Youth Coaching
The life phase of emerging from puberty into young adulthood is both magical and terrifying. Who am I in this world? What should I listen to and what should I ignore? Where do I fit in? What do others think of me? What do I want? How do I get it? Who is really there for me? Some of these are of course questions we have throughout our lives but we start feeling the gravity of them for the first time as we enter adolescence and young adulthood. We are also still in a process of breaking loose from the authority of our parents, carers and educators. There is so much to deal with and it’s all new. Some of us may not have had such a good start. There might be issues at home or further back. Place a layer of social pressure and digital information overload across this and we have a potent cocktail for, among other things, intense choice stress and overwhelm. The young adults who come to me for help wrestle with frustration, anxiety, feelings of isolation, addictive behaviour and avoidance, depression and lack of motivation to name a few. I can explore these struggles with you and help you rediscover your resilience and drive so that you can take the steps you want to take.

 

Individual Coaching
Families, work, relationships; these are just a few of the contexts we operate in and we always bring with us our individual histories and our hard-wired tendencies to react in habitual ways to frustratingly imperfect situations. Individual coaching can help you get curious about how you do this. Once you have your curiosity back, you will notice that there are more options available to you than the familiar, often repetitive, paths you travel down in your work, your relationships and in yourself. My work in Individual Coaching is about exploring our reactions and re-gaining access to the creativity we need to deal with problems in new ways that are more satisfying than the old ways you already know who to do.

Relationship Coaching
My wife Lotte & I work together as a relationship therapy team. We have had the real-life experience of crisis in our own relationship and we both know at a felt level what it is like to be in a painful negative interaction pattern with your partner. We also share similar training and skill sets so speak the same language when it comes to working with couples. Intimate relationships form the core of our well-being and are at the heart of our family systems. When our sense of connection is threatened, our reactions can be intense and unbearable. Having compassion for those parts of ourselves that run to defend us, fight for us or remove us from this unbearable pain is crucial. Lotte and I strive create a context where this can re-emerge in ourselves, and in relation to important others in our lives.

Group Coaching
In my career as a musician I have been in several groups and have become extremely intrigued about the dynamic that makes musical energy either flow of choke. I have found that it has very little to do with the individual musical ability of the players or even their personalities! Ability and skill helps of course but if it’s not flowing it just isn’t happening. And I believe everyone senses that at some level. The musicians on stage or recording feel it and the public watching or listening will detect it every time. What is this? To me it’s a striking example of how the group dynamic that we all individually contribute to and are part of is more powerful and has more influence on each of us than we are aware of. The parallel between a music group and a group of people working together in any field or endeavour is plainly obvious to me. What kind of climate can we build together as a team or a group? How can we organise our individual energy and skills towards a common goal? Is that common goal clear and if it isn’t, what is our energy and drive actually in service of? Are our roles in this clear or do we spend half our time wondering what task belongs to me and what doesn’t? Group coaching is about conflict-resolution, moving from “I” to “WE” and working on a group climate where creativity, potential and innovation has a chance to emerge and be directed towards a clear, identified common goal.