For Executive Coaches
A referral resource for coaches whose clients’ professional performance is being affected by a recurring pattern of conflict at home.
If you coach executives, you have likely seen this pattern. A client is sharp, self-aware, and doing serious work — and yet their effectiveness is being quietly limited by a recurring pattern of conflict at home.
The issue may surface directly, or it may remain in the background — consuming attention, depleting resilience, and subtly affecting judgment, decision-making, and leadership presence.
A Focused Referral Option
The Conflict Pattern Reset is a structured, six-week intervention designed to remove that specific obstacle. It works directly with the recurring interaction pattern — the sequence of trigger, reaction, and protective response that keeps reasserting itself despite genuine effort to change it.
The Reset is delivered by Stephen Day — thirty years as a psychotherapist and a decade as an International Coaching Federation–credentialed coach.
What the Work Does
The Reset works with both partners, by Zoom, over six sessions. It focuses on the interaction pattern itself: what activates it, what sustains it, and where a well-placed intervention can restore the capacity for a different response. The goal is to return choice and flexibility to the moments when both tend to disappear.
For your client, the immediate effect is often a reduction in the ambient stress that relational conflict generates. Decisions that were being made under emotional strain begin to feel clearer. Attention that was being quietly consumed becomes available again. Coaches who have referred clients to the Reset often observe this directly: the client returns to the work more present, less defended, and with greater access to the judgment that the conflict was quietly eroding.
The work is not therapy. It is structured, practical, and time-limited, with a defined scope and a defined endpoint.
When a Referral Makes Sense
This tends to be a good fit when:
- the client’s performance is being affected by ongoing conflict at home
- the pattern is known but not resolving
- attention and energy are being diverted from leadership work
- both partners are willing to engage
How It Complements Your Work
The Reset runs in parallel with your coaching engagement. It does not require you to alter your focus, coordinate care, or maintain ongoing involvement unless you choose to. Your coaching relationship remains entirely your own.
For coaches retained by organizations, discretion is a practical concern.
I work with a maximum of eight couples at any given time and treat every referral with the same professional care I would expect for my own clients.
You are making a resource available, not directing a course of action. Whether a client chooses to explore it is entirely their decision.
Background
I hold a graduate degree from Yale University and spent thirty years as a psychotherapist in private practice, with post-graduate training at two psychotherapy institutes.
That work included extended consulting with executives and leadership teams, where I observed the same dynamic this process addresses: capable people losing access to their best judgment under sustained relational pressure.
I subsequently completed coach training at iPEC and hold a Certified Professional Coach designation recognized by the International Coaching Federation. I understand the standards and boundaries of coaching practice, and I understand that a referral reflects on the colleague who makes it.
Making a Referral
If you would like to consult before referring — to discuss a specific client situation, ask questions about scope or fit, or simply get a clearer sense of how the work operates — I welcome that conversation. It is a professional exchange between colleagues and carries no obligation.
If you are ready to refer directly, the resources below are designed to make that as straightforward as possible.
Resources
Direct link to the Conflict Pattern Reset page
A single page where both partners can review the work in full and request an initial conversation. This is the most direct referral path for clients who are ready to explore the option.
Optional: message text for referring a client
If helpful, you may use or adapt the following when introducing this resource to a client:
I’d like to suggest a focused, short-term resource that may be useful. A colleague of mine, Stephen Day, offers a structured six-week process for couples dealing with a recurring conflict pattern — one that keeps running despite good intentions and genuine effort to resolve it.
It’s a contained, practical intervention, not open-ended therapy, and it’s designed to run alongside other work rather than replace it. If that sounds relevant, you can find a full description at [link]. There’s no commitment in taking a look.
These resources are provided for convenience. There is no formal referral process and no obligation.
