FAQs

You might be here because you’re interested in understanding your patterns and emotional responses more deeply and you feel that being able to connect the dots is important to move forward with clarity and to achieve lasting change. This could be the right context to consider trauma-informed coaching.

There is, however, no clear-cut definition and it's important to emphasize that this is always going to be a fuzzy space. It needs frequent check-ins on the pace and depth of the work to make sure we’re both comfortable with how the coaching unfolds. But to answer this question, I offer you a few thoughts on how I look at trauma-informed coaching within my scope of practice.

I bring trauma-informed qualities and skills to my coaching when I work with people who experience sticky patterns that seem hard to shift or change only temporarily before things fall back into the old groove. These people often get on very well with everyday life but realise that it comes at a high cost. This can show up as exhaustion, chronic stress, anxiety or difficulty to rest and relax. Some people experience issues in relationships or an unspecific sense of dissatisfaction with work or life. They might feel that they’re never enough or notice a sadness that their desires seem out of reach or that they seem unable to make the most of life or fulfil their potential.

In the coaching context, I’m specifically aware of how relational or attachment trauma can continue to show up in life, even though this isn’t always in the client’s awareness or wouldn’t be their way of describing their experience. While relational trauma is typically connected to harmful experiences early in life with caregivers or people close to us, difficult workplace experiences, like bullying or scapegoating can also leave an imprint on relationships going forward. So-called small-t or micro trauma also shows up frequently in the coaching space. These are experiences that leave a scar or have shaped sticky patterns but have either never been acknowledged or get easily dismissed.

In trauma-informed coaching, we aren’t actively processing past traumatic experiences, but we acknowledge that we all see the world through history-coloured glasses: our past experiences shaped our emotional, relational and behavioural patterns. And we know that we aren’t fixed or static, with the right support we can change.

I offer sensitive, experiential and arts-based approaches to explore the reasons behind your way of being in the world, and we’ll check in regularly whether the pace and depth of our work feels right for you. We bring curiosity to how you’ve been shaped and how life events hang together so that you can move forward with a deeper understanding of your inner world. I also value sharing some psycho/ neuro-education as it helps develop new skills and clarifies how we can support change.

When I bring trauma-informed qualities into my coaching I lean on my therapeutic training as well as my experience of working in clinical settings including my work in art therapy and complex trauma programs. I continue my learning by deepening my understanding of certain therapeutic frameworks and the fast-changing fields of trauma research and neuroplasticity as a way of achieving the desired change. I also maintain my professional membership with ANZACATA and ongoing clinical supervision.

If you have a sense that trauma-informed coaching could unlock something for you, we’ll make sure to discuss all of this in more detail in our Discovery Call. Agreeing the qualities and boundaries of our coaching is especially important when we work in this way and I encourage you to bring all your questions to this free and informal conversation so that you can make the right choice for you.

When we engage in creative activities, our brain switches between two key networks: the network that helps with imagination, self-reflection, and generating new ideas and the network that helps us focus, organise thoughts, and make decisions. Arts-based coaching allows us to harvest this balance of imagination and control: we create genuinely illuminating, spontaneous, and surprising insight which can then feed into a goal and action-directed process.

We discuss your preferences regarding arts-based processes when we begin to work together. You don’t need to have any technical skills, artmaking experience or certain materials. I remind all my clients that creativity is inherent and available to us all, not the privilege of a selected few.

Accessible processes that have worked for many clients include collage, photography, writing techniques/ reflective writing, poetry, working with metaphors, using objects or symbols. Some clients will weave their own creative hobbies into the work (whether that’s sewing, ceramics, creating sculptures, music or photography). In addition to arts-based approaches, we might agree to explore some embodied or somatic exercises.

You can choose to what extent arts-based, creative or embodied processes play a role in your coaching, but I always encourage clients to experiment with this additional way of knowing as it takes you beyond what you already know and supports genuinely illuminating insights. Any creative work is about personal meaning making, not about artistic skills or techniques. I will never interpret your art; I aim to guide you through your own exploration of your creative expression.

