What Makes This Work Different from Traditional Coaching or Therapy

People often find their way here after something else has helped but not fully resolved what they are living with. They may have gained insight. They may understand their patterns. They may have tools that help them function day to day.

And yet something still feels unfinished.

This is usually the moment when the question shifts from “What else can I try?” to “What kind of work am I needing now?”

A Clear and Respectful Distinction

There is a time and place for therapy, coaching, and many other modalities. Each serves a purpose. None of them are wrong or lesser. What matters is readiness, capacity, and intention.

Traditional coaching is often goal driven and future oriented. It emphasizes movement, strategy, mindset, and accountability. It is incredibly supportive when someone is clear about what they want and regulated enough to take action.

Therapy often focuses on understanding symptoms, processing history, diagnosing, and creating stability or relief. It is essential for safety, support, and making sense of what has happened.

This work sits in a different orientation altogether.
It does not begin with goals or diagnosis. It does not rely on story or strategy as the primary entry point. It does not try to manage or override emotional responses.
Instead, it begins with awareness. What is happening in you right now and how your system organizes itself in real time.

Not to get rid of anything, but to meet it directly.

Integration Instead of Management

One of the most significant differences in this work is the focus on integration rather than symptom management or behavior modification.

Insight alone does not always change behavior. Tools alone do not always shift patterns. Regulation alone does not always resolve what has been held.

In this work, awareness is not something you think your way into. It is something you experience.

We pay attention to how reactions form in the moment, how defenses appear, how emotions rise and recede, and how protection mobilizes before you even realize it is happening.

Instead of bypassing or controlling these responses, we stay with them long enough for something new to become possible.

That is where integration happens.

As a Gestalt Coach, I am trained to track what is happening now, not just what happened then or what you hope will happen later. Some people describe this as life coaching on steroids, but the truth is simpler. It is coaching that includes the whole of your lived experience, not just the part that wants to move forward.

Presence Over Performance

Many people are excellent at doing healing. They can articulate their patterns. They can explain their history.

They can say all the right things.

What they struggle with is being present with what they feel.

This work does not ask you to perform insight or demonstrate progress. It asks you to notice. To stay with yourself. To be honest about what is happening inside you in real time.

That can feel unfamiliar, especially if you have spent years solving, managing, or pushing through discomfort.

Readiness matters here. This work is not for everyone, and it is not meant to be.

Some people are better served by therapy first. Some are not ready to sit with discomfort without immediately trying to fix it. That is not a failure. It is timing.

Clarity protects everyone involved.

My Role in the Work

I am not a passive observer, and I am not a fixer.

My role is active, engaged, and deeply attuned. Gestalt work is not something that happens to you. It is something we participate in together. There is motion, flow, and experimentation woven throughout the process.

I track what is happening in you as it is happening. Shifts in breath. Changes in posture. The moment your voice tightens. The instant a protective part steps forward. The places where you speed up, go quiet, or disconnect.

These are not symptoms. They are information. They are the living edge of your experience.

I reflect these patterns back to you in real time so you can see what has been operating outside your awareness.

Because Gestalt is experiential, we often work with what is emerging in the moment, not just what you are describing.

That may include slowing down a reaction so you can feel it instead of override
it, exploring the tension between two parts of you, giving voice to something
you have never said out loud, noticing how your body organizes around a belief,
or experimenting with a new way of responding in the safety of the session.

This is not performance. It is practice — embodied, relational practice.

I am fully present in the relational field with you, paying attention to what arises between us, not just within you. Sometimes the work is in the words. Sometimes it is in the silence.

Sometimes it is in the subtle pull of an old pattern trying to repeat itself.

When familiar loops appear, I gently but directly interrupt them, not to correct you but to create space for something new to emerge.

I do not rescue.
I do not tell you who to be.
I do not lead your life for you.

What I do is help you see what you could not see before while staying grounded in your own experience. I hold the container steady so you can explore safely, honestly, and without collapsing into old strategies.

This work is alive.
It moves.
It breathes.

It meets you exactly where you are and invites you into deeper contact with yourself.

Why This Work Requires Commitment

Because this work is experiential and integrative, it is not designed for quick relief or short-term engagement.

Sessions are sixty minutes. We meet for three consecutive weeks, followed by a week of integration. This rhythm allows your system to absorb what surfaced rather than stacking insight on top of insight.

The minimum commitment is six months, which equals eighteen sessions. Most clients work with me for at least that long. Some continue for a year.

The intention is not endless work.

The intention is meaningful change.

A Quiet Truth Worth Naming

Nothing failed you.

If other approaches helped but did not resolve what you are living with, it does not mean you did something wrong. It often means you are ready for a different kind of work now.

Before any commitment is made, I offer a complimentary thirty-minute Journey to Healing appointment. This is not a coaching session. It is a space to ask questions, understand how I work, and see whether this approach feels like a fit.

If reading this brought clarity, relief, or a sense that something finally makes sense, that matters.

You can schedule your complimentary Journey to Healing appointment when you are ready.