Telephone Coaching

What is telephone coaching?

Dr. Brandon offers non-therapy telephone coaching sessions to individuals who, because of geographic reasons, are unable to meet with her in person. Because Dr. Brandon does not meet directly with clients in these sessions, they are not considered to be psychological assessment and/or treatment, nor can they be considered alternatives to medical assessment or treatment. Instead, these coaching sessions offer clients an opportunity to explore issues with Dr. Brandon in a safe and confidential environment. Dr. Brandon makes every effort in these sessions to offer clients clarification on issues that they may benefit from addressing with homework and/or by meeting with a qualified health care provider.

Coaching sessions are scheduled during normal business hours and are 45 minutes in length. Fees are $175.00 for the first session, and $165.00 for any sessions thereafter. To schedule a session, follow the link below.

What is the difference between coaching and psychotherapy?

I am licensed in Maryland with training and experience in diagnosing and treating emotional problems. While there are some similarities between coaching and psychotherapy, they are very different activities and it is important that you understand the differences between them. Psychotherapy is a health care service and is usually reimbursable through health insurance policies. This is not true for coaching. Both coaching and psychotherapy utilize knowledge of human behavior, motivation, behavioral change, and interactive counseling techniques. The major differences are in the goals, focus and level of professional responsibility.

The focus of coaching is development and implementation of strategies to reach client identified goals of enhanced performance and personal satisfaction. Coaching may address specific personal projects, life balance, job performance and satisfaction or general conditions in the client's life. Coaching utilizes personal strategic planning, values clarification, brainstorming, motivational counseling and other counseling techniques.

The primary foci of psychotherapy are identification, diagnosis and treatment of mental and nervous disorders. The goals include alleviating symptoms, understanding the underlying dynamics which create symptoms, changing dysfunctional behaviors which are the result of these disorders and developing new strategies for successfully coping with the psychological challenges which we all face. Most research on psychotherapy outcomes indicates that the quality of the relationship is most closely correlated with therapeutic progress. Psychotherapy patients are often emotionally vulnerable. This vulnerability is increased by the expectation that they will discuss very intimate personal data and expose feelings about themselves that are understandably sensitive about. The past life experiences of psychotherapy patients have often made trust difficult to achieve. These factors give psychotherapists greatly disproportionate power that creates a fiduciary responsibility to protect the safety of their clients and to “above all else, do no harm.”

The relationship between the coach and client is specifically designed to avoid the power differentials that occur in the psychotherapy relation. The client sets the agenda and the success of the enterprise depends on the client’s willingness to take risks and try new approaches. The relationship is designed to be more direct and challenging. You can count on your coach to be honest and straightforward, asking powerful questions and using challenging techniques to move you forward. You are expected to evaluate progress and when coaching is not working as you wish, you should immediately inform me so we can both take steps to correct the problem.

Because of these differences, the roles of coach and psychotherapist are often in potential conflict and I believe that, under most circumstances, it is ethically inappropriate for one to play both roles with a client, whether concurrently or sequentially. Positive change is difficult enough without having to worry about role confusion. This means that if either of us recognizes that you have a problem that would benefit from psychotherapeutic intervention, I will refer you to appropriate resources. In some situations, I may insist that you initiate psychotherapy and that I have access to your psychotherapist as a condition of my continuing as your coach.

Confidentiality

As a licensed psychologist, I am ethically and legally bound to protect the confidentiality of our communications. I will only release information about our work to others with your written permission or if I am ordered to do so by a court order. There are some situations in which I am legally obligated to breach confidentiality in order to protect others from harm. If I have information that indicates that a child or elderly or disabled person is being abused, I must report that to the appropriate state agency. If a client is an imminent risk to him/herself or makes threats of imminent violence against another, I am required to take protective actions. These situations are quite rare in coaching practices. If such a situation occurs in our relationship, I will make every effort to discuss it with you before taking any action.

As you are no doubt aware, it is impossible to protect the confidentiality of information that is transmitted electronically. This is particularly true of e-mail and information stored on computers that are connected to the Internet which do not utilize encryption and other forms of security protection.

Some sessions may be conducted in a group format. By signing this AGREEMENT (Adobe PDF Format), you commit yourself to maintaining the confidentiality of all of information communicated to you by other coaching clients and by your coach. We understand that progress is often enhanced when clients are allowed to discuss their coaching relationship with trusted colleagues and friends. You can have these discussions by being careful not to share any information which would allow others in the group to be identified. You are expected to be very careful in such conversations. One way to decide how and what to discuss is to think about how you would feel, if someone else in the group were discussing you.

Print Agreement
(Adobe PDF Format)