Life and Behavioral Coaching
At Aamani Behavioral Health, Brooke Leuzinger works directly with a variety of individuals of all ages on and off the autism spectrum. Life & Behavioral coaching is the process of helping clients identify obstacles and meet personal goals. The coaching process usually starts with uncovering challenges and obstacles. The process then helps the individual to define a clear direction and set goals in a particular area of their lives. Life and Behavioral Coaching can benefit individuals looking to grow in nearly any area of life. Brooke specializes in the following areas;
– Increasing or committing to an exercise regimen
– Committing to a nutritional goal
– Facing fears (social, performances, personal hobbies such as rock climbing and mountain biking and more)
Brooke works directly in the setting which fosters growth. This may be a home, community or telehealth location.
Brooke utilized tools based from acceptance and commitment training (ACT) to support her client’s to overcome obstacles and reach their personal goals. ACT utilizes six core processes, including; present moment awareness, identification of values, commitment action (goal setting), defusion, self as context, and acceptance.
Values are the principles that guide a person’s behavior and decision-making. They are the vital and meaningful aspects of life that people choose and construct verbally. Values are different from goals because they are not something that can be achieved, but rather a continuous way of being. Much like a compass in life.
Present Moment Awareness involves paying attention to your current thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations. ACT is a therapy that focuses on the present moment to help people regain a sense of control. ACT practitioners believe that people can’t control their thoughts or feelings, but they can control their actions.
Acceptance involves making room for and allowing private experiences (thoughts, emotions) to come and go without struggling with them. This includes accepting uncomfortable emotions, physical sensations, and thoughts. ACT suggests that people can take action without first changing or eliminating feelings, and that observing oneself as having a feeling while still acting can be more effective than fighting it.
Defusion is a technique used to help people distance themselves from their thoughts and emotions. Defusion teaches an individual to be the observer of their thoughts and emotions rather than to see the world through their thoughts and emotions. By distancing from thoughts and emotions, one can choose to “listen” to them or acknowledging them without allowing them to get in the way of what is important to them.
Self-as-context refers to the perception we have of ourselves and how we interact with who we believe ourselves to be. It is the labels that we give ourselves. We can easily become trapped in this verbally constructed self and it can limit us from behaving in a way that aligns with our values. All of our thoughts, feelings, ideals, images, and emotions, we have about ourselves often conflict and cause psychological distress. ACT helps an individual to tease apart these verbally constructed labels so that they can thrive.
Committed Action is the idea of taking concrete steps to align your actions with your values, even when you face obstacles or fail. It’s the final principle in ACT philosophy, which holds that a meaningful life is only possible when actions are congruent with values.
