Mark Brouwer offers teaching and workshops in a variety of settings about subjects relating to healthy sexuality, overcoming compulsive behavior, sustainable leadership, and the spiritual dynamics of recovery. He also provides leadership coaching for pastors, and recovery coaching for men dealing with compulsive sexual behaviors. This coaching is primarily done in group contexts - either in person, or in tele- or web conferences.

Mark is a pastor with 15 years experience as founding and senior pastor of two church startups. He is currently the director of recoveryremixed.com, an organization devoted to applying the timeless wisdom of recovery to today’s challenges.

Check out the links on this website for more information about these offerings, as well as background material about Mark. Even though this website is in a blog form, it’s not regularly updated. For more timely information, check out the two blogs that Mark writes:

• lastingleaders.com

• sexual-sanity.com

Here are some helpful distinctions about what recovery coaching is — and isn’t. This list comes from Jana Heckerman, in a recent article from Addiction Professional journal.

What recovery coaching is NOT

Let’s first address what coaching isn’t. It is not:

• Therapy. Well-trained coaches are very aware of the line between therapy and coaching and are careful to honor that line and refer out to therapists when indicated.
• A replacement for primary treatment, a 12-Step program, or clinical care.
• A substitute for or the equivalent of a “sober companion” or “sober coach.”
• For anyone still actively involved with their substance of choice.
• About affirmations, positive thinking, or platitudes.

What recovery coaching IS

Now let’s look at what coaching is and how it is useful in the recovery process.

Continue reading ‘What is Recovery Coaching?’

This February I am offering a four-part telephone seminar for spouses, friends, and parents of people struggling with compulsive sexual behaviors. I keep hearing that more help is needed, not just for sex addicts, but also for the people who love them — the wives, children, parents, and friends in addicts’ lives who are hurt, angry, anxious, and struggling to know how to help. Sexual compulsivity undermines marriages and families like no other addiction, and tragically, most spouses and family members suffer alone. Sex addiction carries its own unique and powerful shame, and many people don’t know where to turn for help and support.

Some specifics about the teleseminar:

Dates: Wednesdays in February (the 6th, 13th, 20th, and 27th)

Continue reading ‘HOLDING HOPE: a telephone seminar for partners, parents, and friends of people struggling with compulsive sexual behavior’

I just got an email from someone thinking about working with me as a coach, wanting to know more about the differences between coaching and therapy. Whenever I’m asked about this, I try to keep my answer short and focused on recovery. Here’s what I say: “Therapy focuses on how past trauma impacts your present actions, and helps you work through unhealed soul wounds. Coaching focuses more on helping you move into action, getting clear about your goals and removing obstacles to reaching them.”

Continue reading ‘The Differences Between Coaching and Therapy’

I love the role of recovery coach. Recovery coaching works over the phone, so it’s available for people literally all over the world. It works in conjunction with - not in competition with - therapy, recovery groups, workshops, and in-patient treatment. In fact, I beleive it should be required as part of the aftercare for workshop attendees and in-patient treatment centers. The experience of “re-entry” from the intensive, supportive, and relatively artificial environments of workshops and treatment centers is jarring and unsettling. Rates of relapse can be drastically reduced if people have access to expert coaching to help them navigate the transitions and shifts required for successful recovery.   Continue reading ‘Recovery Coaching is an important approach in addiction treatment’

Given the fact that much of the work I do with recovering addicts and leaders is done over the phone, I was encouraged by the results of a study reported in the Journal of Counseling Psychology. This study gave a favorable review to counseling done over the phone.

“The researchers … found that telephone counseling was beneficial and satisfactory, marked by specific improvement on the issue that lead to counseling and global improvement in emotional state. 68 percent [of those surveyed] reported feeling very or completely satisfied with the telephone counseling and 53 percent said they felt somewhat better as a result of counseling.”

Just to be clear … what I offer people is coaching over the phone, not counseling or therapy. Continue reading ‘Recent study shows telephone counseling can be effective’