Coaching
This page contains informative posts of different aspects of coaching and how it can relate to your thought patterns and actions.
What help is out there?
Have you ever wondered about differences between all the people offering services to help you with issues that are impacting your life, whether they are personal, emotional or behavioural issues? Sometimes it is hard to decide which one would be best. I hope this guide helps.
Psychiatrists are medical doctors that diagnose chemical imbalances in the brain and prescribe medication to correct these imbalances. These include anti-depressant drugs. They treat people with mental, behavioural and emotional disorders so they can function in normal society. Treatment is generally long-term.
Psychologists are not medical doctors so they cannot prescribe medication. However, they have formal education to diagnose disorders and help people with different treatments, such as cognitive behavioural therapy, to function better in normal society. Treatment is generally long-term. Sometimes a psychologist can be called a therapist as they practice psychotherapy.
Counsellors generally work on immediate issues teaching clients coping mechanisms for emotional stress, such as grief, anger, addiction and relationship conflicts. It is generally short-term and deals with how the behaviours affect daily life and getting clients back to normal life. Counsellors generally need some type of certification to practice in many countries although sometimes they are not.
Mentors are role models that people look up to and are able to shed wisdom from years of experience within specialised areas, such as specific careers. Mentors develop a relationship with a mentee. They generally know each other and are only occasional advisors.
Coaches are advisors that steer you into the future. They help by giving direction and strategies to improve your life from its current status to working towards specific goals and visions. There are many types of coaches, from sporting coaches to career to business, fitness, relationship and life coaches. There is no formal education, but some acquire certificates of competence. Some of the best coaches rely on their own life experiences to help others dealing with similar situations.
Hopefully this makes it clearer and to make an informed decision
Personality Traits
Around 460BC, Hippocrates described everyone as having a “persona” of which there were four distinct types and one being dominant. During the 1800’s with the rise of psychology as a field of study, personality theory gained momentum. By the 1900’s, personality tests and assessments became increasingly common.
Our personality is our patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviour that are both inherent and acquired from our environment and experiences. These traits can act at different levels of strength and influence within us, making each of us unique.
Therefore, our personality is fairly consistent from our genetics but we can shape them from our experiences. We can also learn to increase or reduce expressions of certain behaviours.
Understanding our personality is important as we can adapt and change it. If we identify behaviours that are not serving us so we can work on reducing their influence. Similarly, we can work on ourselves to encourage the behaviours that do serve us.
I will be presenting a series of personality traits that may be being expressed too strongly, give you ways of recognising the signs that they may be negatively impacting on your life, and steps to reduce the influence of this trait.
I will also be identifying traits that help us become a better version of ourselves both within and around others. I will offer you ways to recognise the signs if you are using these traits and also give you ideas on increasing the influence of these traits.
So watch this space……
In case you are interested in finding out about your traits……..Personality tests are used to gain an understanding of what drives us and how we react to situations. Individuals often take them when they are curious about how or why they react the way they do.
Increasingly, organisations use them in recruiting or with their employees to identify their unique characteristics they can work on to increase productivity and manage people and projects.
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There are many personality tests. This website gives a summary of the best ones.
