These days, everywhere you look, someone is calling themselves a Coach, but what the heck does that even mean?

Usually, someone has some level of knowledge about a topic that they are wanting to help people with. Some of these coaches are masterful at their art, having overcome challenges and received solid mentorship or education in crafting their skills. Others just want to hand out advice without having done their own work. 

Coaching is not currently regulated in the United States and it can be hard to filter through who really knows their stuff and who might be taking advantage of you as a self-proclaimed guru. 

So as a certified and highly trained coach with several years of experience, in addition to being a licensed psychotherapist trained in many different modalities, I’m going to break it down for you. 

How is Coaching different from Psychotherapy? 

While both are very valuable in moving you past roadblocks in life, their approaches differ in many ways.

Coaching is about taking you from where you are now and moving you forward, while therapy does this too, it often involves a deeper dive into your psyche to understand how you work and what got you here in the first place.

Coaching does not diagnose or deal with mental health issues, requiring you to have both a coach and a therapist if anything in the realm of anxiety, depression, trauma or other emotional disturbances arises in your sessions. 

Psychotherapy is highly regulated and requires a certain level of education, proficiency of skill in evidenced-based practices, and continuing education to maintain a license, while coaching on the other-hand has the freedom to play at the edge of new science, spirituality, and human potential. 

Being a coach and a therapist allows me to work inside the box that treats any sensitive issues that arise regarding your very delicate nervous system in addition to working outside the box to bring in all of the mathematical, mystical and cutting-edge tools that psychotherapy has not caught up with yet…. the medical model is still pretty uptight and not so hip to the new science. 

As a Psychotherapist who is also certified as a life coach our work is LIMITLESS! 

In my experience, psychotherapy and coaching are like the yin and the yang to healing.

Psychotherapy is the gentle healer, nurturing your wounds and bringing you back to balance.

Coaching is the sassy cheerleader that knows your potential and empowers you to step up in your life.