Get a Life Coach

01/01/2005

About

Life coaching is the new buzz word in self-help. From a standing start five years ago the coaching industry has exploded in New Zealand, with hundreds of coaches now charging their clients $500-$800 per month to ‘refocus’ and ‘reenergise’.

Get A Life Coach is a documentary that asks whether life-coaching is the new form of therapy, or another trip for the self-help junkie.

"It’s such a new phenomena, and it hadn’t been scrutinised yet,” says producer Gary Scott. "There are none of the traditional academic qualifications or medical registration, that you might expect."

“On the other hand, life-coaches will argue that they do not work with people with a clinical problems that they are about setting goals not healing past hurts, and therefore there should be no danger.

Sociologists say status anxiety – demand for the perfect job…the ideal partner…the life with “everything” - is likely to keep life coaches busy until a new breed of expert comes along. But psychologists question the expertise of coaches in the first instance, as their qualifications are usually gained from expensive internet courses based in the USA. Coach U and Results are two of the biggies.

The documentary follows the progress of Dean and Miriam, two clients who spend three months working with coach Sally Angus.

Dean and Miriam do find it a very positive experience, and there are others in the documentary who believe it really works.

Miriam is a reasonably typical life coach client, with a self esteem problem and a mid-career crisis. Dean is much younger, but has a chequered past and needs to find some direction in his life.

“During the programme we see the kind of decisions that the coach helps them to reach, and how successful they are in reaching their goals” says Scott.