Hello and welcome!
I’m Holly Cox (she/her), PhD, CHT, LMFT— a counselor, coach, and ardent believer that we’re all here to use our best stuff.
I offer online therapy and coaching for creatives, healthcare providers, relationship struggles, and chronic illness, so you can design and discover your own unique story.
I have over twenty years of experience helping everyone from NBA players to bakers figure out how to show up as the version of themselves the world deserves—the authentic one.
I’m a multi-passionate person who loves working with other creative, off-beat personalities. Though I’ve been interviewed for outlets including “Men’s Health” and “Prevention,” I’m usually the one on the other side of the keyboard, penning meditations, articles and poems. I also spend an absurd amount of time taking photos of neat stuff I saw. Being an artist is absolutely central to who I am and how I conceptualize both pain and transformation.
I think we know ourselves best by asking, as Dr. Robert Johnson mused, “What does your unlived life want from you?” and then heading in that direction.
I specialize in helping clients get off the bench of normalcy and back into the weird, wonderful game of who they truly are. I am trained in both Solution-Focused-Brief-Therapy and Positive Psychology Coaching to help you do just that.
Working with me is about getting quick traction and then developing a plan to architect long-term results.
Are you a creative feeling stuck? Well, you’re in the right place. I help anxious creative, Type A clients engineer a life and relationships they love.
The world may lead you to believe that the typical driven, perfectionist person comes packaged in the body of a stockbroker or a heart surgeon. And hey, fair. Probably true. I’ve noticed that in clients I have from those backgrounds.
But I see you, too — you creative, artistic basket case.
You, who is maybe slaving away at some practical job your nana thought you ought to have, but who has the heart of an artist beating inside you.
Or, you. You, who is a working artist, but you don’t release nearly as much work as you’ve actually made because, you know, it isn’t perfect. You’re probably charging too little and apologizing too much.
Are you a healthcare provider feeling burnt out, fatigued, and ready to quit? I specialize in helping doctors, nurses, therapists, and other clinicians who are vulnerable to compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma.
Want to know a secret? I walked away from my clinical practice for several years to do…nothing.
Yes, really.
I had worked myself to death until a pre-existing chronic illness finally rose up to slap me in a pretty dramatic way. I couldn’t feel my feet, I couldn’t think clearly, I couldn’t even begin to imagine caring for one. more. single. solitary. person. But it didn’t have to be that way.
My own experiences of burning out in both body and spirit have profoundly changed the way that I guide others through managing their self-care as stewards of other people’s wellness.
Are you navigating struggles and repeated patterns in your relationship(s)?
Aren’t we all a little guilty of choosing the same kind of wrong-fit person every time?
Of tanking our partnerships in ways that seem kind of predictable in the rearview mirror?
Of failing to see the link between our families of origin and the way we choose partnerships of all kinds – romantic, friendship and business?
I help clients take a look backwards at the territory that formed their current relationship map – and look forward, defining where they want to go in their relationships, too.
Do you have a chronic illness or chronic pain?
I specialize in working with other people like me – those for whom there aren’t enough spoons in the silverware drawer on any given day.
Two things to know about me – I’m phobically afraid of cockroaches, and I am 100 percent better at the bendy parts of yoga than you are. I’m so bendy it’s a disorder. Hi, I’m Holly, and I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. (What’s up fellow zebras!)
Only, like lots of folks with chronic illness, I didn’t know that the more unusual aspects of my body were a whole medical issue until I had already built a busy life that I couldn’t navigate in an unpredictable meat suit.
I, like a lot of chronically ill people, am also chronically resilient. But what happens when our bodies deal us a few blows that overturn the entire applecart? What happens when we can no longer partner, parent, or work in ways that are recognizable to us?
I think these questions are existential and central to the well-being of anyone who tries to adult in a body that won’t always play with the team.
Whether we work together through coaching or counseling, you can expect a direct, fireside chat style session that incorporates offbeat humor with elements of mindfulness.
Both coaching and counseling with me are client-led. I believe that explorations of the self should be transformational not transactional. Therefore, we will articulate clear goals for our time together and establish concrete metrics that will let us know if we’re hitting the mark.
I believe that life is not just about building an empire – it’s about building a temple of wellbeing inside yourself. I help clients do a careful, personal inquiry into the elements of their lives that serve them, and those elements that need to be recalibrated.
So you’ve scrolled this far, and you’re still wondering… what the hell is the difference between coaching and counseling? That’s a great question. Glad you asked!
The coaching industry likes to say that the difference between coaching and counseling is that coaching has a forward focus and counseling focuses on the past. As someone who has done a lot of training in both disciplines, I don’t necessarily think that’s a helpful delineation. Pretty much all great therapy will have a focus that is on where the client wants to go in the future. Otherwise, how would we know when we’re achieving that client’s goals?
In my eyes, the main difference between counseling and coaching is one of scope. Clients who need to build skills, confidence, organization, and endurance in a specific area, in a laser-focused way are great coaching candidates. They might have wounds that have produced blocks to success, but those wounds are not getting in the way of sleeping, eating, leaving their homes, or participating in normal daily activities.
Coaching clients are, at baseline, okay and want to level up in some aspect of their lives. If they need help for past trauma or mental health challenges, they have worked or are currently working with a qualified, licensed professional to get that support.
Also, clients don’t need to choose between therapy and coaching. Both can get you where you want to go.
Therapists and coaches work in tandem with the same client in different areas of that client’s life all the time. As a therapist, I have partnered with many spectacular coaches who were working with my clients on launching a business, career reinvention, parenting, public speaking, or some other niche area.
No coach without an actual degree in mental health should be working with you on trauma and/or the diagnosis and treatment of mental health disorders. Period. Full stop.
I know that some of those boss babes in the wide-brimmed hats are going to come for me. (Bring it.) Life experience and a passion for a particular topic are NOT the same thing as years of formal education, familiarity with academic peer-reviewed research, and the legal and ethical responsibilities of getting and maintaining a clinical license. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.