What is a Relationship Coach?

A Relationship Coach helps individuals or couples build stronger relationships by providing guidance, tools, and strategies to improve communication, resolve conflicts, and reach their goals. They focus on present and future growth, working with clients to create practical plans that encourage deeper connections and address challenges. While therapists often deal with past traumas and psychological issues, relationship coaches concentrate on practical solutions that look ahead.

My Qualifications

After more than 47 years of counseling couples, both married and not, as well as family relationships, friends, and business partners, to help resolve issues that have polluted their relational space over time, I am very well qualified to use my therapeutic skills, resources, and tools to adapt them into a coaching modality. Knowledge is an invaluable asset that can last a lifetime. We can lose a job, money, friends, loved ones, and assets, but knowledge can never be lost or taken away from us as long as our mind remains healthy. We may become forgetful, perhaps not as quick to recall names, places, words, and where we left our phones, glasses, or keys. However, if we are lucky enough to stay mentally alert and healthy, knowledge is never truly lost.

Arturo Rubinstein gave his last concert in London at the age of 89.
Kim Hyung Seuk was 103 years and 251 days when the final draft of his book Kim Hyung-seuk, 100 Years of Wisdom was accepted for publication, in Seoul, South Korea, in March 2024. He is a South Korean writer, philosopher, and professor. (Infusion Media)
Bertha Wood published her first book, Fresh Air and Fun: The Story of a Blackpool Holiday Camp on her 100th birthday. (Quora)
And even suffering with Alzheimer’s Disorder, Tony Bennett could remember the music and lyrics to the songs that made him one of the worlds best singers.

Not comparing myself to any of the above examples, I am grateful to be able to coach couples with all these years of knowledge and practice behind me. Not unlike an actor who becomes a producer or director, or a doctor who becomes a professor, I, too, can transform my knowledge and professional experience from that of a psychotherapist into a relationship coach. It’s actually an advantage. See my professional bio.

Couple’s Therapist or Relationship Coach?

The same distinctions outlined in my Life Coach blog, between a psychotherapist and a Life Coach, are also applicable to Relationship Coaching. We deal with the present, providing skills for effective communication, conflict resolution fair fighting rules, the art of presence, and mediation. Having also been a PAIRS LEADER (PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS FOR INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP SKILLS), a 16-week educational course for couples that is still highly successful, I can utilize many of their techniques that are applicable to working with one couple at a time, as opposed to several couples. Applying many of the cognitive behavioral techniques and educational tools can help couples find solutions to issues that have contaminated their relational space, where the couple and their children live.

The cost per hour is the same as therapy; however, the time commitment is less than therapy. The present and future are core, as opposed to the past and its impact on our relationships. It is more educationally and didactically designed than therapy, which dives deeper into the unconscious through experiential technology. Some would believe that therapy is more thorough and effective than coaching, but many people don’t want to delve deeply into their past. They just want solutions for the present. It’s not possible to compare both. They each have a different positive intention.

Couples Unsuitable for Relationship Coaching

I will not even attempt to coach a couple if either of the couple is addicted to a substance, behavior, or person, unless they are willing to stop. They must first have sobriety for at least 3 months before I would be able to work with them. The reason being, I am not dealing with the authenticity or essence of the person. I would only be working with the addict, and that won’t work. If either one or both are engaged in an affair they are unwilling to terminate, they are not candidates for couples coaching. If either or both members are unable to contain their anger, their first step should be to attend an anger management course. It takes two healthy, open-minded people who truly want help and are willing to be a cooperative partner with me to engage in relationship coaching. I will not support a relationship where there is any physical or emotional abuse. I will only work with couples who truly want to repair, heal, and save their relationship and are willing to do whatever is necessary to reach this goal. It will not work if you are capitulating to please your partner without a sincere wish to do the required work.

I possess the experience, knowledge, and motivation to support a couple in crisis; however, without mutual respect and dignity, this cannot be achieved. Here is a list of what it takes to be a candidate and have the outcome goal you desire.

To be clean and sober from all addictions
A mutuality of respect for each other
A determination to do the work that is required to heal the relationship.
An “all in” commitment

*Definition of addiction: A pathological relationship with a substance, behavior, or person that has mood-altering effects and life-threatening consequences. The simplest definition:

Something you can’t stop!

If you are interested in my services, email, text, or call me: joanechilds@gmail.com, (954) 854-7764, www.joanechilds.com