Counseling Vs. Coaching: Which Do I Need?

What's the difference between counseling and coaching? How do you know when you need a therapist and when you need a coach? Join CSC's Brenton and Rachelle as we talk about these questions, highlighting some of the key considerations when exploring these healing paths. Brenton comes from a background as a spiritual teacher, counselor, and coach, while Rachelle brings extensive experience as a coach, therapist, and healer, bringing over 30 years of combined experience and practice. No matter your approach, we hope this conversation sheds light on the ways that both coaching and therapy can be supportive, liberating practices for our health and wellbeing.

Transcript

Hey everyone,

Brenton and Rochelle here,

Coming to have another little conversation.

Today we're gonna talk with you about counseling and coaching and kind of just how to know the difference between the two,

How to know when it's time for one versus the other.

And Rochelle,

I feel like this is definitely your expertise and not only,

You know,

Really both of these,

But how to know how to handle that transition process.

So maybe if we can start in just kind of ask you some questions,

Like how do you personally define the difference between counseling and coaching?

Yeah,

So thanks.

Before I go there,

I just wanna give a little background on myself and why I'm actually even talking about this.

Perfect.

So actually many people don't know this,

But I had a coaching certificate long before I got my counseling degree and worked as a coach while I was also working as a personal trainer many,

Many,

Almost 30 years ago now,

No,

20 years ago.

Okay.

And throughout my counseling work,

I've pretty much always incorporated coaching into it.

I think it's helpful to know what the difference is.

A lot of people come to counseling with a certain expectation,

And then when they achieve those goals,

Therapy is done unless you kind of have the coaching spectrum.

So that's the way that I describe it.

Counseling is kind of on the part of the spectrum where people are really focusing on eradicating problems,

Anxiety,

Depression,

Trauma,

And really trying to gain coping skills for those things but learn how to better manage those symptoms in their day-to-day life.

And then also to kind of root out any of those problems,

Skim off some of the layers of intensity.

Whereas on the flip side of it,

Coaching is a place where many of those challenges that we've experienced in life,

We already have the coping skills for them,

We've done the therapy work,

And those problems are more in the background.

We're able to keep them at bay,

We're able to function in the world more,

Even though anxiety and depression or trauma may still be present,

It's not in the foreground of our life experience.

And then coaching is like this beautiful opening of the heart where we can take our gifts and start to bring them out into the world.

And I think the last thing I'll say about coaching is that,

And those gifts,

Is that it's sort of my premise that they work in tandem,

That actually if we are using and applying our gifts in the world,

That that heals the underlying anxiety,

Depression,

Trauma,

Sort of indirectly.

And I think that's the beautiful thing about coaching and why I'm working in that area right now.

Awesome.

Yeah,

I mean,

I met you,

Started working with you when you were really in the burst and I guess now looking back on the way out of that kind of therapy side of things.

But I appreciate that you have the perspective of all of the sides,

And it's actually interesting to find out that you started as a coach and then moved into therapy and are kind of coming full circle with it,

But it's more of a circle like this.

One of the things I can hear in what you're saying is it's almost like therapy is what helps us kind of get this baseline so that we can build the things upon it with more of that coaching and that activation,

That dharma,

Like really moving into purpose and those kinds of things that we're able to give back instead of at that place where we need to just get our head above water like therapy kind of gets us there.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Thanks for saying that.

I like this idea of therapy being a foundation.

It is important for bringing people to awareness of what are the roots of the problems that they're experiencing.

And like I said,

Working with different tools in the traditional psychotherapy world,

There's CBT and DBT and those types of things in kind of the way that we've been working with therapy,

There are the somatic tools,

Expressive arts,

We're using mindfulness and meditation and ecotherapy.

So having a foundation of those tools and then once those are in place and pretty steady,

Then those tools in and of themselves start to drop us deeper and deeper into our creative spirit,

Our heart,

Our gifts.

