“We are not offering a treatment plan or a therapy,
We are offering options, choice and the possibility of planning a different future”
Dr. Ian Snape, on the Nature of Coaching
In today’s wellness focussed environment we see more working together between medical doctors, psychologists and life coaches. And that’s great. I have a client, let’s call him Paul, who has been clinically diagnosed with three separate and fairly serious mental disorders. He suffers from long bouts of euphoria followed by long bouts of depression, an inability to connect with his emotions and low grade social anxiety. Paul is exactly the sort of client a life coach can help, especially if they have a working knowledge of neuroscience.
A person’s state affects every other part of their experience of life, and every state can be influenced, changed or affected. We move naturally from elation to depression and back again. There are three main inputs making up a person’s state: physiology, biochemistry and neurology. We have choice, freedom and the possibility of planning a different future by affecting change in these three elements in the diagram below (copyright The Coaching Space 2014):
⦁ Physiology looks at our breathing, stance, dress and movement.
⦁ Biochemistry looks at what cocktail of chemicals are running around the blood stream, the way food affects mood, disease and medication.
⦁ Neurology looks at beliefs, perceptions, neuroplasticity and the unconscious mind.
