Do I Need a Coach or a Therapist? What’s the difference?
You will often hear the distinction between coaching and therapy made along these general lines - therapy is focused on your past and coaching is focused on your future. While that sounds simple, and is not necessarily incorrect, the distinction is the subject of many different points of view and some debate. Before we go on let’s just state for the record that therapists are licensed clinicians and coaches are not clinicians nor are they licensed. (yet). The way I like to think about it is that there’s some overlap and coaches and therapists are both here to make clients lives better. The choice as to whether one goes with a coach or a therapist comes down to an individual’s unique needs and what serves them best at the time. Sometimes the answer is both. We should all be so fortunate to have a team around us, supporting us in life. Whether or not you have a coach and/or a therapist, the most important thing is that you have a great one that you can build as strong relationship with. I plan to write more on different aspects of this subject but here’s a great p.o.v. written by Michael Bader, D.M.H., psychologist and psychoanalyst…
