How Coaching Differs from Counseling
Not all counseling is the same. Nor is all coaching the same. But let’s take a look into the broad differences between the two professions.
Counseling has been around longer and makes a diagnosis of what’s wrong and prescribes a method or series of steps that have been proven to work for other clients.
Coaching is a relative newcomer to the field. The idea behind coaching is that there is not a fundamental problem to solve, but rather people perform even better when they have the support of a coach whose aim is to take what is working and make it even better. Big benefits are realized when a coach avoids making assumptions about what is possible and simply explores with a client next action steps. In a coaching model, the client is the expert in the client’s life, can discover what action steps needs to happen next, and is open to the coach’s questions and feedback, and is ready to stretch to reach that next level of performance.