Joining Overcoming the Mother Wound: Evergreen Course affirms you are aware of the limitations of what I provide online:

By signing this agreement electronically, you agree to the following: 

The information provided in the Overcoming the Mother Wound: Evergreen course is for educational and informational purposes only and meant solely as a self-help tool for your own use.

You agree and acknowledge that I am not providing medical advice, mental health advice, or religious advice in any way.

Although I am a licensed psychotherapist (“Mental Health Provider”), I am not holding myself out to be a doctor/physician, nurse, physician’s assistant, advance practice nurse, or any other medical professional, (“Medical Provider”), psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, counselor, or social worker (“Mental Health Provider”), registered dietician or licensed nutritionist, or member of the clergy on this website and in this course. I am instead acting as a mentor/teacher/coach and not providing health care, medical or nutritional therapy services, or attempting to diagnose, treat, prevent or cure any physical, mental or emotional issue, disease or condition. Please note that as a mentor/teacher/coach I do not provide therapy services of any kind. I strongly encourage that you work with a licensed therapist to support you should you need mental health services at any time throughout this Program.

My role is to support and assist you in reaching your own goals, but your success depends primarily on your own effort, motivation, commitment and follow-through. I cannot predict and I do not guarantee that you will attain a particular result, and you accept and understand that results differ for each individual.

By using this website and taking this course, you agree to absolve me of any liability or loss that you or any other person may incur from use of the information, products or materials that you request or receive through or on my Website
By signing and dating this Disclaimer I fully agree to the terms of this Disclaimer, and am aware of a fuller description of Mari Grande’s Disclaimer and Terms of Agreement on marigrande.com

THE FOLLOWING IS ONLY APPLICABLE IF YOU CHOOSE TO ENROLL IN A COACHING PROGRAM WITH CREATIVE HEALING INTEGRATION

Life Coaching by Creative Healing Integration, Inc.

MEMO OF UNDERSTANDING

            The service that I wish to offer to you is life coaching. Coaching sessions may be in-person, by telephone, by email, or by videoconference.  As a life coach, I will work with you to assist you to develop skills to establish and maintain better personal and social relationships, to help you focus on this goal, to improve your self- confidence, to help you communicate more effectively for better relationships, to help you to stop repeating thinking and behavior patterns that limit your success in relationships, and generally to empower you and to encourage your personal fulfillment and self-actualization.  I will help you be more focused, attentive and organized, to improve your self-confidence, to encourage your spiritual and personal fulfillment and self-actualization, to help you communicate more effectively for better relationships at home and work, to help you to stop repeating thinking and behavior patterns that limit your success, and to empower yourself.

            Coaching is not a medical, mental health or any other type of health service.  It is not psychotherapy or mental health counseling. No diagnosis or treatment of, or advice regarding, any medical or mental health condition or illness will be offered.  Coaching cannot substitute for, and is not an alternative to, medical or other healthcare diagnosis and treatment when a medical or mental health condition or illness is present.  You are advised to seek diagnosis, treatment and advice regarding medical or mental health conditions or illnesses from physicians, psychologists, and other licensed healthcare and mental health professionals.

            I hold Masters degrees in Social Work and Fine Arts and am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a Licensed Art Therapist and in my professional practice I specialize in Complex Trauma.  However, the services I wish to offer to you are not medical, psychiatric, psychological, psychotherapy or any type of healthcare or mental healthcare service. That I have professional licenses does not mean that my coaching services are necessarily superior to the services of an unlicensed life coach.  Health insurance companies do not reimburse for life coaching services.  If you wish healthcare or mental health assessment, counseling or psychotherapy, then I can provide you with referrals at your request.

            By clicking the “I agree” box on the order form for the Overcoming the Mother Wound: Evergreen Program, you indicate that you understand the nature of the coaching services that I wish to offer you (should you choose to enroll in a coaching program), and that you have had the opportunity to ask any questions you might have about them.

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THE FOLLOWING IS ONLY APPLICABLE IF YOU CHOOSE TO ENROLL IN A COACHING PROGRAM WITH CREATIVE HEALING INTEGRATION

CREATIVE HEALING INTEGRATION, INC.

COACHING CONTRACT

Welcome to my coaching practice.  This document constitutes a contract between us (the “AGREEMENT”) and you should read it carefully and raise any questions and concerns that you have before you sign it.

The services to be provided by Mari Grande are coaching or online and designed jointly with the client.  The fee for coaching will depend upon the coaching program chosen, and once a plan is agreed upon, coaching sessions will be charged at a rate commensurate to the package purchased.  Fees for coaching sessions must be paid in advance by Credit Card by the first day of the month in which they are provided unless an alternative arrangement is agreed to in writing.   Services not paid for in advance will not be provided.

