Lesson Structure:  Life Coaching BPS305

There are 10 lessons:

1. Introduction
   • nature of life coaching
   • cognitive behaviour therapy
   • different approaches
   • the scope of life coaching.
2. Individual Perception
   • psychology of self-perception
   • perceptual barriers
   • motivating clients to challenge their perceptions.
3. A Well Balanced Life
   • the inter-relationship between psychology and physiology
   • stress
   • the psychology of balance.
4. Coaching Processes
   • key coaching processes
   • assessment of the client’s situation
   • dealing with emotions
   • setting goals
   • replacing negative habits with positive ones
   • leadership qualities in a life coach
   • imagination and enthusiasm
   • clarifying goals
   • recognition of limitations.
5. Coaching Skills
   • understanding the communication process
   • body language
   • communication barriers
   • listening skills
   • assessing learning styles.
6. Coaching and physical well-being
   • human nutrition
   • important factors in nutrition
   • physical well-being.
7. Coaching and psychological well-being
   • the psychology of self-esteem
   • stress management programme
   • identifying stressors.
8. Coaching Success
   • high achievement
   • coaching success
   • career guidance
   • managing your money
   • beginning a business.
9. Goal Setting
   • values
   • aims and goals
   • types of goals
   • planning
   • future goals
   • steps for sucessful goal achievement
   • effort and attribution.
10. Review and Adjustment
    • indications that a programme needs to be reassessed
    • client’s lack of confidence
    • personality clash
    • over-achievers
    • health and safety issues.

Learning Goals: Life Coaching BPS305

• Define life coaching and differentiate it from other professions such as psychotherapist, counsellor, personal trainer and so on.
• Understand that people perceive the world in different ways, and identify ways to help clients change counter-productive perceptions without excessive discomfdiscomfort.
• Define a well-rounded individual and well-rounded life.
• Define different coaching skills including listening, analysing, planning and focusing.
• Identify ways in which life coaching can contribute to physical well-being.
• Identify ways in which life coaching can contribute to psychological well-being.
• Identify the areas in which successful life coaching can benefit a client.
• Understand the importance enabling clients to develop aims, plans and goals.
• Recognise the importance of reviewing and adjusting the life-coaching processes.

Practicals

• Interview a life-coach (or someone who offers life-coaching service as part of their professional counselling repertoire) for information on the nature of life-coaching.
• Identify principles that differentiate life coaching from other helping professions.
• Consider pros and cons of different approaches to life coaching.
• Do case studies to reflect on and/or observe the effects of different life-coaching
• approaches on improving a person’s quality of life.
• Design and administer a questionnaire to research some effects of negative aspects of self-perception.
• Discuss the importance of balancing a client’s limitations and encouraging to step outside their comfort zones
• Identify means of monitoring an individual’s self-perceptions.
• Examine the relationship and interaction between a person’s mental/psychological and physical health and wellbeing.
• Consider how to deal with clients with special needs such as disabilities.
• Identify the processes involved in life coaching and describe what each can contribute to a client’s personal growth and development.
• Discuss ways individuals might resist life changes and ways to facilitate change.
• Discuss the pros and cons of assertiveness training.
• Identify reasons that individuals are unable to make decisions.
• Identify different life coaching skills and when they are required.
• Explain the importance of listening to the client and how to do it.
• Consider factors that might make a life coach’s personal skill repertoire ineffectual.
• Discuss the role and risks of physical life coaching in the life-coaching process.
• Research factors that must be considered when setting out a life coaching plan to promote physical health, and psychological health.
• Identify crucial information to be included in the development of a client’s plan.
• Discuss ways to nurture a client’s goal setting, planning and self-monitoring skills .
• Research how much life-coaches use/do not use individualised client plans.
• How can the life-coach monitor the effectiveness of his/her program for a client?
• Create and evaluate an action plan for a real person/client, including monitoring.

Your learning experience with ADL will not only depend on the quality of the course, but also the quality of the person teaching it. This course is taught by Iona Lister and your course fee includes unlimited tutorial support throughout. Here are Iona’s credentials:

Iona Lister
Licentiate, Speech and Language Therapy, UK, Diploma in Advanced Counselling Skills.

