The two overlap in language and sometimes in practitioner. They are not the same service, and the difference matters — for what you can expect, and for what protects you.
High Signal Coaching is a professional coaching service operated by High Signal LLC. This page explains what that means, where coaching ends and clinical care begins, and how the coaching relationship differs from a therapeutic one.
High Signal Coaching offers executive-function coaching for neurodivergent adults, informed by the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model. The work is practical and forward-looking: mapping the cycles that drive burnout, building scaffolding that fits your nervous system, and working with the parts of you that run the show rather than against them.
Coaching is a working relationship between two capable adults. It assumes you are well enough to do this kind of work and to lead your own life while you do it.
Coaching is not therapy, counseling, or clinical treatment. It does not diagnose or treat any mental health or medical condition. It is not a substitute for psychotherapy, psychiatric care, or medication management. Nothing on this site or in a coaching session constitutes clinical, medical, or legal advice.
The IFS-informed language used in coaching — parts, protectors, Self-leadership — stays at the level of awareness and everyday functioning. Coaching does not include trauma reprocessing, exile or unburdening work, or the treatment of clinical conditions. When something in that deeper territory shows up, the honest move is to name it and point toward therapy — not to keep working the coaching frame past where it belongs.
High Signal Coaching is led by Matthew Simpson, who is also a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) in Washington State and IFS Level 1 Trained. Those clinical credentials inform the quality of the coaching, but they do not change what the coaching is. In a coaching engagement, he is acting as your coach — not as your therapist.
Licensed clinical services are offered separately, under a separate entity, through Matthew Simpson Counseling (Sound Connections PLLC). Coaching and therapy are kept distinct on purpose. As a rule, the same person cannot serve you as both coach and therapist at the same time; if therapy is what you need, coaching is not a workaround for it, and you would be referred accordingly.
Coaching does not carry the same legal protections as licensed therapy. The therapist–client privilege and the specific confidentiality rules that govern clinical care — including HIPAA — apply to the counseling practice, not to coaching. High Signal Coaching handles your information with care and discretion, but a coaching relationship is not a protected clinical relationship, and you should not treat it as one.
Coaching is not crisis support and is not monitored for emergencies.
If you are in immediate danger, call 911 (or your local emergency number).
If you are in the U.S. and struggling, call or text 988 — the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline — available 24/7.
You can also reach out to a licensed mental health professional or your nearest emergency room.
Coaching outcomes depend on many things, most of them yours: your circumstances, your effort, and your readiness. High Signal Coaching makes no guarantee of any specific result. You remain responsible for your own decisions and actions.
By engaging High Signal Coaching, you acknowledge that you have read this page, that you understand coaching is not therapy or clinical treatment, and that you are entering a coaching relationship on that basis.