Therapy V/s Coaching

Therapy V/s Coaching.

Someone who has been a Coach for 9 years, shocked me in a conversation by arguing that 'therapy' and 'coaching' are the same. OMG ! I have to clarify.

Therapeutic perspectives are different from Coaching perspectived when it comes to understanding 'Problems' and pathing the way to success. Don't mix up. Never coach someone who needs therapy & provide therapy if forthcoming benefits are from Coaching.

Therapeutic approaches ignore the role of teams & rarely cover agendas like organisational culture, leadership competencies or performance management. Contemporary Coaches on the other hand, focus on alignment of coachee's performance skills with critical enabling elements of performance for success.

Let me illustrate. In the corporate jungle, Careers are the most critical concern of the professionals. People generally seem to be lost in this maze. Given this situation, the therapist will approach this task by helping each individual Coachee to understand why he/she is feeling lost .

A Coach would approach this challenge by structuring conversations with the Coachee such that he/she can discover their own path to success in alignment with the enablers. The therapist diagnoses the behaviour whereas the Coach focuses on the business outcomes & actions needed