While both therapy and coaching are powerful tools for personal growth, they typically focus on different aspects of your wellbeing.
Therapy (Counselling), often referred to as counselling, tends to focus on healing and understanding the past to address present emotional and psychological challenges. It's about exploring underlying issues, processing difficult emotions, and working through experiences that might be holding you back. Therapy can be particularly helpful for dealing with conditions like anxiety, depression, trauma, grief, or relationship difficulties. The goal is often to alleviate distress, gain insight, and develop healthier coping mechanisms for long-term well-being.
Coaching, on the other hand, is generally future-focused and action-oriented. It helps you identify your goals, unlock your potential, and develop strategies to achieve specific outcomes in your personal or professional life. While a coach might acknowledge past experiences, the primary emphasis is on moving forward, setting clear objectives, building skills, and overcoming obstacles to reach your desired future. Coaching is often sought for career development, life transitions, improving performance, or enhancing leadership skills.
As an integrative practitioner, I can blend elements of both, depending on your needs. Sometimes, during coaching, we might uncover an underlying issue that would benefit from a more therapeutic approach, or in therapy, you might gain clarity that leads to setting new goals more aligned with coaching.