No, though they can both be incredibly helpful, and they do share some similarities.

The primary difference is that coaching does not have ethical oversight from a governing body (which has both benefits and drawbacks) in the ways that professional therapists, counsellors, and psychologists do.

Mental health professionals have typically done graduate and/or PhD level studying & research, and often specialize in certain areas. I am currently completing my Master of Counselling graduate degree, though I have completed years worth of mental health professional training totaling hundreds of hours.

If you are struggling with depression, anxiety, or major trauma, therapy/counseling is a great place to start. If you’re in distress with serious issues that need to be unpacked, I recommend starting there.

Coaching is ideal for people who are ready to do some self-reflection and to move forward from old patterns and stories. This isn’t to say coaching is not for people with depression, anxiety, or trauma (in fact, I have a relationship myself with both anxiety and trauma), but coaching is better suited for you if you are not in crisis.

Coaching is about getting honest about where you are, figuring out where you’d like to go, and then supporting you in moving you in the direction of your desired future. It can be challenging, transformative, insightful, and give you tools that help you navigate future obstacles and changes.

Some therapists incorporate coaching into their practice these days, too, because coaching is awesome and very effective for many people. That’s why so many CEOs and top business folks hire coaches when they’re ready to level up!

As a general rule, sessions are about exploring open, nonjudgmental questions that help you to examine your stories, beliefs, and patterns from a new perspective. We may do breath work, practice new skills, tune into the body, and more, but everything is done with your consent and you can pivot any time.

Often, you'll leave sessions with homework that helps you move towards your goal between sessions. Homework can include things like journaling, research, visualizations, activities, experiments, practice conversations, date nights, and more. And again, this is something we collaborate on based on your goals, lifestyle, energy levels, and unique needs.

Because relationship coaching (or couples coaching) is two or more people, more time is required in order to ensure meaningful work is possible. Fifty minutes just is not enough for most couples/relationships and the important things we'll be processing.

It means I completed a rigorous 9-month training and certification process on Be Nourished’s Body Trust framework. Be Nourished, founded by Dana Sturtevant and Hilary Kinavey, understands that you were born trusting your body, but that trust got disrupted along the way. Body Trust is about gently, tenderly, and imperfectly returning home to ourselves by breaking up with diet culture.

I integrate this into my work because learning to trust our bodies means learning to trust our hunger cues, our desires, our wants and needs, and this is the foundation of what it means to dive deep into our pleasure and boundaries. Read more about Body Trust.

My approach is all about creating a space that allows you to feel supported, witnessed, believed, and safe enough that we can work together to explore new possibilities, questions, and ideas. Pleasure is one of my guiding principles, and helping you to deepen your access to pleasure is an important part of doing healing work.

Most sessions are primarily about your feelings, desires, and connecting with yourself in a more meaningful way that helps move you towards your goal, but I will offer information, resources, and suggestions when we stumble on a learning opportunity.

We will laugh, grieve, rage, delight, and discover new ways forward, together.

Yes! Er... maybe. But not with me.

In our sessions, we may discuss sex, your body, shame, guilt, your upbringing, your culture, and what you want and how to ask for it. We create a space for you to voice things you may never have shared or explored before, so that you don’t have to carry things alone any longer.

I do not engage with my clients in a sexual way nor do I tolerate being sexualized in our work together. I am not a sex worker, though I know many people who are and who do incredible, healing work.

It’s not uncommon for the erotic to be folded into your homework, if that’s the focus of our work together. We decide together what feels most delicious and helpful for your life and your needs.

A special note to cis straight men: Please know that I enforce very strict boundaries around my sexuality work. If at any point you sexualize me or make an inappropriate request (if you wouldn't say it to your male physician, it may not be appropriate to say to me), we will address it immediately and/or terminate our work together.

I believe everyone could benefit from compassionate and nonjudgmental support. Especially from someone who understands that you don’t exist in a vacuum: you’ve survived hard things, the world can be unkind, and who believes you’ve done the very best you can in each and every moment.

We live in a world with very narrow and rigid definitions of “normal”, “healthy”, “relationships”, and “sex”.

Most people don’t have any idea how their body really works, what they authentically desire, what kind of a relationship they really want, or how to talk about their needs and desires in a healthy, open, respectful way.

Far too many of us feel ashamed of our bodies, our weight, and don’t feel deserving of asking for what we really want. We’re scared to take up space.

