Life coaching picks up where traditional psychotherapy leaves off. And it’s for everyone, not just those who may need more in-depth psychotherapeutic support. A Life Coach can serve many purposes. Perhaps you wish to achieve a short-term objective, such as learning to better manage your time so you can open your own business. Or maybe you want to connect with your co-workers or your boss in a healthier manner. Or maybe you want to learn to cope with life in a less stressful way. Whether long- or short-term, your own selected goals and objectives can be achieved more quickly and easily with an independent observer—your coach— “rooting” for you, from the sidelines, as you move toward success. Coaching is most often accomplished by phone or email. No travel, no parking…life coaching can become a part of your schedule with a minimum of inconvenience.

Life coaching starts as an alliance between the Coach, and you, the Client.

Rather than concentrating on “mental illness” or some disorder, life coaching:

• starts where you are now;
• focuses on what’s right and what’s wrong about what you’re doing;
• explores what is working and what’s not working; and
• determines what needs to change, sets a long-term course of action, and then develops short-term goals and paths to help you achieve your objectives in the healthiest way possible.

The most effective and successful life coaches have a professional background in counseling. Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D. brings to the table over 20 years of psychotherapeutic experience. Psychotherapy with Dr. Hurd has always been a solution-focused approach; an approach very similar to life coaching. In psychotherapy, however, time is also spent discussing your childhood/background, emotional problems and more serious issues (eating disorder, feelings of not wishing to live). In his capacity as a mental health professional, Dr. Hurd can refer special cases to a medical psychiatrist for medication, or, in life-and-death matters, to a hospital. It is important to understand that coaching and solution-focused psychotherapy are not appropriate during life-and-death psychiatric emergencies. However, once an individual stabilizes, these techniques can help prevent future emergencies, and also expand personal growth. Even in the informal setting of coaching, Dr. Hurd’s seasoned techniques and skills can work tremendously to your advantage, no matter how simple or complex your aims.

Whether you work with Dr. Hurd in the context of in-person psychotherapy, or by phone/email coaching, the primary focus will always be on solutions, personal responsibility, your strengths, and moving forward in life. The process is deemed successful when you rationally attain your goals and enjoy it in the process. The best psychotherapy is, and, in part, should always be, a coaching process.

The Basic Premises of Coaching

• You have strengths;
• Identify your strengths with the help of your coach;
• Harness your strengths to attain your selected goals.

Coaching takes place over time. It can last several weeks, a few months, or it can be an ongoing process, depending on your goals and how much help you feel you need. With coaching, you are always in the driver’s seat. Dr. Hurd, the coach, is in the passenger seat – not telling you where to go, but making objective suggestions about the best way to get where you want to go, and how to sustain your newly found momentum.

Coaching is convenient and practical. Though sessions can be in person, most often they are on your own time, by telephone or e-mail. No traffic, no parking, no need for directions. Face-to-face communication is not necessary to help you change your life. In fact, clients who work with coaches by phone or email often face fewer inhibitions and distractions, which make coach-client discussions more concise, honest and direct. The convenience of phone and email communication in today’s busy, high-stress age cannot be overstated.

The power of life coaching with Dr. Hurd lies in the fact that, by scheduling sessions, you “answer” to your own goals. On the surface, of course, you answer to the coach, but in reality you are answering to yourself. You know that you have committed to a scheduled session, and that Dr. Hurd supports your goals; asking you relevant questions to keep you moving ahead. In the process, a sense of hope is created. This is the core of what traditional psychotherapy has, for so long, sought to attain; but usually failed to achieve, because of unnecessary emphasis on the past, on psychopathology and weakness.

What Is the Difference Between Psychotherapy and Life Coaching?
Solutions—NOT Excuses!

Life coaching picks up where traditional psychotherapy leaves off. And it’s for everyone, not just those who may be “mentally ill” or “neurotic.”

