What Is The Difference Between Coaching & Psychotherapy?
As one of those individuals who has been blessed to have achieved a credentialed status in both disciplines/vocations, I (Claire) find this question an important one to answer. Distinguishing between the two “hats” best begins with the similarities: good listening, questions, an attunement to the circumstances of the client, and a desire to “help”, to be a positive and empowering presence in the client’s life.
The differences are significant. A coach listens for possibilities, undiscovered opportunities for greater client self-understanding, a potential change in frame or the lens through which the client is looking. A coach pays very careful attention to the timing of questions, and to the deep power questions have to open insight, when language is artfully used.
A coach asks questions that veer towards the internal landscape of the client only to support identifying beliefs, thoughts or perceptions that are holding them back. We call these limiting beliefs. Once named, these messages that the client(s) give(s) themselves can lose their power, opening new options where none seemed to exist. This co-partnering work has been described as building the architecture for new possibilities, dreams, actions, awareness, and insight. The client determines the focus, the measures of success, the relationships, resources, and timelines that will help them achieve their goals.
In contrast, a therapist focuses on the client’s internal journey, childhood experiences & relationships, and the meanings made of emotional legacies. One might call this work family systems archaeology. In psychotherapy the clinician asks questions designed to help the client explore their past to disempower it from making future relationship or behavioral choices that repeat toxic or damaging patterns. The psychotherapist guides the process and has been trained to make meaning out of what they mine from the client’s reflections for the client, using methodologies that may vary, clinician to clinician. Goals, measurements, and outcomes are the clinician’s to name for the client, who then works with the clinician to achieve those goals.
Indeed, there are places where coaching can walk right up the to edge of psychotherapy. A great deal of time and attention is given in professional coach training to help the coach know when, under what circumstances and to whom they refer if this line presents an impediment to the coaching work. Many people choose to have both a coach and a therapist, paying attention to both the archaeology and the architecture of living a healthy, productive life.
