Starting Over Talk - Peer Coaching Support Site

To find out more about the field of Life Coaching you can go to http://www.coachfederation.org. Though the ICF does a lot of to set standards for the coaching profession there are no legal requirements here in the US to be a "coach".


beatlefreak wrote:

QUOTE:
I don't know how many of you've gone through counseling, or grief therapy, but as someone who has, this show is not what happens in therapy. Not even! First you build a close relationship with your therapist... Oh, that's right, these two are not therapists! Remember that! Only Dr. Stan is licensed to practice.

What is a life coach? Are they licensed?

It never bothered me before that they were not real therapists, but now I question their qualifications.

I wasn't given assignments. And these assignments are not relevant to the real world in my opinion. And what's worse is the therapists do not tell the ladies what they want them to learn, giving them a head's up on what they are expected to do. Then when they do what they think they're suppose to do, they get in trouble. The ladies are trying to second guess what's required of them. The lifeboat example comes to mind...

Why don't they have them go out into the world and do something worthy, not shove cow dug?

OH well... It's just my opinion. And I agree Rhonda has been snarling and it's scary. Even my husband who happened to be watching it with me one day said, "That woman is making a scary face!"

I had two years of weekly counseling alongside 400 other women. The groups and sessions were not run by "life coaches". However, I had previously had a session with a phsychiatrist that did more harm than good to my heart. In the larger setting, we had a topic presented by the person leading group, then followed with one on ones and groups to discuss the topic and how it had affected us. We were always encouraged to journal and to approach the group leaders and yes, on occasion, we were assigned things to do to better our realizations of ourselves. Remember last season when Denise was left alone in the white room? I had to do something like that once. What I discovered was how slowly time passed when I was left alone with my thoughts and that in fact, I was terrified of facing the issues that faced me when I was left alone with those thoughts. Turned out that my biggest issue was I did not like myself! That was the assignment that truly put me on the path of changing the things I did not like. I believe in Starting Over because I believe that on some level all women should have the opportunity to start over at least once in their life and if possible, many many times.

You are definitely not alone and your perception is dead on!
I, too have continued watching mainly because I've become attached to the women who are living in the house. I have an interest in psychology and am going for a degree in it, so I also find it very interesting to look at all the ethics issues that come up in this show.

I definitely have some concerns regarding Life Coaches taking on people who have long-term therapy needs as these women do. The fact that they don't have to be licensed in this country is kind of frightening. In effect, Iyanla and Rhonda are able to get away with using the term Life Coach as a way to do psychotherapy without a license. Although Dr. Stan is a licensed clinician and they work under his supervision, I believe he does not supervise them nearly enough and gives them way too much free rein.

Even he has changed his approach this past year to be more like the two Life Coaches, and I feel that he has actually internalized their attitudes in subtle ways (especially in second-guessing everybody's motives). I think this is potentially very harmful, and I hope that they will get somebody on the team who will be more mindful of the needs of the houseguests instead of putting ratings first.

Trust is extremely important and these Life Coaches on the show are expecting people to bare their souls and drop all of their defenses just to be virtually attacked. Who can blame these women for wanting to guard themselves under conditions where they understandably don't feel safe.

They are routinely placed in double-binds, tricked, deceived by the staff, and set up in ways which ultimately make them feel humiliated and devalued. Often rather than building up their self-confidence Iyanla and Rhonda only succeed in tearing it down.

This atmosphere of always being in trouble is not conducive to change or authenticity either. The houseguests can do and say the right things in response to this aversive technique to avoid further humiliation and punishment, but in the long-term it does more harm and statistics show the change under such adverse conditions does not last. I wonder how many of these people will revert back to old patterns when they go home and are no longer in a completely controlled environment?

I really don't think all this is necessary to get ratings. They might think that abuse is what people want to watch, but there is more than one demographic out there watching T.V. People who watch Jerry Springer might like the kind of hard-nosed approach the Life Coaches have adopted lately, but there are also people like me and some of you who have weighed in on this thread who would like to see a kinder, gentler approach.

I also wonder what Iyanla is thinking when she participates in the sort of humiliation that goes on and how she rationalizes it to make it O.K. in her own mind. It seems as though the same could be applied to her as she applied to Christina (that she's become addicted to power).

I had hoped she would not sell out that way just to make money. I hope she reads our feedback because I would like to ask her if the money she's currently making is really worth compromising her ethics. I did not know anything about Rhonda before I started watching the show, but I remember Iyanla when she was on Oprah's show and she didn't used to be like this before. I have seen her this year become increasingly judgmental of the women, and increasingly hard-hearted and jaded. I know she believes in a higher power and she will have some explaining to do as to why she did unto others things that she would not like done to her. There are just certain ways you should never treat a human being no matter how frustrated you get with them or how much stress you're under, and somebody who holds themself out to be a helper should be capable of controlling their own issues so that they don't spill over and hurt others in their job.

Both Iyanla and Rhonda have way too much power over these women at the Starting Over house and it appears that anything goes no matter how mean, or how outlandish their directives get.

One has the sense sometimes that this is just some kind of narcissistic fantasy fullfillment to make them feel important; their own Kingdom to do with as they wish, and that the needs of the individuals are of no importance to them; only the staff's agendas and complete obedience to those goals/standards imposed upon them.

In therapy it is generally accepted nowadays that the client ultimately decides what to change, and their goals are set by them with only input from the therapist. The therapy relationship isn't supposed to be a dictatorship nor should its methods ever be involuntarily imposed upon the client.

I don't know what kind of contracts these people have to sign, but I would hope that they're not signing their rights away, required to do anything and everything asked of them with no advance notice and no limits. That is sure how it appears.

duplicate, edited by admin4

beatlefreak wrote:

QUOTE:
I don't know how many of you've gone through counseling, or grief therapy, but as someone who has, this show is not what happens in therapy.

I have been in therapy on and off for quite some time.
And since SO started, I have taken it quite seriously. My therapist (who I am very close to) finds the assignments on SO pretty effective and now we are integrating them into my therapy sessions.

For me, success is moving along quickly because the assignments have to be done each week I see her. I do a lot of them on my own.
Since I started this process: my fiancee and I have finally gotten engaged, I've lost 15 lbs, I refinanced my house and did some restoration work, I confronted my mother about my past and had a good response, I told my friends the truth of who I was and have been told that the work I'm doing is inspiring, I went back to school to finish my photography degree, I've wiped out my debt, I've made strong friendships from people I would normally have avoided, I am mentoring a girl in England and she was able to pull herself out of suicidal thoughts by doing the SO exersises....and the list grows each week. My life is fuller, richer and less irritating!
People don't bother me anymore like they used to - I'm not afraid of them now.


Basically, the message SO delivers is that we should learn to be free of judgement about others and ourselves. It is interesting to me that so many posters on here and other boards seem to make nothing but judgements on the life coaches and HG's. What are people paying attention to when they watch the show?

Nobody is perfect; not even the SO lifecoaches. I don't however believe that they are building a "kingdom" at all either. I believe they have both proven through lengthy careers that they are hoping to help people. Yes, they may indeed be judged one day as will we all. Will any of us be able to say that we made no mistakes? Of course not. Will we be able to say that in attempting to help someone, we lost the way or took a misstep? Probably. I know I have tried to help and not felt I did the right thing on occasion. The bottom line is that an honest attempt was made with the best of intentions. In judgement of that, I think I'll fare ok, and I'm sure Rhonda and Iyanla will as well.