Skip to content

Ροδιά Βαλκάνου

Coaching

What is coaching and what is my approach?

By coaching, we mean all the support, counseling and empowerment services provided in order for a person to achieve a specific personal or professional goal or to develop a specific skill or practice.

Before I even start answering what coaching is, let's clarify what it is NOT: coaching has nothing to do with and in no way can it replace the psychotherapeutic or psychoanalytic process. There is a minority of mental health professionals in the field who offer coaching services, but overall, as a profession, it has nothing to do with it.

As with mentoring or other related practices, before you decide to start a coaching process, I suggest you do a detailed market research, study the approaches of several coaches, and then choose what you think suits you best. You can check out my (Greek language) podcast episode about it all.

Why do I talk so much about different approaches?

Because people see the world through very different lenses! I believe that when you want to turn to someone for support and help, they should be using similar lenses so that you can communicate easily. To have a baseline of commonly accepted facts -a shared reality.

When I say that my approach is based on intersectional feminism and has a deep anti-capitalist perspective, I mean very specific things:

1. I start by admitting that we live in a society that is capitalist, patriarchal, homophobic, racist, transphobic, ableist, etc., and this creates complex problems for people whose identity falls into one or more categories of oppressed groups.

2. As a result, I accept that certain population groups face specific obstacles that make their lives more difficult and the challenges they face daily, more specialized.

3. Workplaces do not treat an e.g., cis, straight, white man as they would a trans, disabled refugee. Each person has a special mix of identities that shape their experience within society and the world as a whole.

4. Most people work for a living and rarely have the privilege to choose a job that is completely in line with their ideological or moral principles. And that's ok. Because there is no moral consumption or production within capitalism. Yes, we are characterized by our choices, but our choices do not exist in a social vacuum -on the contrary, they are limited by our circumstances.

I think you now broadly get the idea of how I approach the world.

In the Kick Ass Personal Development Sessions that I offer, I work with each person individually to find ideal techniques to untangle each different mess. This can be an important life decision, a problem at work, an obstacle in your personal life, the chaos of your home or closet, or the development of financial management tools for your personal business.

I do not consider myself to be the one and only authority who -by the press of a button- will solve your difficulties. And I certainly do not believe that there are one size fits all solutions to complex issues. Each of us is very different and, therefore, the way we approach our problems must be different.

If there's something I can say unequivocally it's that you have value, you are not alone, you are not one random individual but part of a whole, your work has value, your effort and time have value and I will be happy to try to support you on your journey to create healthy habits that will make your daily life easier.