There are links between therapies and life coaching, but they are not based on working styles, methodologies, techniques, or tools: they are based on cause and effect. Even if they can intervene, life coaches should always refer clients suspected of requiring therapeutic assistance to fully trained and qualified professionals. The client’s agendas for life coaching and therapy are very different. There is no officially recognized body for professionally qualified life coaches in the United Kingdom. An overview of the procedures that are sometimes mistakenly confused with coaching is required to distinguish between coaching, counselling, and treatment.
Counselling, physiotherapy, psychotherapy, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), hypnotherapy, and psychiatry are common examples. Take, for example, physiotherapy and coaching. At first glance, there appears to be no apparent link between them, though using one may lead to using the other. According to Chambers’s Twentieth Century Dictionary, physiotherapy is “the treatment of disease…” This has nothing to do with life coaching. Life coaching does not treat physical or mental illnesses. It does help with the dis-ease, unease, or dissatisfaction of clients. It aids in treating low self-esteem and the inability to achieve desired results.
There could be a cause-and-effect relationship. If, for example, a client comes to you for encouragement and support while receiving treatment from their physiotherapist. Then your coaching could encourage the client to continue performing the exercises prescribed by their physiotherapy programme. Your coaching can significantly impact the client’s speed of recovery by encouraging and congratulating them on their progress and then assisting them in setting new goals. The inverse is less appealing. It could happen after you’ve encouraged your client to exercise to improve their health. Suppose they overstretch themselves and injure themselves while following your advice and encouragement.
In that case, they may need the help of a physiotherapist. However, keep in mind that these are superficial “cause-and-effect” relationships. There are no links relating to working methods. All of the other therapies mentioned include some form of personal history analysis. Typically, the therapist must delve into the client’s past to devise a treatment plan. To provide helpful advice, therapists must have extensive knowledge and ability.
Counselling, for example, may be required in the aftermath of a single, clearly identified trauma, such as bereavement, a severe accident to oneself or one’s family, divorce, or redundancy. Life coaching, on the other hand, is focused on the present and the future. It is based on the idea that the past does not have to be synonymous with the end. Most coaches do not advocate giving clients advice, preferring to act as a catalyst in assisting clients in defining their path forward. This is a very different way of working than a therapist or counsellor.
Many therapists and counsellors are drawn to a career in life coaching. This presents significant difficulties for them because coaching differs from how they have become accustomed to dealing with their patients. The decision to refer to them as a ‘patient’ or a ‘client’ aids in distinguishing intervention from guidance. Both professions investigate the patient’s past by uncovering previously created blocks or obstacles. Then they use interventions to remove these impediments or obstructions to the patient’s recovery. They employ techniques and language patterns that are specifically designed for this approach. These techniques are not required in life coaching. Indeed, they may cause issues for the coaching client, who may become confused and misunderstand the critical distinction between therapy and life coaching – that therapy works from the past, whereas life coaching begins in the present.