And then at some point those become so strong that we can't really contain them anymore and maintain a sense of health and wellbeing.

And one of the things that is sort of little known in the therapy world,

And I find it more and more important is that service,

Being of service in a really purposeful and meaningful way is so healing.

And that's one of the things that kind of the therapy aspect of it kind of misses out on because it's really focused on an individual kind of experience,

An experience of like reparation or like repair,

Right?

An individual repair experience,

Whereas coaching is more expansive taking into account how we're involved with the environment,

How we're involved with our community,

How we're involved with the world and the cosmos and how we can be of service and that in and of itself is really enlivening and transformative and healing.

Wow,

There's so much to what you're saying that's so resonant with not only my own experience,

But what I believe are just kind of universal healing principles for humans.

And before I even kind of respond to the service element,

Which I think is so important because that's what kind of elevates us into Dharma,

Into really like a heart opening experiences and like that kind of enlightened master kind of like,

This is what I've been trying to tell you the whole time kind of thing,

Like we're all connected in this.

But something you mentioned earlier is that,

And I'll use different words,

That therapy kind of helps us to build resources where we didn't have any before.

And what I notice and that you referenced is that,

You know,

When I was younger,

I used to have this idea that once I'm enlightened or once I'm all healed up and once I'm just completely aligned,

Then these things will be easier.

I'll have my stuff together.

Life will become easier,

Right?

And you know,

That's just not the case because oftentimes depressions,

Anxieties,

Triggers,

Traumas,

They don't go away.

That's not really what therapy is about.

Just like meditation is not about stilling our mind or about miraculously healing everything.

It's about practices that learn to help us persist and sustain and breathe with and through just what it means to be alive,

You know,

Human alive in this physical world.

But coaching then is kind of like,

Okay,

I have this kind of toolbox.

I have this backpack of resources.

What do I want to build with it?

And you know,

Really,

What does it mean to activate those kinds of things?

So in that regard,

Like how can somebody start to determine whether coaching or therapy is right for them?

Maybe they're exploring both right now.

Yeah,

It's a really good question.

And ultimately I would say,

I want to trust where people are called to.

I think that's an important thing is for people to really spend some time with themselves and get quiet and see like,

What is the most pervasive calling in the moment?

Is the most pervasive calling depression?

You know,

Can't see anything but a cloudy sky every day,

Difficult to do activities of daily living.

Then,

You know,

Honor that,

Honor yourself in that,

That,

You know,

We all go through pretty traumatic life experiences some more than others.

And there is this level of needing to learn what most people's communities,

Families,

Society has not taught,

Just the baseline.

I often say like,

Isn't it amazing that in school,

We're not taught emotional intelligence.

We're not taught coping skills for managing stress.

We're not taught these things.

And so that's really where therapy steps in.

And if you feel like I don't have any clue about how to manage stress or depression or anxiety or conflict or anything like that,

That's when therapy is really calling.

And it's not necessarily an either or,

It's important to know that it can happen simultaneously as well.

But the difference with coaching and when you're really called to coaching is one,

You feel like you can cope with most of the life's challenges relatively proficiently.

And I'm choosing my words really carefully there.

There is no indication at all that to do coaching,

You need to be a perfected being.

And in fact,

I would say part of what coaching is is alchemizing the challenges that we face,

Being able to recognize the challenges that we've experienced in our life and be alchemized for the greater good can actually be part of our gift that we have to offer back.

And coaching again,

When you're ready for that,

You will probably really clearly know that like there's something burning inside of you that wants to get out.

It's sort of like the status quo is not sufficient anymore to manage wellbeing in your life.

You're really calling for a shift in your lifestyle,

A shift in your career,

A shift in your consciousness,

A shift in the way that you're relating to belief systems and worldviews.

There's something that's really pulling you usually from the heart forward into a meaningful future.

Gosh,

Yeah.

And it's so different than the ways that most of us are taught in the way that society tells us we quote unquote should be.

