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In recent years many therapists have shifted focus and are conducting more goal oriented coaching as their clients start to demand more measurable results in less time. In this article, when I use the word therapy, I refer to traditional therapy rather than the hybrid therapy we see emerging these days. I will attempt to compare and contrast the types of clients that coaches and therapists work with, the various issues clients are facing, the results that therapists and coaches bring about, and the methods that coaches and therapists use as the tools of their craft.

Traditional Therapy

Therapy is an ongoing exploration and healing process that happens through a deep relationship between the client and the therapist. Therapy typically involves bringing up past memories or events, (including relationships with your parents) healing past wounds, or exploring the subconscious through dream analysis, art therapy, hypnosis, or by regressing the client back into childhood. Therapy may include reliving or resolving traumatic events or gaining insight into past relationships to free the client to live a healthier, richer life. Therapists are trained to handle clients whose symptoms have seriously compromised their functioning in their lives.
The results are typically more general than the results associated with coaching, and may include relief from anger, depression, anxiety, stress, or deeper pathologies. The therapist’s role is often less directive than that of the coach. Therapists create a safe environment by validating clients emotions and thoughts and mirroring their feelings. This allows clients to express their hidden emotions and discover their inner daemons.

What They Share

In both therapy and deep level coaching the integrity of the relationship between the professional and the client is critical. Trust and safety must be established to allow authentic self-exploration and an ongoing exploration of the client’s deeper levels of beliefs and feelings. To build trust and safety, the professional must work at being open and honest, and they must have empathy and compassion for clients that are often facing serious issues in their lives. The professional must be aware of their own biases, habits of mind, and emotional triggers, so they don’t influence the work being done.

The professional must have more knowledge or experience than the client in the arenas of professional development, psychological development, or spiritual growth. Experience allows the professional to create a map or plan for development to assist the client in navigating the treacherous waters of personal change. Experience also creates a familiarity with the trials that the client will face that leads to compassion and empathy.

Deep Level Coaching

Coaching focuses on the present and the future, rather then the past. Coaches are primarily concerned with moving clients from their current state toward specific outcomes. Coaching is often more goal directed, particularly in the early stages of the process. I’ve had clients enter and say, ‘I want more income, better presentation skills, a promotion, more influence at work, life balance, better time management skills, improved relationships with my team, and an increase in their motivation.’ The list goes on and on. I find that, although they reach these goals, clients discover that these goals hold less importance as they develop, release attachments, and change their priorities.

Early in the relationship the coach and the client create objectives that they can use to measure success. Typically clients have some internal blocks to change (if change was easy they’d have already done it) in the form of hidden belief structures, emotional triggers, skewed self image, or other perceptual biases that keep the client from reaching their desired goals.

Many coaches teach skills and techniques that focus primarily on behavior (For example: how to draw up a budget, use an electronic time management system, match body posture to create rapport, set meeting agendas, or create clear goals for projects) and on the mind (For example: teaching problem solving strategies or math skills).

The changes these skills and techniques generate in clients are typically surface level only and clients often slide back into old behavior patterns after a few months. Deep level coaching includes the areas of skill development described above but the primary concerns are around changing perceptions, raising self awareness, and shifting core beliefs which all lead to the relief of suffering and permanent changes in behavior.

Coach the Whole Person

Deep level coaching is more holistic in that in includes an integrated approach to developing the whole person, it addresses the emotional (feelings), cognitive (thinking patterns), physical (body connection) and spiritual areas of development. Because it operates at a deeper level, it effects how people experience themselves and experience the world. Deep level coaching allows clients to become more competent in relationships, in their professional lives, in understanding themselves, and in affecting the world around them.