The 10 Relationship Life Coach qualifications that will make it worth your money.
There are hundreds of relationship life coaches on the Internet, each with a variety of specialties. But like in any profession, there are qualifications in a relationship life coach that are essential for the coach to do the job right. A good relationship life coach will have solid training in and a deep knowledge of the following:
1. Relationship dynamics
Every relationship has its own dynamics, depending on the personality characteristics and psychological issues that each person brings to the table. To help you manage interpersonal dynamics, your relationship life coach needs to be able to detect, understand and explain how your personality characteristics and psychological issues interact with your partner’s and be able to recognize what dynamics may be preventing the two of you from negotiating and reaching a compromise.
2. How to change patterns of behavior
Patterns of behavior develop over the course of one’s’ life beginning in childhood. In order to help you change the way you react to and handle difficult situations, your relationship life coach needs to have a deep knowledge of human behavior and be trained in helping people adapt to life circumstances.
3. How to detect and bring to the surface thoughts and feelings that may make you more likely to resist change, be defensive in your interactions, be prone to engage in conflict and less likely to want to negotiate.
Feelings are a double-edged sword. Although they are a driving force in life, when they run amok, they create big trouble in relationships. Thoughts are often distorted and can drive you to make assumptions and distort reality. Your relationship life coach needs to be able to help you evaluate your assumptions, detect distortions in your thinking and understand conflicting feelings so that you can understand why you are reacting the way you are and correct your behavior.
4. How thoughts, feelings and behaviors interact, and how to manage them.
According to cognitive-behavioral theory and research, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are closely intertwined and affect each other. A good relationship life coach will have emotion management training to help you understand the relationship between them so that you can interact with your partner in a more realistic, calm and healthy way.
5. How to de-escalate confrontations, as well as detect and manage domestic violence.
Confrontations are bound to happen in relationships, whether these involve raising voices, breaking things or hurting each other (i.e, by pushing, insulting, demeaning or hitting). A good relationship life coach needs to know how to detect and help you manage these confrontations, and eliminate abuse.
6. How to evaluate and choose a partner that fits with you
Evaluating others takes knowledge and training. Your relationship life coach needs to teach you how to evaluate potential suitors and choose partners who are compatible with you so that you are not fighting an uphill and losing battle for years to come.
7. How to detect unhealthy traits and behaviors in a partner
Detecting unhealthy traits and behaviors in others is a skill that can be learned. Your relationship life coach needs to be able to teach you a solid system of evaluating partners to help you avoid individuals who are unhealthy and who potentially present emotional and/or physical danger to you and your family.
8. How to help couples negotiate and resolve conflict
Interpersonal conflict can be triggered by personal differences (i.e., values, ethics, personalities, temperament, age, education, gender, social and economic status, cultural background, temperament, health, religion, political beliefs), a clash of ideas, choices, actions or poor communication.
In order to help you resolve conflict effectively, your relationship life coach needs to help you understand your conflict resolution style and the conflict itself, manage your stress, interpret verbal and non-verbal communication, manage your emotions and behaviors, understand and respect differences between you and your partner, and develop an attitude of co-operation and willingness to resolve issues.
9. How to manage multicultural issues in relationships
A good relationship life coach has multicultural training and experience and will be able to help you better understand how differences in worldviews between you and your partner affect your perceptions of each other. He or she should be able to help you manage differences in spiritual, religious, philosophical or familial values, as well as any stereotypes and generalizations that may impact the relationship.
10. How to apply sound theoretical frameworks to different relationship situations
A coach without a theoretical perspective is like a boat without a rudder. Expect that your coach’s work will be grounded in a sound theoretical framework, and be sure that you understand how that theory will guide your coaching sessions.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author Georgiana Spradling, Ph.D., MFT, CDVC, is a multicultural and multilingual (English, Spanish, French) Emotional Intelligence and Relationship Coach with over 20 years of experience helping people choose the right partners and avoid the wrong ones, manage emotions and behaviors in self and others, leave unhealthy partnerships and move past old relationships. She is a Certified Domestic Violence Counselor and has a Certificate as an Anger Management Facilitator.
Her e-book: Don’t Get Stuck With the Wrong Partner: Learn to detect unhealthy traits and behaviors in others is available on Amazon Kindle. In it you will find more dating tips:
- 60 questions that will help you determine who your current or potential partner may be.
- 10 dimensions that may reveal inconsistent, unhealthy or harmful patterns of behavior in another person.
- Suggestions on how to interpret inconsistencies in behavior in the person that you are considering committing to.
- Advice on what to do when you find traits and behaviors that make you uncomfortable or that suggest deeply rooted physical or psychological issues that are hard to manage and live with.
You can subscribe to her YouTube Channel and to her online news bulletin “Relationships On Fire” on her website at www.drgeorgiana.com.
Dr. Georgiana coaches on the telephone, online or in her office in San Francisco (USA) and offers a FREE 25-minute Consultation. She can be reached through her website www.drgeorgiana.com, by e-mail: gs@drgeorgiana.com or phone: 1-650-731-5105.