Because what I hear you saying is coaching is about really kind of opening this up and seeing what's inside and letting the light that's inside lead the way.

Totally.

And all of the parameters and the ideas and the shoulds and should nots that are just bouncing around in here about the things I learned from my parents,

From my family,

From society,

From social media,

From comparison,

From all of these things.

And it's like,

There's such a difference between head and heart when they're not aligned.

But when they line up,

It's like,

There's this kind of fount that moves forward.

And that's that service that you referenced earlier.

And it makes me think there's this kind of beautiful thing that happens when we focus on service.

And sometimes,

In fact,

Not sometimes,

I think often that's been part of my healing and particularly the community part of the therapeutic and healing work is recognizing that as I serve other people,

I'm serving myself and I'm healing my wounds.

I'm healing other people's.

There's less of the I and more of the we.

And the more that I get out of that kind of,

This is all of my stuff,

Which is,

Even though you and I kind of experience it differently,

For most people,

That's what therapy is.

It's this kind of isolationist perspective and experience.

It doesn't have to be that way.

And so whether we're talking about coaching or therapy or that combination,

Which I like that too,

There really has to be this element of heart opening,

Kind of how am I willing to see the way that I fit into something much greater than myself and then to let myself kind of calm and be quiet enough to listen to the ways that my heart is telling me that this is what I'm here to do in that bigger way and in that bigger system,

In that bigger cycle,

Whatever.

Yeah,

Yeah,

That's really well said.

Thank you for that.

A couple of things about what you said really stand out for me.

One is kind of this reciprocal healing that as we are offering out,

We are also healing ourselves,

Whether that's to other people or to the world.

And that's a pretty old idea,

Actually,

That we're kind of like these nested dolls and there's healing or wellness at every level.

And if we're of service to the other sort of nests that we're in,

Our community,

Our environment,

The cosmos,

Spirit,

Whatever,

Then we are naturally infusing ourself with wellbeing.

And I think that's an important piece that is also generally not part of therapy.

And then to go back,

One other thing that you said that I think is really key in talking about the difference between therapy and coaching is that there is a lot of,

In therapy,

There's kind of this idea,

I guess,

Of being flooded with everything that's in our mind as the totality of reality,

Right?

Like you were saying,

And I mentioned it as well,

Like our belief systems,

Our worldviews,

Our social conditioning,

Like what our family orientation is to the world,

That is what is in our mind.

And we believe that to be the totality of consciousness in some ways.

And so part of therapy is opening,

Seeing,

Experimenting with like,

Oh,

Maybe there's some other ways to view these experiences and to recognize that just because we have a thought or a belief system doesn't mean that that's true or that's aligned with our heart or that's the way we wanna operate.

And then coaching is more along the lines of really diving deep into the heart and seeing how we can get the mind to align with what our creative spirit is,

What we were born to bring into this world.

So we have those coping skills from therapy to kind of some say tame the mind and then coaching can help further align the mind with the heart.

Ooh,

Love that.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Totally.

And it's ironic because often what brings people to therapy work is it's broken heartedness for whatever reason.

And it's just,

I find it striking that when we experience like heart break like that,

The mind tends to jump in and take control and resourced enough,

Then the heart kind of never recovers.

And we see that in society everywhere.

And I mean,

I have goosebumps thinking about it,

Just like just seeing the way humans are,

And the way that the world kind of shapes us if we don't have the support that we need.

And whether that's a teacher or a mentor or a community or a friend or a therapist or a coach,

It's like at different points along the journey,

We each need somebody to emulate,

Somebody to inspire us,

Somebody to not give us all the answers,

But maybe find and help us build new doors or windows where before there were just walls.

And that's gonna change at times.

And so maybe how or what are some of the signs that somebody may be ready for coaching instead of this therapy work?

