Coaching v therapy
A frequently asked question is: What is the difference between coaching and psychotherapy? The most generic answer to this question is that “therapy focuses on the past while coaching focuses on the present and future”. However, there are psychotherapeutic approaches (cognitive behavioural therapy, for example) that don't encourage clients to dwell on the past — and forms of coaching that allow for deeper self-exploration.
In a previous article, I described existential coaching as the ultimate grey area between coaching and therapy. This blurred border seems to cause some unease to those who like to believe that there is a definite boundary between the two fields. In reality, there is a large crossover. Schools across the world offer training in therapeutic coaching and a growing number of therapists and psychologists are choosing to train in coaching.
An assumption often made about coaching is that it is more directive than therapy. Yet, the opposite is true: trainee coaches are told ad nauseam they mustn't express personal opinion or offer any advice to their clients; whereas therapists and psychologists can be much more prescriptive in their approach.
In essence, life coaching and psychotherapy have much more in common than what sets them apart: they both provide a safe space for self-reflection with the aim of helping clients move forward in life and increase their emotional resilience. In short, their shared goal is to make people happier!
The most significant difference is that coaches are not trained to work with serious mental health issues, such as psychoses or personality disorders. Therefore, therapy can involve recovery from a state of dysfunction to one of being functional; whereas coaching is much more about helping healthy people achieve their full potential.
However, not all therapy clients are ill; many highly functioning individuals seek psychotherapy in order to increase self-awareness and personal growth. At the same time, coaching clients aren’t always in a healthy state of mind. As Mark Twain stated, “Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to one another; it will unriddle many riddles." !
Psychotherapists choose to train in coaching often as a result of feeling frustrated with the limitations of traditional psychology — which, for example, tends to overlook the mind-body connection — and also because many organisations nowadays are more likely to hire a coach than a therapist, as coaching is widely perceived to be more effective at generating paradigm shifts and personal transformation.
While coaching (as we know it) will hopefully never replace therapy altogether, it is a much-needed evolutionary step in the helping professions; and in the future, like it or not, the boundary between the two areas is likely to become even more blurred.