Iona has been a clinician and manager of health services for fifteen years, and a trainer for UK-based medical charities, focusing on psychosocial issues, mental health disorders, and also the promotion of communication skills for people in helping roles. She tutors and facilitates groups via workshops and teleconferences, and now specialises in Sight Loss. As a freelance writer, she contributes regular feature articles for magazines, has written five published books, as well as published courses relating to personal development and counselling skills.

Iona has also written published books, courses and articles across a wide range of subjects, mostly in the areas of health, counselling, psychology, crafts and wildlife.

She has drawn experience from clinical and managerial experience within the NHS as well as medical and humanitarian subjects. She has been a regular feature writer and expert panel member of a national magazine for six years.

Books include: A Guide to Living with Alzheimer’s Disease (and associated dementias), The Psychology of Facial Disfigurement; a Guide for Health and Social Care Professionals, When a Medical Skin Condition Affects the Way you Look; A Guide to Managing Your Future, Facing Disfigurement with Confidence, Cross Stitch: A Guide to Creativity and Success for Beginners.
Courses written include: Mental Health and Social Work, Counselling Skills, Understanding and Responding to Substance Misuse, Journalling for Personal Development, Guided Imagery, Stress Management.

Current work includes: Tutor: Courses associated with Creative Writing, Counselling Skills, Psychology, Holistic Therapy, Certified Hypnotherapist and Hypnotension Practitioner.

Facilitator of Teleconference Groups: Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB)

Trainer (Skills for Seeing): Macular Society

Reviewer of Books/Information: Macmillan Cancer Support

Fundraiser: Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Embroidery/Art Groups Facilitator, Board Member

Website Manager: The Strathcarron Project, Coordinator (Delaware & Tennessee) Human Writes

Excerpt from the Course

Personality and Heart Disease

Friedman and Rosenman (1959) identified Type A and Type B personalities. A number of studies have found a significant correlation between Type A behaviour patterns and coronary heart disease. Type A is characterised by feeling under excessive time-pressure, aggressively competitive, overly-ambitious, and easily aroused to hostility by situations perceived as being trivial to Type B personalities. Type A’s also veer towards individualism and accomplishment which tends to promote isolation rather than interpersonal connection. They have a hyperactive sympathetic nervous system and an under-active parasympathetic nervous system. There is high secretion of corticosteroids and high blood cholesterol which results in a tendency towards heart attacks. Obviously not everyone is Type A or Type B but most people tend to exhibit aspects of each.

Not all Type A behaviour may be significant in the onset of heart disease. It would seem that hostility is the most important factor.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Ulcers

Irritable bowel syndrome is a disturbance of contractions of the gut organised by the enteric nervous system (ENS). The ENS is a subdivision of the peripheral nervous system, responsible for controlling the gastrointestinal system. Stress, whose effects are mediated via the central nervous system and the autonomic nervous system is a causal factor implicated in this.

Peptic ulcers would seem to be caused by an interaction of psychological factors and bacterial infection.

Ways to Stay Healthy

By recognising stress we can avoid situations that bring it about and maximise situations that bring about the opposite response. We can unlearn behaviour that brings about a hostile response.

Also, for some disorders social isolation poses a greater risk than for those who are happily socially integrated. Defence against stress is also provided by a happy social environment. Where people have a sense of belonging, they tend to form part of a social network that is harmonious and gives them meaning in life and enables them to predict, control and cope. Goals become acceptable and attainable within a social network and the person values friendship above the acquisition of material resources (Friedman 1996).

Culture can also have a large impact. Japanese culture emphasises social interaction, inter-dependence, stability, cohesion and group values far more than Western culture. Marmot and Syme (1976) carried out a study and found that Japanese people living a traditional lifestyle, but living in California, had a five times lower rate of coronary heart disease than Californians.

Meditation has been linked to a reduction in sympathetic nervous system domination and hyper-arousal (Bracke and Thoresen, 1996). The parasympathetic contribution is simultaneously strengthened.

