Some Essential Differences
This is how ICF outlines the differences:
Coaching can be distinguished from therapy in a number of ways. First, coaching is a profession that supports personal and professional growth and development based on individual-initiated change in pursuit of specific actionable outcomes. These outcomes are linked to personal or professional success. Coaching is forward moving and future focused. Therapy, on the other hand, deals with healing pain, dysfunction and conflict within an individual or a relationship between two or more individuals. The focus is often on resolving difficulties arising from the past which hamper an individual’s emotional functioning in the present, improving overall psychological functioning, and dealing with present life and work circumstances in more emotionally healthy ways. Therapy outcomes often include improved emotional/feeling states. While positive feelings/emotions may be a natural outcome of coaching, the primary focus is on creating actionable strategies for achieving specific goals in one’s work or personal life. The emphasis in a coaching relationship is on action, accountability and follow through. [Source: ICF website: www.coachfederation.com ]
Counselling is by nature a mode of “treatment,” involving the application of therapeutic techniques and remedies to relieve problems related to a disorder, as well as to deal with problems of daily living. Many countries require that a therapist earns an advanced degree in a formal training program, and must pass a licensing exam in their state.
Coaching is more in the realm of an educational process as opposed to a treatment process. Coaching is based more on a holistic or “wellness” model, intended to improve daily functioning and well-being for individuals without significant psychological impairment.
Collaboration between coaching and counselling practitioners
There are instances when it is in the client’s best interests for a coach to refer the client for therapy, and for a counsellor to refer the client for coaching, and for coach and counsellor to both work with the client in a collaborative and cooperative manner. A coach will usually refer a client for therapy if the client is experiencing significant emotional problems related to depression, anxiety disorders, issues of abuse or trauma, personality disorders, angry or violent outbursts, rapid mood swings, addictions, and other such problems. Counselling may also be indicated during periods when outside life factors interfere with the client’s ability to function and more psychological support is needed, for example during a divorce, separation, death in the family, serious illness, and so on.
A counsellor might consider referring a client to a coach for a number of reasons. When a client has difficulty following through on the goals set in counselling and the problem is not getting resolved in counselling, a coach can help therapy be more productive. The coach is able to provide more frequent contact with the client, set up more structure in the client’s life to help address the therapeutic goals, and improve follow-through. Coaching can also be very helpful when the client needs to learn specific skills such as creating time lines, setting up more structures, and can benefit from the increased accountability that comes from frequent coach-client contacts. When a coach and counsellor are both working with a client they need to maintain regular contact to monitor progress and ongoing problems. They must also work together to keep the boundaries clear, making sure that coaching issues are handled by the coach, and therapy issues by the therapist.
Some counsellors have incorporated limited coaching techniques into their practice to better help their clients. Some example might be to keep lists of issues to be worked on, give written homework assignments, and ask the client to check in during the week to report on progress and follow-through. It is more common for counsellors to go into the coaching realm or use coaching tools.
While coaches are not qualified, nor can legally adopt the role of a counsellor, they do use some of the techniques to dig deeper into the feeling level of their clients to help their clients to discover their limiting beliefs which are often hidden deep in their unconscious.
Summary and Conclusion
Counselling targets to heal anger, depression, anxiety, fear etc., and coaching is said to be more future oriented, but can we motivate a person to move towards his goals if he is still not come out of anger, depression, anxiety and fear? There is a space where skills and techniques from both these disciplines can be combined to help the client.
Coaches perhaps will be required to have training in assessment for depression, suicide, abuse, and even grief counseling so they know both when to appropriately refer clients for therapy and what to do in order to avoid risking lawsuits.
It is important for the coaches to understand and guided by the fact that the emotions the client is feeling are normal, reasonable, and appropriate.
The coach needs to keep in mind that strong emotional reactions to traumatic events are normal and natural. A client may need other services, but the coach can still be an effective coach. The coach is still important in the client’s lives
The need for a coach to know the importance of referrals is given. The coach should help the client on how to get the help he or she needs. When the client needs therapy the coach helps with identifying the need and strategising about how to meet that need. This doesn’t differ significantly from what a coach does in times of usual coaching. Through “powerful questioning,” the coach helps the client to identify the outside help needed and how to ask for that help. Whether it’s a business goals or a life trauma, the method is the same:
What do you need, and how can you get it?
For individuals with significant emotional or psychological disorders, coaching has limited benefit, and may be sometimes inappropriate. If those problems are evident at the start of coaching, or develop later on during the coaching process, the coach will refer the client to a therapist. This requires that a well trained coach has a general knowledge of psychopathology and is able to recognize when he or she is faced with a problem for which coaching is not appropriate. A close working relationship with a therapist helps to clarify diagnostic issues.
Bibliography
Adler, A. (1998). Understanding human nature (C. Brett, Trans.). Center City, MN: Hazelden
Feitham, C. and Dryden, W. (1993) Dictionary of Counselling. London, : Whurr
Gladding, S.T. ( 2004). Counseling: A Comprehensive Profession (5th edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hall.
Frankl, V. E. (1959). Man’s search for meaning. New York: Pocket.
Whitmore, J. (1995). Coaching for performance. Sonoma, CA: Nicholas Brealey.
Patrick Williams (2007) : Therapist as Life Coach: Transforming Your Practice (2nd Edition )
Maslow, A. (1954). Motivation and personality. New York: Harper.
Gerard O’Donovan & Curly Martin,(2007) The Thirty Minute Life Coach, The Coaching Academy UK Ltd. Whitworth, Kimsy-House, Kimsey-House, & Sandahl,
Websites
ICF website: www.coachfederation.com
Inspiring coaching: http://www.inspirecoaching.co.uk