Coaching is not therapy, counseling, advice-giving, mental health care, or treatment for substance abuse. The coach is not a functioning licensed mental health professional, and coaching is not intended as a replacement for counseling, psychiatric interventions, treatment for mental illness, recovery from past abuse, professional medical advice, financial assistance, legal counsel, or other professional services.

Coaching is for people who are basically well-adjusted, emotionally healthy, functioning effectively, and want to make changes in their lives.

Coaching is designed to address issues the person being coached would like to consider. These could include (but are not limited to) career development, relationship enhancement, spiritual growth, lifestyle management, life balance, decision making, and achieving short-term or long-term goals.

Coaching can involve brainstorming, values clarification, the completion of written assignments, education, goal setting, identifying plans of action, accountability, making requests, agreements to change behavior, examining lifestyles and questioning.

Coaching is most effective when both parties are honest and straightforward in their communications.

In a coaching relationship, the client is encouraged and empowered to take responsibility for their decisions and actions. The client is expected to maintain their sense of balance and well-being during and after each session, applying insights gained to their own circumstances and managing their progress independently.

Coaching is a confidential relationship and the coach agrees to keep all information strictly confidential, except in those situations where such confidentiality would violate the law.

The Coach and the Client agree to maintain the ethics and standards of behavior set by ICF, the International Coaching Federation. If the Client feels that the Coach has violated ICF ethics, the Client may file a report for the violation at www.coachfederation.org