Coaching or therapy? How to choose.
“Do I need coaching or therapy right now?”
This is a common question. And a great one to ask.
Short answer to a complex question:
Coaching and therapy are more of a Venn diagram than a binary.
They have overlaps.
It’s important to discern where to go to access the support you need. But even knowing what kind of support you need can be tricky.
Not to mention that both modalities can be delivered in different ways depending on the practitioner. I know! Where to start?
In my work, I have a preference for taking a gentle approach so that the growth happens without causing more harm. This is not always the outlook that coaches hold. Does motivational speaking, booming voices, and demanding commitments come to mind? Yikes, that’s not me.
Trust me on this, I have in the past taken the “go big or go home” approach to my healing and development (thanks, for the exploitation, Capitalism) and I still experience strong reactions to change as a result of having experienced too-much-to-quick at some points on my path. I hope to spare you the trauma.
Many of my coaching clients are in an active relationship with a therapist or have reached a place in their therapeutic process where they want to take action on what they’ve learned and healed.
Coaching can often feel action-oriented and future-facing. Whereas therapy often has a process and healing orientation, perhaps even a focus on the past to understand how things came to be.
A coach can help guide you in taking specific actions and achieving goals that are aligned with discoveries made about yourself in coaching conversations.
Coaching may be able to tangibly help you build the foundation of the new life and way of being you are stepping into by integrating accountability in a way that therapy might not.
Coaching is not therapy, but when done well and through a trauma-sensitive lens it can have therapeutic outcomes.
I’ve had a client recently tell me that they experienced more progress in coaching than in the years of therapy they’ve done. But the credit goes to her and all the work she had done before starting our coaching alliance. All of the therapy work led her to a place of readiness to engage in coaching. Lucky for me, I got to be invited into the next leg of the journey.
You might want to work with a therapist to help you feel safe to process and heal layers of deep family issues, experiences of trauma, and topics of a more psychologically complex nature.
I’m honest with my clients in telling them when my skill set has reached its limits. I’ve referred folks to therapy when our coaching work has stalled due to them needing a different skill set than I can provide.
I’m committed to ensuring my clients get the support they need on their journey, which may not be with me. This is part of what being a client-centred practitioner looks like.
Skilled therapists will help you feel emotionally regulated, grounded, seen, and heard — and so can a skilled coach.
If you’re feeling stuck and overwhelmed, it’s deeply impactful to find someone who can help you navigate and develop the skills to surf the waves of transformation.
When you work with me in a coaching alliance, there is a focus on both “doing” and “being.” Our sessions will blend both processing, as well as creating tangible outcomes.
I can help you regulate your emotions, teach you techniques to manage your energy and understand your nervous system, clarify your motivations, quiet your fears, rewire unhelpful patterns, and connect with your higher self.
All this will help you feel secure in navigating your next chapter with ease.
If you have questions about which kind of support might help you most right now, find a time on my calendar for a no-strings Clarity Call or shoot me an email: hello (at) danasmithwellness (dot) com
Cheering you on,
Dana