Owning a pet also seems to have a positive correlation with mental health. Pet owners tend to have lower blood pressure and lower levels of fatty substances in the blood compared to non pet owners (Anderson et. al., 1992). There is no difference between types of pet so walking the dog cannot explain this phenomenon.

There is some (though rather weak) evidence that thinking positively can also help cancer patients. Sustained aerobic exercise can actually help preventing heart disease and also alleviate depression and anxiety.

There are lot of alternative ways to alleviate stress. A massage once in a while is known to eliminate stress and make a person more relaxed.

Reiki is a form of healing which focuses on the sense of touch for healing purposes both physical and psychological.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Here is a list of the most often asked FAQ’s.

General

Q. Why should I enrol with the Academy for Distance Learning?
A. Here at ADL, our students are our priority – we treat everyone as a unique individual.

Q. Do I need to buy text books?
A. No, as each module has been written by highly qualified industry professionals. The content of the material is presented in such a way that text books are not required. However, if you require additional reading your tutor will be able to supply a list.

Q. What happens if I have to stop studying for a while? (eg. become sick, go on holidays, have a baby, move house, etc)
A. It’s OK to take a break and start up your study at a later point in time. Just let us know.

Q. Is there an age limit?
A. There is no maximum age limit. We do however, have a minimum age limit of 18 years. Below that age parental consent would be required.

Q. Are your courses up-to date?
A. Our courses are revised and updated on a rotation system.

Q. Do you have a Cancellation policy?
A. Yes. We have a cancellation policy that is fair and equitable. For further details please click here.

Q. Will I have any opportunity to engage with other students?
A. We have a Student Community group based on facebook! If you don’t have a facebook account already, you could make one just for talking with fellow students on the group.

Enrolment

Q. When can I enrol/start?
A. You may enrol and start at any time of the year – it’s all self- paced.

Q. Can I study from anywhere in the world?
A. Our courses are available to anyone, anywhere in the world from the comfort of your own home. The course content is relevant to any country, culture or economy.

Q. How long do I have to complete the course?
A. You complete the course at any time that is convenient for you.

Q. Completing a 100 hour module – how long will it take?
A. For some students a 100 hour module will take approximately to 3- 6 months to complete. Others take less time and some even longer.

Assessment

Q. Assessment – how does it work?
A. For each 100 hour module you are assessed by assignments (at the end of each lesson) and a final one and a half hour exam (or you may elect to complete a Project, instead of sitting the exam) – the choice is yours – you sit for the exam in your own location.

Q. I don’t cope well with exams – what can I do?
A. You may elect to undertake a Project (set by your tutor) instead of sitting the exam. Projects are completed from your home and can usually take a couple of weeks to complete.

Q. If my assignment is not up to standard is there an opportunity to resubmit my work?
A. Yes –

Q. How many assignments do I need to complete for each module?
A. At the end of each lesson, there is an assignment – so if a course has say, 10 lessons, there would be 10 assignments.

Q. I am having difficulty attending workshops/industry meetings, what can be done?
A. If your course requires attendance at workshops, conferences, or industry meetings; alternative arrangements can be made in your country.

Qualifications

Q. Can I customize my diploma/higher qualification?

A. Not all educational institution’s certificates /diplomas meet everyone’s needs. The opportunity to Design Your Own Diploma at the Academy (subject to our approval) is an added bonus, not found at other colleges. You choose modules that you think will help you in achieving your goal.

Q. What do I get when I complete the course? Will I receive a transcript?
A. At the completion of all courses and providing all assignments and exam requirements have been met, you will receive your Award and a Transcript.

Tutors

Q. Our tutors – who are they?
A. We appoint Tutors and require that they must be currently active in their industry, with at least 5 years’ experience in their chosen profession.

Q. Can I contact my tutor at any time?
A. Yes – you have unlimited access to your tutor via email through our Online Classroom. You can always leave a message with ADL requesting your tutor to contact you. You decide on how much or how little contact you wish to have.

Q. Practical work – How is this done?
A. To find out more about this part of the course please visit the section on How Our Courses Work here.