Life Performance Coaching
“Group coaching with Randy and Helen has changed my life. I started weekly therapy in early 2018, looking for help with daily anxiety, an eating disorder and a fear of falling into another depression. Working with them and our group, I learned the power of not trying to live my life alone, keeping my worries and decisions in my head, but rather how to create my life with others rather than ‘doing’ something to make my shame and worries go away. It has not just softened the edges of my pain, it has made me feel more powerful and more free. And the group has connected me to a community that I love deeply.”
— Sarah, 30, writer, Los Angeles, CA
“Joyce and Randy are an amazing co-coaching partnership! My partner and I have gotten closer, are more playful and loving thanks to our work with Joyce and Randy in their partner group series. It is so powerful to participate in building a group with other partners that is not about fixing problems in the relationship! Joyce and Randy are so skilled at helping us broaden our views and getting out our own couple narratives.”
— Jennifer Bullock, 52, psychotherapist, Philadelphia, PA
“I am so glad that I was referred to work with Randy Wilson at Life Performance Coaching. Working with Randy in group, individuals, and partners’ groups has helped me challenge my assumptions around emotionality and explore new performances all while furthering my emotional development. I owe so much of my social and emotional development to Randy and LPC and I hope to continue working with them to build the social therapeutics community.”
— William, 26, MD/PhD Graduate Student, Columbia University, New York, NY
Director
Joyce Dattner is a life performance coach who has led groups and practiced social therapeutics for over 40 years. Joyce directs Life Performance Coaching and leads virtual social therapeutic coaching groups from coast to coast. While a NYC public school teacher in the 1970s, she joined East Side Institute founder Fred Newman and other educators and helping professionals in developing social therapeutics. A faculty member of the Institute’s Social Therapy and Emotional Development Department, Joyce is an accomplished teacher and facilitator who has travelled the globe to help advance social therapeutics. She is founding director of the All Stars Project (ASP) of the San Francisco/Bay Area and a former member of the ASP national board.
Staff
Helen Abel is a life performance coach who has practiced, and helped develop, the social therapeutic approach to human development. She co-leads short term groups on “Creating New Performances of Growing Older” , which is open to everyone interested in transforming the aging experience from loss, fear and stigma to joy and growth. She loves to help people of all ages create new ways of dealing with the challenges of everyday living and believes she can most effectively help people develop by supporting them to use their capacity to create, perform, and play. She has been instrumental in building LPC as a hub for performance activism and has led workshops in London, Greece, Serbia and the US.
Thecla Farrell is a long-term practitioner of the social therapeutic method with a deep commitment to human growth and development. A seasoned political and avant-garde theatre builder, Thecla has also been an influential youth development leader and corporate contributor. As a graduate of the East Side Institute’s study program for group leaders, Thecla brings a wealth of experience and a unique perspective to her work.
She co-leads transformative group sessions at Life Performance Coaching alongside Joyce Dattner, Fanny Suarez, and Randy Wilson, creating spaces where individuals thrive in a supportive, growth-focused environment. The art of co-creating an environment with clients for growth and development excites her to tears. Having dedicated her life to human development and community building, Thecla is passionate about helping people navigate through ordinary and tough moments in their lives.
A true advocate for development, Thecla believes that coaching should be available to anyone who seeks it, empowering them to create new choices. Through her work, she fosters environments where growth, self-awareness, and transformation are possible.
Fanny Suárez was born in Colombia and raised in New York City. She moved to San Francisco in 1991, where her lifelong criminal justice career began. Fanny’s passion for creating new opportunities for ordinary people has always guided her work. For 16 years, she worked as a court interpreter at the San Francisco Superior Court. During this time, Fanny fought for language access and exposed the injustices faced by limited-English proficient communities. Today, Fanny works as an investigator in the San Francisco Public Defender Office, telling the complex stories of those trapped in the criminal (in)justice system.For the past 22 years, Fanny has been building social therapeutics as a group member, trainee at the East Side Institute, and newest member of the Performance Life Coaching team. She is excited to continue building a collective life and growing the community.
Randy Wilson (they/them/theirs) is an experienced life coach trained in social therapeutics who excels at creating intimate and philosophical environments that are both loving and challenging. Having lived with HIV – and faced other serious challenges – over the last four decades, Randy is passionate about helping clients become more creative choice makers and believes that participating in building communities of development helps to reshape and redefine their relationship to emotional and physical pain.