“What’s the difference between coaching and therapy?”
This is one of the most common questions people ask me about coaching. And it’s not that easy to answer.
People come to coaches and therapists for some of the same reasons — they want to change something in their lives. Sometimes those are even some of the same things — dissatisfaction with relationships or work, a sense that there is something else out there that might make you happier, repeating patterns that aren’t getting you what you want, support for living with grief or health issues.
And the role of coaches and therapists isn’t really that different: we both create a non-judgemental, accepting space for you to explore the thing you want to change. We help you find new ways to think about or interpret the things that feel stuck. We provide a safe place to be with the things that are hard to talk about or feel. We encourage you to name and be comfortable with new feelings or ideas. We help unravel and clarify situations that feel tangled or overwhelming.
So what’s the difference?
From my vantage point — and I don’t speak for all coaches and I certainly don’t speak for all therapists — there are a few key differences.
One of the differences is the role of your past in the relationship. Both coaches and therapists encourage clients to identify how the patterns of their past are showing up now, and causing unhappiness or stuckness — but coaches are less likely to explore why a pattern exists, or the circumstances that caused it. This doesn’t mean you won’t talk about your parents or your childhood — one of my clients recently said “I had no idea how much your family of origin affects how you behave at work.” But the focus in coaching is more on how that pattern is showing up today, and how to look forward and start to move into the life you want to live. In other words, coaching helps you move out of a stuck place — and, there still might be a need to heal from past traumas in a way more suited to therapy. For some of my clients, coaching is a great adjunct to therapy — they work to understand long-entrenched patterns with their therapists, and on moving toward their desired future in coaching.
This sense of looking forward is the central unique feature of coaching. While both therapy and coaching support you to learn more about yourself and what you want, coaching is designed to “forward the action.” This action might “look” small from the outside — writing one sentence a day or meditating to gain more ability to be with a deep loss — or it might be a big, transformative change, like starting a business, starting a podcast, writing a book or taking a courageous stand on a topic you care deeply about. Coaching is about helping you stay in the learning place long enough to know what really matters, to feel confident, and to really identify what you want — whether that’s new work or a new way of being — and then coaching supports you to make concrete changes that help you move toward that.
There aren’t super rigid lines between coaching and therapy — they are both aimed at helping people find their most functioning, creative, flourishing selves. On any given day, a coach or therapist might ask you the same questions. Both can be utterly transformative But coaching is about learning to train your gaze on what you want to create for yourself — and then supporting you to move toward it. A good coach will know when to suggest a therapist might be helpful for a client — and a good therapist will also know when a coach is a helpful choice.
