What is Communication Coaching?
Are you struggling to speak with your partner and share your feelings? Are you trying to connect more with your Autistic child or teen and not sure how? Are you nervous about doctor appointments and want to work on advocating for yourself? Are you trying to get better at speaking English? Are you anxious and hesitant about an upcoming conversation with your boss and just want a little help before? Are you a nonspeaking Neurodivergent person who wants help over messages to work on your communication skills? Are you an Autistic adult who wants to get better at advocating for yourself and knowing your support needs from an adult who gets it?
Communication Coaching can also mean getting support with interpersonal or relationship communication challenges. It is not a form of couples or family therapy, but an individual form of coaching support aimed at improving your communication skills and practices with relationship(s) that may or may not be supportive for a relationship(s) and other individuals in your life.
Communication Coaching can support you with any of the above- depending on the coach and their expertise. Finding the right fit is important, so it might be helpful to consider what kind of coach you would be the most supported by. Before connecting with a coach, having those ideas and some questions prepared will help you narrow down your search and be ready to start interviewing potential coaches.
Coaching with Anna
My name is Anna, and I am passionate about supporting folks with their communication skills and practice. My therapy and couples therapy work over the past few years in private practice along with my training has equipped me well to coach individuals working on their self-advocacy, communication skills, interpersonal and relationship communication, and empowerment to effectively express themselves in a range of contexts. A large portion of my therapy work involves communication coaching elements, techniques, and support.
More about me: I am a native English speaker based on unceded Lenapehoking lands/ also known as New York in the so-called U.S. with several years experience providing individual and couples therapy services to over dozens of adults. I have a mental health counseling (MHC) permit in the state of New York and a Master’s degree in MHC and Bachelor’s in Women's and Gender Studies and Psychology. I have been working with and providing Neurodivergent-affirming support to primarily Autistic and/or ADHD-ers, many of whom identify as chronically ill/Disabled. I also am affirming/knowledgable about working with LGBTQ+ folks.
How I Approach Communication Coaching
My communication coaching services look like us meeting one on one over a confidential virtual video call platform weekly or biweekly.
I offer complete confidentiality for my clients and will not disclose anywhere or to anyone that we are working together or that I know you through coaching. We may have a set number of sessions that can change based on both of our needs. Coaching Services are not covered by insurance unfortunately, so you can either pay per session or through one of my Coaching Packages.
I have a sliding scale for fees per session ranging from $140-250 depending on financial need.
I am able to meet with anyone based anywhere in the world if our schedules align given time differences (I am based in EST) and you can communicate with me in English over typed messages or via speaking. All sessions will have efficient captioning available and be through a secure, confidential video platform.
Interpersonal/Relationship Communication Coaching
If you want to work on communicating more effectively with a person in your life or within a relationship or relationships in general, that is also something that I can support you with. This may look like us working on your interpersonal communication skills, practices, challenges, and potentially cycles of conflict or obstacles that come up within relationship(s) or a specific relationship for you (which may draw on couples therapy/individual therapy skills and techniques).
The Coaching Process: What to Expect
Step 1: Coaching Consult- Getting Started
Step 1 is where you and the coaches you are interested in working with decide on if you are a good fit to work together.
In my case, I offer potential coaching clients a complementary 15 min call or messaging session. We talk about what you’re struggling with, what you’re goals are, and what is needed to get started. If we decide we want to work together, we agree on a time and day to start the sessions that works for us. Then, you decide if you want to pay per session or select a coaching package, and we figure out pricing. Then, we begin the process of onboarding, and you sign some paperwork.
Pricing
Before or during the consultation call, we identify the cost of the session package based on your financial situation or the cost of the fee per session, and agree on the method of payment. You can pay for the package upfront to secure our first session on the schedule or we decide on a payment plan that works for you with biweekly payments adding up to the total cost of the package you select.
I offer sessions and consultation calls over video or phone call in either non-speaking written/typed communication or speaking over the phone.
Step 2: Paperwork
You review, sign the paperwork, and share more with me about yourself before we begin our first session.
Step 3: Initial Sessions Intake
We meet over video, you can share more about yourself, your background, your goals for communication coaching and why they are important to you. I join your team and figure out what kind of coach is going to be the most supportive to you. We will do a goal setting exercise and outline your goals/intentions and if there is time, begin to explore how to prioritize them.
In the remaining initial few sessions,
We will go over potential setbacks and obstacles that we may have to anticipate and work through in this process.
We will come up with an action plan and use your strengths and motivations to come up with what direction to go in to support you. I will suggest resources, guides, tools relevant to your goals, and share them with you along the way and the outline of what we did.
We flesh out the action plan, what’s supporting you, and identify your communication goals and how they appear in practice. We decide where to start based on your priorities. And, we discuss if journaling and homework exercises would be useful for you based on your preferences, time, and goals.
Sessions 3-5(Short and Sweet Package) or Sessions 3-10 (Talk It Out Package):
These sessions vary depend on your goals and what kind of communication you want to work on.
Here are some examples of what it can look like:
exploring obstacles and hiccups you have been facing relating to your struggles
identifying potential coping strategies for you to try
diving into what your background dealing with communication issues or similar struggles can teach us.
Identifying your strengths and passions and how we can use them in this process
figuring out which exercises, tools, and role play practices can be helpful for you to start demonstrating skills and key elements of your goals.
learning useful fundamentals and ideas to help you improve at communicating according to your goals
going over relevant coping strategies and hacks that have been effective for individuals with brain types/struggles like yours
guided practices on advocating for yourself and playing out different ways it can go/different scenarios and how to cope.
practicing roleplays in English and working through moments that are harder than others.
As we go, we meta-process! We identify your progress and compare it to your Action Plan from the onboarding session. Check in on how it’s going and feeling.
We figure out what's been helpful and what hasn't for you so far and lean into what works and leave what doesn't.
Final Sessions
We continue identifying goal progress and hiccups. We identify what is needed to complete your goals and decide how to get there together. You and I will process what you can takeaway and learn from the experience and next steps if you want to continue coaching or graduate or receive alternative support.
Last Session
You and I process the experience as a whole and what was helpful and what wasn't. We identify what you can continue using and takeaway from the experience. We go through your action plan and determine if you achieved your goal(s) or didn't and process why. The coach and you identify ways to maintain or continue your progress if you did achieve your goals. If your goals need to be adapted, we identify how.
I’ll provide resources and future directions if relevant to your resulting goals and intentions. We say goodbye or we continue our coaching relationship and work, which may involve moving to the 3 month package or ongoing sessions with new goals or continued work on the original goals.
Ready to work on growing your communication skills?
