Therapist or Life Coach?
I haven’t really asked any therapists how they feel about life coaches but I’ve felt some things from some. My first experience with a therapist about coaches was with my first coach who had been a therapist for 15 years. I don’t know if she ever told me what prompted her to change hats but certainly she had no “issues” around coaches. However I have run into a couple of therapists whose questions and comments and my reading between the lines and experiencing their tenseness, leads me to believe that some therapists have issues around the profession of life coaching.
The issue I’m referring to is the one that feels something like “I went to a zillion years of school, spent 3000 hours being supervised and you just call yourself a life coach and hang out your sign. It feels like you are stepping on my toes.” And I don’t blame any therapist who feels that way. If I had done what they had done, I’d probably feel the same way or at least have to reign in my judgments very tightly not to feel that way.
And what’s the difference between a therapist and a life coach anyway? Well, I can only speak for me but I’d say therapy is often about working to heal past trauma by going into it deeply. The results of therapy are often and, hopefully, profound.
Sometimes, maybe often, life coaching has similar results but is most often based more on doing things – like changing careers or improving your relationships or improving your work performance. It tends to be more about going forward rather than backward. The results of any improvement are therapeutic to your self esteem.
I will say this. If you came to me for coaching and wanted (or needed) therapy, I’d know it – and would be able to support
you in knowing it too.
I’m going to contact some therapists and ask them to comment.
After I wrote this I had a long conversation with a fabulous woman who is a therapist. She loves life coaching and life coaches so much that she has started an association so that potential clients can get a feel for and get to know possible coaches before they even contact them and so that coaches and mental health professionals have a place to connect and support each other. It is called Online Organization of Coaching Associates . The mission stated is: The OOCA is a grassroots associative organization dedicated to bringing unity to both online and community professional personal coaches and expert mentor professionals by way of information, education, and supportive services, not only amongst professional coaches; but also, with the clients that utilize their services.
So either things are changing as they tend to do, or I ran into a really unusual therapist in Angela D.
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January 7, 2012 | Tags: life coaching, self esteem, Therapy
Category: so you want to be a life coach
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One of the readers of this blog did an interview with her husband about this very thing. She is a coach and he is a therapist. Here’s the link: http://www.shrinkrapradio.com/2007/08/17/106-psychology-and-the-coaching-movement/
Good Morning Maia –
This is a good question and allows for an opportunity to address some potential confusion about the activity of psychotherapy and the activity of coaching. I am simultaneously a psychologist who practices clinical psychology via psychotherapy. People who do psychotherapy are diagnosing and treating mental health problems. There may be psychotherapists who do “growth” therapy but if they are billing insurance they must provide a legitimate and professionally determined diagnosis of a mental health problem. My specialties are anxieties disorders, particularly Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Panic Disorder. My work as a personal life coach has similarities but the goal is very different. As a coach, my goal is to help people who are basically mentally healthy to find their passion and to help them to plan and take deliberate steps to get there. I am not treating an illness in my role as coach. Because it is so important to me that I keep these disciplines separate, I have a separate business that in no way overlaps my psychotherapy practice. In my professional disclosure to coaching clients, I make very clear that I am not treating them for any mental health problem and that if they have a mental health problem that may be in the way of their progress, I will refer that client to a licensed mental health professional.
Yes, I completed “a zillion years” (actually 6) of graduate school and training to become a psychologist and I don’t regret it one bit. Much of what I learned in my training underpins my work as a coach. I have also completed nearly 50 hours of coach training at an accredited school (Institute for Life Coach Training). But the goals of coaching are very different from the goals of a psychotherapist.
As you know, there are accredited coach training programs and I strongly believe that coaches should obtain education and eventually an appropriate certification for their practice, just as I did for professional psychology.
I don’t see the rub.
Thanks for bringing this up. Perhaps others have different opinions.
Regards– Rob Keith
Thanks for everything, I will search for your articles self esteem. I am so glad that I met a kindred spirit. You are a joy to talk to.
I am starting a psychotherapy practice and am considering labeling it as therapy and life coaching. I see a benefit in having a bit of both, not separating the two. I had no idea I had such a “life coach” therapy style until I started to read about coaching. I don’t want to change what I do, but I do want to relabel it to make it more accessible to more people, people who don’t see themselves as sick. I’m not planning on working with insurance panels anyway. What do you all think?