Boston
MA 02130
(617) 524-5352
KarenS@LifeCoachInBoston.com

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Karen Schneiderman Ph.D



 

Change Begins Here

  • Are you stuck somewhere and need to get your life moving in a new direction?

  • Are you dealing with major changes or life transitions and feel afraid?

  • Would you like to find a new direction?

  • Are you organized or is everything in chaos?

Internal chaos sometimes manifests in external chaos. Is your home a mess? Do you hate to shop, cook, do the laundry, and pay bills? Do you wish someone would come in and just take over all the daily tasks so you don’t have to be bothered? Wouldn’t it be nice to get on track and handle things smoothly so you have more time to do the things you really want to do?


Karen Schneiderman

Is a professionally trained life coach, living in Boston. She counsels on personal, family, professional, workplace and other life issues. Her practice includes face-to-face, telephone and online coaching. She received her Ph.D. in Women's Studies and served as a teacher and college advisor/counselor for twenty years at Lesley, Northeastern and the University of Massachusetts at Boston. 

What is a Life Coach

What if you could work with someone who advocated for your dreams, thoroughly believed in your potential, supported you not only in achieving your goals but encouraged you to stretch for even higher ones, helped open up and explore possibilities that you didn't even know existed?

Coaching is a method for working with an individual or groups of people to assist them in enhancing their lives right now. It is meant to examine the areas of your life that are changing or need to change. Although I suggest areas of movement, only you know what is important to you. We don’t start in childhood and move slowly through every stage of your life. We look at what is happening now, what needs to be shifted now, so that your frame of reference is changed and that alteration makes your whole life look different.

How is this different from therapy?

Therapy is longer term where people in struggle work hard to figure out the roots of their problems and how they can use that information to shift their current behaviors in order to feel better.

Here is an example: In therapy if a person were having difficulty with her boss she might realize after lengthy analysis that she is identifying the boss with her father, someone she did not get along with in her youth. While that is interesting and possibly useful information, a life coach would suggest that it is not helpfull to spend time reliving her childhood parent-child relationship when the current problem is the boss who is not her father. Coaching addresses what is going well and badly in the present and how to make one’s life more joyful by altering the behaviors one engages in now.

 

"About a year ago I was experiencing a great deal of dissatisfaction at work and was wondering whether I should quit my job. Karen listened to my concerns and, with a few incisive questions, helped me cut through a complex web of issues to identify the most important aspects of my work experience. "

"In response to her questions and comments, I directed my thoughts towards the most important issues and was able to think more clearly about what I wanted from my job. I felt more in control of my thought processes and was able to make an informed decision without feeling I was making a huge mistake."

 -C.C. Sherborn


"Once a week for six months, she helped me sort out and organize my life at a time when I was moving, preparing to go back to school and planning for a new career. She was an invaluable help as I was not only able to negotiate these changes successfully but I was able to do so with less stress through her patient but firm coaching. She is a strong listener who is able to pick up on issues that I was not always even fully conscious of. She held me to my commitments. I trust her.

 -C.A.  New York

What I do

I have been a teacher and a counselor for almost 20 years and when I decided to move into Coaching a few years ago I finally got my life-long answer to why therapy never worked for me. What I had needed so long ago was a new way to look at the difficulties in my life and with the assistance of someone else figure out on a daily basis how to fix those problems with structured assignments and a new attentiveness to my past and present behaviors. Ah, homework! As a student and then a teacher I knew what that meant. Pleasant or not, it meant engagement in a topic that made me focus on what I was doing, correct or modify my actions, and learn new skills. Now I cannot imagine anything more useful, challenging and life affirming than being coached and becoming one as well.

I began coaching as a way to give this gift to others who are unhappy or confused in their lives and can see no way out or around the multitude of problems they face: disorganization, problems with romantic and platonic relationships, fears that were not specific to a particular difficulty, divorce, loss of a job or the desire to find a new one. The list goes on and on.

That is what life coaching is about: practical and serious steps to allow you to have the power to make your life more enjoyable and the transferable skills that will let you figure out how to solve other problems as they arise so that you are not a permanent client.

You learn to be your own best practitioner.

What you do
  1. With the help of a coach, identify the things that are bothering you now.

  2. Accept the possibility that you can make a new choice when you act.

  3. Practice the assignments given to you by the Coach so you remain focused on what is working and what is not.

  4. Review those assignments with the Coach and move from one assignment to another, documenting your changes and observations.

  5. Challenge your Coach if you feel you are moving too slowly or too quickly. If you see no change in a relatively short time, say so. Coaching is not a life long relationship although it is a lifelong practice of self-assessment.

  6. Give yourself credit when you do things well.

  7. Try something else when things don’t go so well. Do not beat yourself up because you are not perfect.

The Details
Coaches usually work with their clients by telephone although we can meet occasionally or even regularly if you feel more comfortable that way.

The first telephone meeting is Complimentary
So that we can get all the questions you have about this relationship and practice answered. We talk about frequency of calls/meetings, fee, and how to establish and stick to clear goals.

Write to me at my e-mail address or call, (617.267-9057) to schedule our first free session. The worst that can happen is that it won’t feel right for you now. The best that can happen is that you will be on your way to a healthier and happier life. Is there anything better than that? Do you have anything to lose? I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best,

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Karen Schneiderman, Ph.D.
Life Coach

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Boston, Massachusetts 02130
617 524-5352
KarenS@LifeCoachInBoston.com