Coaching and Therapy: What’s the Difference?

My aim is to help you get from stuck and stressed into being able to deal fluidly with your life.

That doesn’t mean never having problems. It means being able to deal with them when they come up.  I do that in three main ways.

  • Resolving difficult emotions and patterns left over from the past. Often there are emotions and beliefs we picked up along the way that are keeping you stuck now.
  • Helping you get clear, connect with your deeper desires, take on new challenges, feel more balanced, and flourish generally.

Very roughly speaking you might say therapy is about resolving problems from the past.

Coaching tends to be about getting clear about the next steps, possibly exploring new possibilities, for the future.

For me, all change is about letting go of patterns you’ve inherited from your past and then putting those changes into practice in your future.

So I don’t make a big deal about the distinction. Almost all sessions with me include a combination of both. Reducing the ‘drag’ from the past. And helping you be clear where you want to steer in the future.

If you wanted to walk to a new place with a big sack of rocks on your back, you could struggle on under the burden and potentially get lost along highways and byways along the way.

There are two ways to make it easier, though. First to put down the bag. Then, relieved of that burden, to get clear about where you’re going so you can see where you’re going. And finally, to walk that path, checking along the way.

Very roughly, you might say therapy is about putting down the bag.

Coaching is about getting clear where you’re going and checking in along the way while you walk it.

The integrated changework I do usually involves both.

You can find out more about individual sessions here.

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