Frequency Healing is always looking to improve our offerings to help clients optimize not only their mental health, but their total well-being. Recently, Kristen Dill, founder and clinician at Frequency Healing, completed a certification program for Health and Wellness Coaching and will be pursuing board certification as a Health and Wellness Coach from the NBHWC in the coming year. Frequency Healing Clinic will begin offering Health and Wellness Coaching packages starting in December, so you can kick off the new year already committed to optimizing your health and wellness in 2024! 

Why Health & Wellness Coaching? We are always trying to stay current on research and on the cutting edge of wholistic mental health treatments. Early this year we noticed the VA promoting this style of coaching for veterans in our ongoing research. In particular, coaching methods that utilize motivational interviewing, appreciative inquiry, and positive psychology have been shown to be useful in the veteran population. While Kristen is extensively trained in anesthesia and Compassionate Inquiry, these specific techniques are new skills for her and she has already found them useful in speaking with clients about initiating positive life changes in the context of ketamine treatment.

What can Health and Wellness Coaching help with? 

In the paper from 2021, How VA Whole Health Coaching Can Impact Veterans’ Health and Quality of Life: A Mixed-Methods Pilot Program Evaluation, researchers fromThe San Francisco VA conducted a mixed-methods quality-improvement (QI) evaluation to examine the impact and effectiveness of their pilot coaching model, knows as the Whole Health Coaching Program. Using telephone surveys at baseline and after three months of coaching, they identified significant improvements at the three-month mark over baseline in previous levels of mental health, stress, and health competence [1]. 

The veteran population is just one example of people being helped by Health and Wellness Coaching. Our literature review found articles about coaching being used in the professional sector, in the university setting for college students, for people living with chronic pain as well as other chronic health complaints, and individuals undergoing cancer treatment. One of these papers showed statistically significant improvements in depression, as well as other professionally relevant clinical indicators, after an employee assistance coaching intervention was utilized by individuals over a period of five weeks. The majority (over two thirds) of subjects in this study utilized coaching for support with mental health issues (anxiety 47%, depression 12% or other 9%). The remaining subjects reported having issues including stress (19%), personal relationships (marital 8%, family 4%) or work (2%) that they were seeking help with. Based on their promising results, these researchers concluded that Coaching services “appear to be a viable alternative to counseling for employees interested in more goal-oriented, solution-focused type of support.” [2] 

How can Health and Wellness Coaching enhance my ketamine therapy? 

Ketamine has several physiological pathways that improve depression and mental health. One of them is the documented dendritic growth that occurs after infusions [3]. It is theorized that this growth makes ketamine therapy an opportunity to establish new, more healthy thought patterns in the brain. These new patterns can be an opportunity for establishing lasting change in the brain facilitated by lifestyle changes. 

Here at Frequency Healing Clinic we are committed to working with you to improve not only your mental health status, but your overall wellbeing.  We welcome questions and curiosity about our treatments and will strive to help you find the best treatments for your unique journey.  Sometimes that means a customized treatment plan designed specifically for you but we can also support you in finding other treatments when appropriate.  You can reach us by email, through our website and on social media platforms Facebook and Instagram. 

 References: 

 1. Purcell N, Zamora K, Bertenthal D, Abadjian L, Tighe J, Seal KH. How VA Whole Health Coaching Can Impact Veterans’ Health and Quality of Life: A Mixed-Methods Pilot Program Evaluation. Global Advances in Health and Medicine. 2021;10. doi:10.1177/2164956121998283

 2. Attridge, M., Pawlowski, D., & Fogarty, S. (2023). Mental health coaching from employee assistance program improves depression and employee work outcomes: Longitudinal results from CuraLinc Healthcare 2020-2022. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 13(2), 313-331. http://dx.doi.org/10.29322/IJSRP.13.02.2023.p13438

 3. Satoshi Deyama, Katsuyuki Kaneda,Role of neurotrophic and growth factors in the rapid and sustained antidepressant actions of ketamine, Neuropharmacology,Volume 224,2023,109335,ISSN 0028-3908,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropharm.2022.109335.M https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36403852