwise complete figure, we will tend to add to it.

Proximity – The law of proximity suggests that objects near each other tend to be viewed as a group.

Figure-ground – We seem to have an innate tendency to perceive one aspect of an event as the figure or fore-ground and the other as the ground or back-ground.