
There is growing recognition of the power of group and team coaching. Yet, how do we, as coaches, lead in seeing and relating to the group as a whole when most of the tools we’ve inherited were made by pulling an individual out of their environment to be studied as an isolated self?
Social therapeutic coaching is a group-based approach to emotional well-being and personal growth. It helps people build the relational muscles needed to create meaningful connections with others and empower a sense of community and belonging. As the world continues to develop in a new direction, a new set of tools is required. Social therapeutics offers a conceptual and methodological shift.
Due to the flexibility baked into the approach, all types of coaches train in the method. (indeed, The Coaching Psychologist notes in its review of Social Therapeutic Coaching: A Practical Guide to Group and Couples Work, Routledge, 2024, that “…
many of the practices could also be helpful in single- client work.”)
Embedded in it is an acceptance of and ability to create with uncertainty—the very condition driving the loneliness epidemic, chronic stress, social anxiety, and imposter syndrome that affects us all. Social therapeutics has been practiced for over 40 years, with tens of thousands of Life Development Group sessions occurring across the globe.
The social therapeutic coach empowers clients with a conceptual/experiential toolkit for continuously transforming their lives and how they relate to others in them. Group members develop new ways of seeing, doing, communicating, and feeling. When people discover that they can build and create with others in the moment, they discover their power.
About Carrie Sackett
Carrie Sackett, MS, PCC, is America’s loneliness coach specializing in couples, family, and group work. For over 25 years, she has practiced a boldly transformative approach to emotional wellness and personal growth in the coach’s chair and outside the coach’s office as a Fortune 500 global change leader and award-winning employee engagement professional.
She authored
Social Therapeutic Coaching: A Practical Guide to Group and Couples Work (Routledge, 2024), and her articles have appeared in
Choice: The Magazine of Professional Coaching and Coaching Perspectives. She has appeared on numerous podcasts and gives talks at coaching conferences and universities.
In 2023, Carrie founded a training company, The Center for Group and Couples Coaching, to offer coaches of all types next-generation tools that empower clients to transform their lives, build meaningful relationships, and achieve emotional well-being.
Carrie received her undergraduate degree at Duke University and her master's in Strategic Communications from Columbia University. She serves on the Board of Mentally Anonymous as the Director of Emotional Growth and Well-being.