Often, people know what they want to do and even how to do it, but they lack an objective party who believes in them and encourages them. A coach serves this important function. Most people who seek psychotherapy are actually looking for a Life Coach. They want direction and answers, not excuses and explanations. They want to change, not merely to understand. Most want to change quickly, with a minimum of dialogue about their childhood, their parents, or other things in their past over which they have no control.

The central point of coaching is not merely to cure “what’s wrong with you.” Coaching does NOT impose mental health disease labels (such as the highly suspect “ADD”), or make excuses--even valid ones--for what’s wrong with your life. The central purpose of coaching is to identify what’s RIGHT about yourself; then to build on that knowledge, and ultimately target and achieve your desired objective. Dr. Hurd will “cheer you on;” offering objective input as necessary.

The success of coaching is not measured by how long it takes. The success of coaching is measured by how well you identify and achieve your goals; goals that connect to a sense of longer-range purpose in your life. It’s a work in progress. While early sessions will focus on your strengths, subsequent meetings will help you recognize and develop them.

Meet Your Coach: Dr. Michael Hurd

Dr. Hurd brings over 20 years of experience and training to the practice of solution-focused and cognitive psychotherapy. Among other books and publications, he is the author of “Effective Therapy” (Dunhill, New York, 1997), one of the pioneering works that led to the popularity of solution-focused therapy and, ultimately, personal coaching.

Long before the concept of Life Coaching became “trendy,” Dr. Hurd was already practicing the techniques and philosophies implicit in the coaching process. Now, his approach is part of the mainstream. Dr. Hurd has no need to make a major theoretical shift from the psychoanalytic (the old-fashioned “Freudian”) school of therapy, as is the case with many therapists-turned-coaches. His years of experience as a solution-focused, cognitive psychotherapist make him eminently qualified to listen to you and help you achieve what you want to achieve – employing skills that others (many of whom are enmeshed in outdated techniques designed to help the “mentally ill”) might not possess.

The potential areas of your life where a coach can be helpful are almost limitless. Dr. Hurd’s particular areas of specialty include:

• career dissatisfaction/career change/managing your time;
• Keeping on track, keeping your goals centered on the “radar screen” of your life;
• Breaking free of, and moving past, procrastination;
• Learning to follow up your good ideas with action, and not get stuck in the perpetual dreamland of “I’m gonna do this one day, and I’m gonna do that one day;”
• Coping with difficult people in the workplace and in your personal life;
• Attempting to deal rationally with questionable psychiatric labels, including Attention Deficit Disorder and many others, placed upon you or a loved one by some mental health professional;
• Excessive Behavior – whether it’s shopping, drugs, alcohol, time on the computer, or anything else self-defeating in nature;
• How to talk to people in ways that will cause them to listen;
• Life Changes – whether due to death, divorce, unexpected or planned changes that don’t go exactly as you wanted;
• Sex and sexuality;
• Money management, budgeting, priority-setting;
• Romantic satisfaction; and
• How to think better and to integrate thought with action.

Feel free to write Dr. Hurd at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it about his areas of expertise and whether life coaching might be helpful for you.

Coaching---In a Nutshell

• It creates a sense of urgency for achieving goals and developing talents that have gone by the wayside.
• It maintains a sense of momentum by giving you someone to whom you must “answer.”
• It provides support, and a sense that someone believes in you, from a totally objective perspective, as opposed to the biased, threatened or overly optimistic perspectives of loved ones or friends.
• Coaching can be valuable to anybody at any time.

Coaching is not about mental illness, excuses or diagnostic labels (although it can be helpful to people with emotional problems). Coaching is about life – your life, and improving your life. We all have our weaknesses. The point of coaching is to help you capitalize on your strengths and create new successes for your own sake.

A Satisfied Client reports: " ... was delighted with your comments. You have the ability to get at the 'meat' of the matter and read between the lines to give helpful suggestions."

Click Here For Ordering Information