Coaching FAQs

What is coaching?

Historically coaches have been seen on the sidelines of athletic events whether it is an individual sport like golf or a team sport like basketball or baseball. Their job depends on the goals of the team or individual they work with, but they usually include directing, guiding and leading people to new and higher levels of improvement and results.

As relationship coaches, our primary desire is to help you dramatically improve the conditions of your relationships. With extensive experience in the game of relating, our coaches become a temporary partner in your relationship. We watch your relationships from the sidelines and analyze your interactions, quickly identifying disabling habits and patterns that you and your partner might not be able to see.

Once the patterns are understood by the three of us, we work together to customize new ways for you to see your partner and cooperatively develop solutions and skills designed to get the results you desire. Ultimately the effectiveness of any coach is measured by only one thing…RESULTS.

The role of a coach is really multi-faceted. Some of the most obvious parts of these:

1. Motivator-When you’re not quite sure you can take it any longer, we’re there to reassure, encourage, and urge you on to a better relationship.

2. Visionary- We have a solid vision of what makes healthy, long-term relationships. Our process enables you and your spouse to connect or reconnect to a vision that lifts you to entirely new levels of relating.

3. Counselor-We see the mind as the greatest tool to an effective relationship, but it is also the greatest impediment. A coach’s job is to help you understand your basic needs and conquer your ineffective thinking.

4. Conditioning Expert-We help you design new communication approaches to use in your relationship. We also evaluate the success of your current strategies and give you added tools to meet the needs of your relationship.

5. Communications Expert- We help you design new communication approaches to use in your relationship. We also evaluate the success of your current strategies and give you added tools to meet the needs of your relationship.

6. Provider of Support- We stand by your side as you surface issues and concerns that are usually at the core of the problems. You gain confidence as you go through this process of lifting your relationship to a new level.

7. Source of accountability- We call you on your excuses and hold you accountable to change. Thereby decreasing the promise of change that never comes to fruition.

Our coaches have in-depth understanding of the habits and skills needed to build and sustain a long-term relationship. The greatest skill our coaches possess however, is not their knowledge about relationships, but instead their ability to facilitate change in the relationship of each and every client. It is one thing to say you can help people change, it’s quite another to actually do it. Our coaches know how to do it.

What types of relationships do you coach?

All types! At Townsend Relationship Center we coach literally all types of relationships. Whether you are married or dating, divorcing or divorced, we can help you improve how you interact. We also coach extensively on parenting relationships and business relationships. We have worked with divorced couples teaching them how to co-parent for the benefit of their children, and our coaches have extensive experience coaching in the business arena. Below is a list of other areas we have developed programs.

  • Engaged couples
  • Second marriages
  • Struggling marriages
  • Blended families
  • Parent/child relationships
  • Family dialogues
  • Struggling business partnerships
  • Manager/employees
  • Service employee/customer team
Overall, we are willing to work with any relationship problem no matter what form it takes.

What is the typical background of a coach?

At Townsend Relationship Center, we take coaching very seriously and hold our coaching staff to the highest standards. All of our staff has advanced degrees in the human development or communications fields. All have extensive experience with coaching that ranges from individuals in typical struggling marriages to senior leaders in corporations and government. Many of our coaches have extensive experience in the training and development field and have worked to create positive change and results.

What if I want to come to coaching but my spouse doesn’t?

Actually this is a very common situation and you need not worry too much about it at first. We have experienced a considerable amount of success in our marriage coaching, even if there is just one spouse looking to improve. Obviously two heads are better than one head when working on marital issues, but when that’s not possible, we’ve found that one head is better than none. Relationships are such that if one person makes significant changes then the relationship must change. That inevitable change is due to the fact that all relationships are systems, and if you change one part of the system, then other parts will be affected.

This principle is self-evident when you think about how easily one partner in the relationship can mess things up with just one selfish or uncaring act. If one partner can so easily mess up the relationship, isn’t it also possible that one partner can just as easily improve the relationship if they’re focused on the right things? Our coaches help you examine your relationship as a system. They also can offer you alone, or with your spouse, specific guidance on how to begin to improve your interactions in an effort to deliver the results you are looking for in your relationship.

