The Group Telecoaching Program is a comprehensive experience that provides you with the skills, tools and strategies to help you stop overshopping.
This powerful 12-week coaching group offers a time-tested combination of peer support, encouragement and feedback, under the guidance of a specially trained and recognized expert in this problem, to help you conquer the urge to overshop. The presence and support of others who share your challenge helps to transform isolation to hope, and offers the encouragement each group member needs to stay motivated and create healthy change. Group coaching also helps break through the wall of denial of this self-destructive behavior, leading to awareness and positive action rather than avoidance.
The group fosters hope: members share triumphs and disappointments and grow from both.
April Lane Benson, Ph.D. and Marcela Torres-Noguera, LMSW will co-lead the group.
Format, Dates, and Time:
Each session is a 75 minute group telephone call and are scheduled for Tuesdays, beginning September 20th, 2016. All sessions will be recorded so that if you need to miss one, you’ll have access to the playback.
All sessions begin at 7 p.m., Eastern
Structure:
This interactive, focused, and supportive group is a weave of new knowledge and new experiences. Each meeting you’ll be getting new material to work with and learn from. You’ll also be setting a personal goal. You may be pleasantly surprised to find out how much you’re actually enjoying these supportive assignments and setting your goals!
In preparation for each session, you’ll be reading specific materials and completing important written exercises. You’ll need to set aside about 30-45 minutes a day in a quiet place to make the most of them. If you can’t commit to taking the time to doing the reading and the written work, it’s better to wait to join the group until you have the time you need to devote to it.
During each call, we’ll begin with a check-in from each group member so that the whole group has a sense of where each member is in his or her process. We’ll discuss the reading and the exercises so that you’ll reinforce what you’ve learned and be able to apply it to the critical moment. We’ll encourage you to share both your difficulties and your successes, to give your journey of self-discovery a forward thrust and allow others in the group to benefit. Then, your group coach will introduce the new material for the next session that you’re going to receive so you’re prepared to get the most out of it and to take your next steps. At the end of the session, you’ll set a personal goal to work on until the next session as a way of staying focused on the prize of stopping overshopping.
The course fee is $1250 and includes the 12 sessions, one copy of To Buy or Not to Buy: Why We Overshop and How to Stop and one copy of the Shopping Journals. If you already own the book, use coupon code “book.” If you already own book and the Journals, use coupon code “bookjournals.” Your course fee will be adjusted accordingly. You must press the “apply” button in order for the discount to take effect. There is a 10% discount for paying in full at registration; the discounted fee for one pay is $1125. There is a 2-pay option, $650 at registration and $600 billed after the fourth session.
Registration will close on September 19th at 9am.
Our evidence-based* 12-week coaching telegroup has made a huge difference for a wide variety of overshoppers whose buying habits came in many shapes and sizes.
Here’s what two of our former group members had to say:
Several years of daily internet shopping had me feeling distressed and out of control. Finding April and completing her telephone support group quickly got me off the hook. The systematic and comprehensive approach really “gets” the overshopping compulsion. It also—and very helpfully—tracks the stages in the struggle to overcome that compulsion. The writing and exercises addressed my habit at every level: emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual. Six months later, I feel in control on the internet. At last, I’ve developed a happy and healthy relation to shopping.
J. E., Los Angeles
The group has been very helpful to me in many ways. The first was the opportunity to share my experience with all of you and not feel judged in any way. I have been ashamed to admit my overshopping problem to myself let alone anyone else. Even my therapist didn’t understand when I tried to explain to her. The group has helped me with specific strategies to overcome my behavior and I now find myself more mindful when I do shop. I have learned the reasons why I got started in the first place and how I could change my life. For me to have accomplished this during the Christmas season was more than I could have hoped for. I feel like I have turned the corner in becoming the type of person I want to be. It is not always easy, but I feel like there is hope again.
J. F., Virginia
This group can work for you, too.
April Lane Benson, Ph.D. and Marcela Torres-Noguera, LCSW will co-lead the group, which is limited to eight members so that each one of you can get the personal attention you need. This coaching telegroup is an excellent way to jump-start your journey to stopping overshopping.
Course Fee:
Once you’ve registered for the group, you will receive the links to the intake forms; a short Personal History Questionnaire, two brief compulsive buying assessments, a 2-week purchasing recall and a Memorandum of Understanding. When you’ve completed them and submitted them, one of us will contact you to set up a 15-minute individual intake telephone call.
This 12-session telecoaching group is now closed. Please fill out the form here if you would like to be notified when we do our next seminar.
*The results of a randomized controlled trial of this model have been published in a peer reviewed journal.
Benson, A.L., Eisenach, D., Abrams, L. & van Stolk-Cooke, K. ). “Stopping Overshopping: A preliminary randomized controlled trial of group therapy for compulsive buying disorder” in Journal of Groups in Addiction and Recovery, (Vol. 9, Number 1, 2014).