Professional time spent outside of coaching sessions, including, but not limited to, between-session phone calls or email exchanges, reviewing tapes of sessions, report writing, and reading or reviewing documents, will be billed as collateral services on a prorated basis rounded up to the nearest tenth of an hour based on the current per hour rate. If I am required to attend meetings outside of my offices, you will pay for all time I spend traveling to the location of such meetings. You must pay for all collateral services within 30 days of billing. 

You are required to give 48 business hours’ notice if you need to cancel or change the time of an appointment. Otherwise, you will be charged for the session in full.  Mari Grande agrees that every effort will be made to reschedule sessions that are canceled in a timely manner.

Coaching & Psychotherapy

In addition to being a coach, I am also licensed in NY, NJ, FL, and CA as a Social Worker with training and experience in diagnosing and treating emotional problems. While there are some similarities between coaching and psychotherapy, they are very different activities and it is important that you understand the differences between them. Psychotherapy is a health care service and is usually reimbursable through health insurance policies.  This is not true for coaching. Both coaching and psychotherapy utilize knowledge of human behavior, motivation and behavioral change, and interactive counseling techniques.  The major differences are in the goals, focus, and level of professional responsibility and that coaching is not reimbursable by health insurers.

The focus of coaching is the development and implementation of strategies to reach client-identified goals of enhanced performance and personal satisfaction.  Coaching may address specific personal projects, life balance, job performance, satisfaction, or general conditions in the client’s life, business, or profession. Coaching utilizes personal strategic planning, values clarification, brainstorming, motivational counseling, and other counseling techniques.

The purposes of psychotherapy are the identification, diagnosis, and treatment of mental and nervous disorders. The goals of psychotherapy include alleviating symptoms, understanding the underlying dynamics which create symptoms, changing dysfunctional behaviors which are the result of these disorders, and developing new strategies for successfully coping with the psychological challenges which we all face. Most research on psychotherapy outcomes indicates that the quality of the relationship is most closely correlated with therapeutic progress.  Psychotherapy patients are often emotionally vulnerable. This vulnerability is increased by the expectation that they will discuss very intimate personal data and expose feelings about themselves about which they are understandably sensitive. The past life experiences of psychotherapy patients have often made trust difficult to achieve. These factors give psychotherapists disproportionate power that creates a fiduciary responsibility to protect the safety of their clients and not to harm them. 

The relationship between the coach and client avoids the power differentials that occur in the psychotherapy relationship.  The client sets the agenda and the success of the enterprise depends on the client’s willingness to take risks and try new approaches. The relationship is designed to be more direct and challenging. You can rely on your coach to be honest and straightforward, asking powerful questions and using challenging techniques to move you forward.  You are expected to evaluate progress and when coaching is not working as you wish, you should immediately inform me so we can both take steps to correct the problem.

Because of these differences, the roles of coach and psychotherapist are often in potential conflict and I believe that, under most circumstances, it is ethically inappropriate for one to play both roles with a client, whether concurrently or sequentially.  Positive change is difficult enough without having to worry about role confusion. This means that if either of us recognizes that you have a problem that would benefit from psychotherapeutic intervention, I will refer you to appropriate resources. In some situations, I may insist that you initiate psychotherapy and may ask that I have access to your psychotherapist in order to effectively continue as your coach.

It is also important to understand that coaching is a professional relationship. While it may often feel like a close personal relationship, it is not one that can extend beyond professional boundaries both during and after our work together.  Considerable experience shows that when boundaries blur, the benefits gained from the coaching relationship are endangered.

Confidentiality

As a licensed clinical social worker and art therapist or as a coach, I am ethically and professionally bound to protect the confidentiality of our communications.  I will only release information about our work to others with your written permission or in response to a court order.  There are some situations in which I am legally obligated to break confidentiality in order to protect you or others from harm. As a professional, if I have information that indicates that a child is being abused, I must report that to the appropriate state agency. If a client is an imminent risk to him/herself or makes threats of imminent violence against another, I must take protective actions.  These situations are quite rare in coaching practices. If such a situation occurs in our relationship, I will make every effort to discuss it with you before taking any action.

As you are no doubt aware, it is impossible to protect the confidentiality of information that is transmitted electronically. This is particularly true of e-mail and information stored on computers that are connected to the internet, which do not utilize encryption and other forms of security protection.

Some sessions are conducted in a group format. By signing this agreement, you commit yourself to maintaining the confidentiality of all information communicated to you by other coaching clients and by your coach.  We both understand that progress is often enhanced when clients are allowed to discuss their coaching relationship with trusted colleagues and friends.  You can have these discussions, but you must in no way share information that leads to the identification of others in the group.  If you are ever in doubt regarding what to reveal and what not to reveal, err on the side of protecting the privacy of others, a vital and nonnegotiable element of such group interaction.