While both professions can help you get to a better place than where you started, therapists are trained to treat mental illness or other major emotional and relational problems, while coaches seek to help you improve performance in a specific area. Therapy: What's the difference? There are some great. Trainers are certified, therapists are licensed. Therapists manage mental illnesses and diagnoses, coaches don't.
Coaches work with clients for short periods of time. Therapists can work with clients for extended periods. Often, therapists focus on the past and present, while coaches are future-oriented. First, let's look at coaching and therapy to discuss their differences and similarities, and then let's explore how they can converge to help provide maximum benefit to a client.
The main difference between a therapist and a coach is that, in general, therapists tend to focus more on the past or the present, while coaches tend to focus more on the present and the future. Therapists tend to focus more on cognitions, while coaches tend to focus more on behaviors. Of course, cognitions and behaviors are extremely intertwined, and as such, therapists and coaches often converge in their respective practices. Psychotherapy is more traditionally offered face to face in an office, while coaching is often done over the phone or online.
Still, some psychotherapists offer services over the phone or online, and some coaches have offices where they serve clients. Some coaches choose to meet with clients in a public setting, which is rarer in the case of psychotherapists. Working with a coach who has completed the required education, training, and standards that a therapist, master's or doctorate level doctor would have helps clients feel confident that they are in qualified hands. Despite the lack of a board of directors in the field of coaching, many coaches provide excellent services and some originally practiced as psychotherapists.
Coaches (including therapists who practice coaching) will be absolutely interested to know what their clients' “source material” is and will want to know what life experiences have led you to where you are. In this session, clients and therapists have the opportunity to get to know each other better and evaluate if there is an adjustment. While therapists are trained mental health professionals who are in the regulated field of health care and require a license, life coaches have no mental health training and are not equipped to diagnose or treat mental health conditions (unless a life coach has previously received training as a therapist, which is also common). Therapists, on the other hand, tend to work with clients for longer periods of time than life coaches.
And if you have goals that you want to work on in therapy, they're probably different from the goals you'd identify with a life coach. Here are five differences between coaching and psychotherapy to help you decide who might be best suited to help you on your journey. In reality, the differences between two psychotherapists or two coaches can be greater than the difference between a coach and a psychotherapist, depending on who they are. One of the differences between life coaches and therapists is that therapists can only serve clients who live in the state in which they are licensed.
While therapists must follow appropriate ethical guidelines established by their respective licensing boards, coaches do not. That said, many coaches should be able to help you understand how the past contributes to your present, and psychotherapists can help you achieve your future goals. It's important to understand the difference between life coaching and therapy to know what services you need. Finally, keep in mind that all coaches have different training philosophies and this will guide your association, so be sure to select a coach whose approach is right for you.
Therapists help clients look at their figurative past to overcome deep-seated problems, while life coaches are there to help you take advantage of today's starting point to succeed tomorrow. .
