Border Line: Understanding the Relationship Between Therapy and Coaching

Beyond this dilemma, the therapist must consider the client’s perspective throughout this relationship. Clients assume that they will be fixed and will achieve emotional healing as a result of their relationship with a therapist; that is why they sought therapy in the first place. Coaching clients, on the other hand, seek a coach for a myriad of reasons, most of which relate to their future. New clients usually do not come because they have a major problem — certainly not a major psychological one. They are not coming with a dysfunction and typically are not coming in pain. They might have a little general malaise because they want more out of life and don’t know how to get it. Economists call this category of people the worried well. They don’t need, or usually even desire, a diagnostic label. They don’t have something broken that needs an expert to fix. They just want more out of some aspect of their life and assume that by working with a coach, they will achieve greater success in planning, setting goals, and creating the life of their dreams.

If a client with a major psychological problem comes to see a life coach, the appropriate action is to refer that client to a qualified therapist. Coaches need to be proficient at recognizing appropriate and inappropriate coaching clients, as well as the ethical guidelines of maintaining both a therapy and a coaching practice. As a general rule, it’s important to keep miles between your coaching and therapy practices if you choose to have both. Additionally, once a person has been your coaching client, it’s unwise to take him or her into your therapy practice. The reverse is mostly true as well, but a therapist may do coaching with a former therapy client as long as there is a ritual ending of the therapy relationship and the new coaching relationship is begun formally and clearly. Therapists who have added a coaching niche to their business also maintain a list of qualified therapists for referrals. Likewise, therapists sometimes refer clients to life coaches when they have resolved their therapeutic issues and are ready to move forward with their life design and plans.