Counselling and coaching can be powerful ways to rewrite the rules so that they work for you, so you can thrive. Bringing more joy and aliveness into your life means more joy and aliveness for everyone around you.

Plus, I fundamentally believe we heal in relationship. The relationship you have with your coach can be a deeply healing and validating one.

I believe your body is wise and it is waiting for you to turn towards it with curiosity.

We were born trusting our bodies. We did not think about our bodies and what others thought of them, we simply inhabited them and enjoyed what they were capable of. Similarly with food, we were born reaching for food when we were hungry and pushing it away when we were satisfied. Because of diet culture, patriarchy, classism, family values, community values, trauma, and a whole host of other external factors, most of us experienced ruptures with our body and our relationship with food.

Part of my work is in supporting you to explore what body trust means on your terms. This may include grief work for the ways you denied or abandoned your body, pleasure work for exploring what is possible in your body as it is now, embodiment practices to support you in hearing your body and connecting with your internal resources and wisdom, and much more.

What I do not do is prescribe, dictate, or collude with dieting mind or body shame.

Our lives are full of relationships with others. Relationships are the source of our deepest wounds, and also the source of our deepest healing. As my friend and mentor, Dana Sturtevant says, "We heal in relationship."

Many people are reluctant to seek professional support for their relationship issues, and the average length of time that people struggle on their own is 7 years. The truth is VERY few of us had healthy, courageous communication modeled for us, so almost none of us know how to communicate well around our most tender and complex struggles.

My approach to relationship coaching is gentle, evidence-based, and rooted in the belief that with time and care, significant change is possible. When I work with couples and others in relationship coaching, my client is the relationship. I will not take sides, I will not teach simple skills (if it was just about skills, you'd have figured it out by now), and I will hold a strong, safe space for us to begin doing things differently so that you can have the conversations that need to be had with more ease and less pain. 

I help couples learn how to speak and listen differently so that they can have the conversations they need to have. A more nourishing relationship is possible.

I believe in taking an open, non-judgmental approach to sex. I do not believe sex or sexual behavior is something to pathologize or shame people over.

I don’t believe our desires, fantasies, needs, or bodies are inherently bad, even if they break from what society calls “normal”.

I believe in talking about sex, exploring what sex means to you, and creating space for all of the feelings and expectations that come with being a sexual or non-sexual adult in this day and age (because not everyone is sexual or wants to be!).

Far too many of us only know sex as a kind of performance because almost everything we see in pop culture, movies, and porn is just that - a performance meant to entertain. Which means very few of us know how to really experience the erotic on our terms in ways that are deeply fulfilling and validating. The work we do together can help you to begin to shed old stories of how things are “supposed” to be so that you can settle into what works for you, in your body, at this point in your life and beyond.

I do not believe porn is inherently bad, I support sex workers rights, and I believe you can (and deserve to) experience pleasure and connection after trauma, infidelity, shame, and a sex negative upbringing.

Let’s start with that second question first. You are not broken. Your body is not wrong. No matter what you weigh, what kind of scars you have, what your experience of gender is, the trauma you’ve experienced, how your genitals look, what you desire, you are not broken and your body is not wrong. Of this, I am certain.

As for whether this work can help you, that’s largely up to you. If we work together, we will create a space where you begin to explore new ways of being and where you shift your relationship with old stories and traumas. I cannot do the work for you, I cannot tell you the right way to do things, but I can accompany you and support you along the way.

Like anything in life, you may feel frustrated from time to time, experience setbacks, bump into failures and mistakes, or feel stuck during the process, but you won’t have to do it alone.

And, like many things, this work can completely transform the rest of your life or it can be a little blip on the radar - the determining factor is how ready you are to do the work and how open you are to trying on some new perspectives.

If you’re on the fence about working with me, you may want to start with my 5-week Power in Pleasure course. It’s a beautiful experience that’s deeply vulnerable and tender, and it costs about the same as one coaching session with me. That gives you a chance to get to know me a bit and to explore your own edges so you can find exactly what it is you’d like more support around.

Absolutely. The only thing I ask is that if you are working with a team around your recovery that you and I talk about what we’ll do if you need a higher level of care at any point during our work together. If you’re up for it, I may also ask to be connected with your therapist or dietitian so that we can collaborate on ultra caring ways to support you in your recovery.