Some clients attend to creative invitations in-between sessions as this allows them to immerse themselves into the creative exploration without time pressure. It also leaves room to reflect on their creative process and keep returning to their work based on new insights. Sometimes, we might agree to use arts-based methods in our coaching session so I can guide you through your own reflection on the meaning your artwork might hold for you.

I use Zoom for my online sessions. To get the most out of your session, it’s important that you have a quiet and private space and a reliable internet connection. If you aren’t familiar with Zoom, we can use the (free of charge) Discovery Call as a trial run to see whether online coaching feels right for you.

To protect the confidentiality of our work, neither 1:1 coaching nor group sessions are recorded, and I do not use an AI notetaker app for my sessions and would ask you to do the same. You will receive coaching notes after each session to support your ongoing reflection and inner work.

For arts-based processes you will need to bring your own materials, but my invitations won’t need specific materials. Everything can be done with basics most people have at home, like markers, colour pencils and if you want to deepen your arts-based reflection we can discuss which supplies you might want to invest in.

Each session will unfold around your needs. We will work towards your overall goals and capture a specific point of focus for each session. Unless it is our first session, we will explore what has shown up in your work, life and any reflections or experiments you did between sessions. Sometimes, we might agree to integrate a creative process in the session. Other times, our sessions will focus on verbally exploring and expressing you experience or debriefing on an arts-based experiment you did between sessions.

After each session, you’ll receive detailed coaching notes capturing the session content. These serve as a scaffolding for your reflections, capture any creative invitations to deepen your work between sessions and support you in developing your reflective practice.

This depends on your goals, what you want to get out of coaching and what you are willing or able to invest in-between sessions. I have created four different coaching formats to cover the needs I most often encounter:

A Stitch in Time is for people who feel they only need a couple of sessions to kick start a process of change or get more clarity around a distinct and clearly delineated challenge. It’s the equivalent of seeing a massage therapist for a couple of sessions to attend to back pain and get your otherwise fit and healthy body back into alignment.

Mending is the right format for anyone who seeks deep and focused coaching. The 6 x 90min sessions allow for deeper work and are suitable if you feel derailed by a life event, struggle with prolonged stress and worry about burning out. This is the right format if you feel that trauma-informed coaching could be right for you.

Weaving also offers 6 sessions, but they’re a mix of 90 and 60 min sessions, allowing you to explore different aspects of your life or support yourself through change and the shifts in identity that comes with it. We might explore certain patterns, or parts of you that show up regularly and our focus will be on how these connect and intersect.

Follow the Thread is longer-term coaching which provides a regular time to think and a steady support system, whether you are a leader, business owner or simply want to make sense of your life as it unfolds. This format is the equivalent of seeing a massage therapist for regular ‘maintenance’ appointments.

When we get to the end of any coaching format, we will discuss whether the work feels complete or whether you’d like to continue your coaching in some way, whether that’s by signing up for another package or continuing on a PAYG basis.

While I’m indicating a typical cadence of sessions in each format, every client is unique, and you can opt to have more frequent sessions at the start of our work together to build trust and gain momentum. Regardless of the format that feels right for you, coaching requires self-motivation, dedication and commitment to invest time and energy between your coaching sessions. Therefore, your rhythm will also be shaped by how much time you have for reflection, experimenting with new insights and integration between sessions.

A free Discovery Call is the best place to discuss your needs and match you with the format that feels right for you.

I offer four different coaching formats, and you can find out more including the investment here. We can discuss payment plans in our initial (and free) Discovery Call.

If you prefer more of a PAYG coaching relationship without agreeing to a set number of sessions upfront, the cost of a 60min session is $180 and a 90min session is $270.

Whether you are interested in one of the coaching formats or the PAYG coaching, we start with a free Discovery Call where you can ask any questions you may have and discuss your needs and expectations. We can also use this call to work out which coaching format might be best suited to your situation.

My group programs and workshops are listed in the shop.