One benefit of marriage coaching is the perceived definition. In a comparison of coaching versus therapy, there is a benefit to coaching because men typically feel that therapy is a much more “female” oriented process with lots of “touchy feely talking.” Our research shows that men tend to respond better to the concept of coaching and they show significantly more willingness to get help from a coach than from a therapist. So before you come in alone, talk to your partner and test their response.

What if we live in a rural area or too far from the coaching office to attend in person?

Not a problem! Many of our clients in fact are not able to make it into the office for their sessions. In fact, we have spent a considerable amount of time coaching clients on the phone all over the country. Obviously this affects our approach a little bit but overall we’ve found the results are similar. We are careful to assign different practices and activities to ensure that you’re actually retaining the skills from the coaching sessions.

What happens in a typical coaching session?

There really is no such thing as a “typical” coaching session because every session is customized to meet the needs of the client or couple. Traditionally one of the first things that we do with every client is create what we call a baseline of understanding using various assessments and profiles that help us obtain a quick understanding of the dynamics of the situation.

Once completed, the coach shares information and works with you to set goals and measurements for what is to be accomplished in the coaching sessions and how success will be measured. Because each program is customized, the coach creates exercises and plans discussions to have while working together during the sessions. Additional activities to be accomplished during the week are also given at the end of each session.

At the beginning of the next session our coaches follow up on the assignments given during the previous session. With that the coach can then determine what is working and what needs adjustment. Coaches are constantly looking for “positive” examples showing that the process is working and trying to create numerous examples of success. Simultaneously, by understanding where it’s working we can also see where things just aren’t coming together. Once we see gaps in the planned process we spend time trying to remove the obstacles of accomplishing the goals. This could take the first half of the session each week.

In the second half of each session we usually begin to work on new rules, skills and tools to handle the most pressing issues facing your relationships. Some of the most basic skills we teach are communication skills and conflict resolution skills. We also teach you tools to help you make decisions where you tend to disagree. Finally, we spend time practicing skills by utilizing your real-life issues and expectations. Then we create new action plans and assignments for you to report back on the next week. The process is then repeated throughout the next week with completely different tasks and skills to be learned.

What if our relationship is just too far gone, too damaged? Is coaching even worth it?

Excellent question and it’s obvious that this question comes from someone who may be close to giving up all hope on their relationship. Basically our response to the question is this: As long as you have hope in the relationship, coaching is beneficial, and it does produce positive results. We wish we could tell you where the line of “too far gone” or “too damaged” is but we’ve found that it all depends on the relationship, the history and the two people involved. We’ve worked with couples who are in the middle of their divorce that have managed to learn new skills and adjust their negative patterns, thereby saving their marriages. We have also worked with couples that even though they never really set out to save their marriage, they wanted to save their relationship in order to be better co-parents and friends.

One of the most important things to remember is that just because your marriage ends, it doesn’t mean that your need to relate ends. It will never get any easier to relate with each other than it is right now. So before you perform any last rites on your relationship, why don’t you give us a call and get our view on the problem. We’ll let you know what the chances are.

Is coaching more or less expensive than counseling or therapy? Is it covered by insurance?

Generally speaking our coaching is the same hourly price as most established therapists or counselors. The difference comes in what you get for your money. In coaching you get so much more than traditional therapy. Coaching sessions are usually longer than therapy and involve significantly more skill building exercises than therapy. Because coaches are really marriage educators, you receive considerably more tools, skills, materials, skill practice and goal setting activities than with a therapist.

As coaching is still a relatively new specialty, we are not yet covered by insurance providers, which means that potentially more of the money has to come out of pocket. This has turned out to be positive because we’ve found that most couples who pay for their coaching out of pocket are considerably more committed to the process and more willing to make it work, than those who have no financial commitment to coaching. Another reality of insurance is generally only individual therapy is covered and not marriage counseling. Insurance limits the number of sessions you can have without paying for it out of pocket to six 50-minute sessions. That’s less time than our coaches spend working to improve your marriage.

How long does coaching process usually last?

How long your coaching sessions last is completely dependent upon you as a couple. On average, our programs run from six to twelve weeks. One reason we are able to have success so quickly is because of our proven process. Our clients usually have hours in both the group workshop learning critical skills and in private coaching practicing those skills on their particular issues. This combination creates a momentum of change on the real issues. You can quickly see measurable change and are placed back on the path to a fulfilling relationship.