There's a lot of reasons why people ask what's the difference between therapy and life coaching.
And you're going to find out exactly what the difference is today with some resources
to take you in the right direction.
The most common place that we encounter the term coaching is in sports.
And I think that this is a helpful place to start because in sports, sometimes you need
a therapist.
A physical therapist?
Because you got an injury?
Or because you're working through some kind of rehabilitation?
And sometimes, you don't need a therapist, you need a coach because you're healthy enough.
But you need someone to help you get out of your own way and perform at a level that is
far above what you could do without the coach.
I think that's helpful place to start because in our personal development, sometimes we
need a therapist.
Someone who can help us to rehab something that's broken or damaged or needs a healing.
And sometimes, we're healthy enough but we could really a coach to help us get out of
our own way and perform at that higher level.
Have you noticed in the world of sports that even the most elite athletes have coaches?
I am a big fan of Utah Jazz.
I've been watching them for years.
It's my home team.
And in the last few years, we picked up this red hot young player named Donovan Mitchell
and he is amazing.
And a lot of fun to watch.
A phenomenal talent in basketball.
Quin Snyder is the coach of the Utah Jazz.
And Donovan Mitchell is very open to coaching from coach Quin Snyder.
Coach Snyder helps him to perform at a level that is taking him to the top of the chart
in the NBA.
The interesting thing about this: Donovan Mitchell is arguably a better basketball player
than coach Quin Snyder.
But that coaching relationship creates an outcome that neither of them could accomplish
on their own.
That's the beauty of coaching.
Knowing the value of coach in an athletic paradigm helps us to see how it can help us
with our personal development as well.
And there's some important differences between therapy and coaching.
I've done both.
In my professional career, I spent about 13 years doing psycho therapy.
And then I switched over to personal development coaching.
To understand how that works, if you think of you mental health on a spectrum or a continuum
and clear over here on the left is the sick end.
That's where we have diagnosis, pathology, treatment.
What's at the other end of that spectrum?
To understand that, let's go to the middle first.
The middle is health.
Health, meaning not sick.
Think of your physical health.
You could be sick in bed with a fever throwing up.
There comes a time you can get out of bed and you're not sick.
But that doesn't mean you're truly fit, thriving, prospering.
That's over here at this end of the spectrum.
Therapy is primarily intended for this end of the spectrum.
And it's very helpful and effective to get you out of bed so that you're not sick.
But that's where it drops off.
And insurance companies pull the plug on the funding.
Because you're no longer sick.
It's not medically necessary.
Therapy can be thought of as the treatment for the illness.
Once we get to this side of the spectrum, we've crossed into coaching.
Coaching is not to cure the illness.
Coaching is to enhance the performance and to bring that to a level where you can truly
be thriving and prospering.
And there's a little overlap in the middle because everybody has got issues.
Have you noticed?
Yeah, welcome to earth, that's how we roll here.
Everybody's got issues.
We're going to deal with those.
And there's some gray area here that can be handled by therapy.
Things like depression-anxiety.
I'm not talking about the severe clinical versions of those disorders.
So, I'm talking the garden variety kind of we all have from time to time.
Dysphoria, depression, dysthymia where that could be picked up side.
But it might also be handled on the coaching side.
And the coaching is primarily focused on this end of the spectrum.
On the positive high-functioning end of the spectrum.
One other thing that I might add here is the therapy is a regulated activity.
Meaning, it requires licensure in certain areas.
I am a licensed psychologist.
So, my license includes the ability to do therapy or treatment of mental illness or
mental disorders or psychological dysfunction.
That's a regulated industry because people on this end of the spectrum are considered
to be a vulnerable population.
And so, typically the state or the government will step in and regulate that activity.
You have to have a license in an approved field in order to practice therapy.
Not true with coaching.
Now this is both good and bad news.
If you're interested in becoming a life coach, that might be great news because you don't
have to have any particular degree or credential to do the coaching.
You do have to have some expertise and experience.
Because what else are you going to offer to your clients?
Quin Snyder has a whole lot of experience in basketball and that's why Donovan Mitchell
can be coached by him.
But it's not regulated on the coaching in like it is on the therapy end.
If that will make sense to you.
That'll help you to understand the difference.
Now, which one do you need?
I don't know.
You might be kind of in the middle of area where you could choose therapy.
You could choose coaching.
Now, if you've got a diagnosable condition that needs some treatment, then that's the
area of therapy.
If you're not diagnosed but know that you want to be performing at a higher level, that's
clearly coaching.
And there's somethings in the middle that might bleed into both areas.
Use discretion.
And be careful about who you bring on to your team.
You want someone who is really going to help you either to heal from whatever it is that
you're healing from.
Or to accomplish what it is that you're trying to accomplish.
Use some discretion.
These people on either end of the spectrum are working for you not the other way around.
So, you can choose who is going to be the best fit for you.
Whether it's in therapy or in coaching.
There's clearly some overlap, there's clearly some differences.
If you want to explore this further, we've got a playlist here about life coaching that
might take you in some directions that would be helpful.
You'll also want to hang on and watch the next video that's being queued up about coaching
versus therapy.