| Life Coaching |
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It involves a professional partnership between a Coach and the client that supports the client's personal growth, through the use of requests and powerful questions from the coach and commitment and responsibility of the client. Through the process of coaching, clients focus on the skills and actions needed to successfully produce their personally relevant results. Life coaching may include physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual aspects of the client's life. CREDENTIALS Life Coaching is used by a growing number of both credentialed (e.g. clinical social workers or Psychologists ) and non-credentialed practitioners to aid clients with transitions in their Personal Life , and in the process of Self-actualization . Currently no official regulatory standards exist, and thus no degree or formal training is required to become a life coach although there are training programs available. Additionally, there is also a high degree of confusion around the terms 'certification' and 'credentialing' as used within the coaching industry and there exists a wide variety of certificate and credential designations, the status of which are still in flux.[http://www.peer.ca/credentials05.html The International Coach Federation, self-proclaimed as the largest worldwide not-for-profit professional association of coaches, in an attempt to self-regulate the coaching industry, has developed a system of credentialing coaches that includes specified number of hours of coach-specific training, number of hours of coaching experience, and proof of ability to coach at or above defined standards for each credentialing level. The credentialing levels defined by the International Coach Federation are Associate Certified Coach (ACC), Professional Certified Coach (PCC), and Master Certified Coach (MCC). [http://www.coachfederation.org/ICF/For+Current+Members/Credentialing/Become+Credentialed/ Coaches credentialed by the ICF and members of the ICF, regardless of whether they are credentialed, agree to abide by a code of ethics. [http://www.coachfederation.org/ICF/For+Current+Members/Ethical+Guidelines/] The ICF also provides accreditation of coach training programs that are deemed by that organization to meet defined professional standards and agree to continuing oversight. {Link without Title} With roots in Executive Coaching , which itself drew on techniques developed in Management Consulting and Leadership Training , life coaching also draws from a wide variety of disciplines, including Sociology , Psychology , Career Counseling , Mentor ing, and numerous other types of Counseling . The Coach applies mentoring, Values Assessment , Behavior Modification , Behavior Modeling , Goal-setting , and other techniques in assisting clients. Coaches are to be distinguished from counselors, whether counselors in Psychotherapy or other careers. SPECIALIZATION Coaches tend to specialize in one or more of several areas: career coaching, transition coaching, life or personal coaching, executive coaching, small business coaching, systemic coaching and organizational or corporate coaching. As the Internet has grown, life coaching has greatly expanded its online presence. Many life coaching organizations now offer online coaching as well as coaching over the Telephone . RELATIONSHIP COACHING Most life coaching is to help individuals reach individual goals. Coaching people to enjoy better relationships, with parents, partners and children, or with team members and managers, needs skills, experience and maturity that younger coaches may lack. Systemic Coaching increases the adaptability and survival potential of relationships. Systemic coaching helps people attain relationship goals ''and'' their individual goals. Individual coaching can be embedded within relationship coaching. CONTROVERSY There is some controversy surrounding life coaching, primarily because of its current unregulated, unstandardized nature. Critics assert that the practice of life coaching amounts to little more than a method of practicing Psychotherapy without any restrictions, oversight, or regulation. However, coaches, and legislatures such as Colorado's that have left them alone after hearings on the matter, {Link without Title} maintain that coaching is unlike therapy in that it does not focus on examining nor diagnosing the past, instead focusing on effecting change in a client's current and future behavior. LIFE COACHING IN POPULAR CULTURE The FX original series Nip/Tuck is credited with introducing the concept of a life coach into popular culture. In its second season, the character Ava Moore was introduced as a life coach, played by Famke Janssen . Her extreme psychological manipulation and villainess persona helped cast appeal and a sentiment of power over the life coaching profession. REFERENCES
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