People constantly mistake coaches for therapy. As a therapist people have asked me to ‘give me tasks, assignments or things to do to improve’ or ‘I want to work towards a target, I need a goal’. Well whilst therapy and coaching are different, they complement each other and can sometimes overlap or even be misunderstood especially if the therapeutic modality is one that provides tasks and take-home assignments tailored to improve presenting symptoms. Therapy explores past experiences that obstruct your present livelihood so that you begin to understand these past experiences and how they are now showing up. Sometimes internalising and concealing these experiences worsen the situation when new events trigger the memory such that it becomes a necessity that attention be given to them so that you acknowledge them and learn other ways to move on with live having given them the attention required and made sense of the experiences. Therapy is concerned with emotions, feelings, and healing from past psychological wounds for closure.
Woman visiting psychologist’s office. The patient sitting in an armchair and talking to a psychiatrist. Vector illustration for therapy session, psychotherapy counseling concept
Coaching on the other hand is not concerned with the past but the future. You may examine how your past have impacted you in coaching but will not dwell in it because it is focused on how to move you from where you are now to where you want to be making use of your strengths, skills, knowledge and building on them.
Coaching is collaborative work between a coach and the coachee to develop and establish the bigger goal as desired by the coachee. There is no diagnostic work in coaching relationship, but a referral would be made when the need is identified and communicated to the coachee. Many therapists and coaches provide joint client-focused work, for some people, this is an ideal situation, but for others, coaching or therapy alone might be their need. This will be discussed and decided once the need presents so that the most beneficial for your need is chosen either therapy, coaching, or a combination of the two.
If you would like to discuss how I can help you in your friendships, contact me today