And I know you kind of referenced those,

But when it comes to those experiences where we know we need something different,

I know I need to change,

I'm looking for my next kind of guide or mentor,

How do I know whether that's a therapy or a therapist or a coach?

One of the things that I was just thinking,

I don't know,

Last night,

I'm gonna dive deep on a little side tangent here,

But just the ways of the world,

Of the socially conditioned world and how we've been kind of,

We've been taught certain ways that most people haven't learned how to align with nature,

How to align with their spirit,

How to align with their emotions,

How to align with meaningful and purposeful livelihood,

Those types of things.

And there's this idea in environmentalism of sort of extraction culture.

We go into nature and we take out what we want.

And the thought that I had last night is we've actually,

Most of us in the Western world have been extracted from our own spirits.

We are so separated and it's so painful.

And like you said,

Brokenheartedness is,

And grief I think is really there.

And to kind of circle back to answer your question about the difference between when you're choosing a therapist and when you're choosing a coach,

First of all,

You wanna make sure that it feels resonant with you,

The person,

Their practice,

The way they're viewing the world is aligned with your heart.

And maybe that they have practices that are,

I don't really know how to describe it other than like,

Sometimes I will say like maybe a mentor or a coach is one step ahead of you on the path.

And I kind of like to describe it like that rather than this idea of some enlightened master.

It's like somebody that has actually probably been on a similar journey,

But is maybe one or a couple steps ahead and can kind of say,

Oh,

Turn at the rock rather than walk off the cliff or something like that.

What have you found most fulfilling in your transition from working with people in therapy to working with people now in coaching?

And particularly,

I guess,

Going from coaching to therapy to coaching again,

Maybe talking about some of the arc of what you've seen.

Yeah,

It's interesting.

When I started coaching,

I had a pretty limited view of what coaching could be.

I was really working with people on their physical health and wellness,

Helping them accomplish whatever they were working on in personal training or nutrition or some level of stress reduction,

That kind of thing.

And with my background in mindfulness and beyond that,

As a part of my therapy program,

That really started to grow.

And over the years,

I've been incorporating coaching and therapy together in the work that I do with clients to give a larger breadth of work that we can do rather than just having clients move on after they complete therapy.

And that's really been wonderful.

I enjoy working with people that feel resource enough to be able to give back in a meaningful way.

And I think at this point in my career,

It's almost like,

As I was describing earlier,

Kind of what coaching is about.

I have this overwhelming calling to really work with people now that have a vision,

They have a purpose,

Or they have a calling,

And to really bring that into the world.

The world is crazy right now.

And we need people who are visionaries and who are artists and who have this kind of burning spirit inside of them.

And they want some support around bringing that into the world.

We don't have a lot of support around that.

We don't get a lot of education,

If any,

Around that.

We don't have a lot of support around that.

And in the work that I've been doing,

I'm working with some incredible people that just have these amazing visions.

And I get to just support and just give a little bit of context and a little bit of guideposts,

Basically,

Saying like,

Okay,

Consider this,

Kind of have maybe a little bit fuller perspective on whatever it is that they are working with or looking at or a challenge that they're overcoming in terms of bringing their vision or their heart or spirit into the world.

So that's,

Yeah,

It's pretty profound for me.

It's like kind of a freight train running through my heart,

A freight train of light running through my heart.

And it's like,

I've got to be here to support the people that have a vision,

That want to bring it into the world because we need more of that,

Period.

That's what we need.

Awesome.

Yeah,

It almost feels like there's this kind of energetic tipping point in this country right now where,

Yeah,

More than ever,

It feels like I'm being called and I feel like we collectively are being called to kind of wake up and really ask some deep,

Important questions.

Like,

Who am I?

Why am I here?

What do I stand for?

What inspires me?

Do I want to choose to devote my energy toward what fulfills me and connects me or separates me and brings me hatred and depletion?

And it seems like the answers to those questions are obvious.

It's like,

Well,

Yes,

I want this.

No,

I don't want this.

Yes,

I'd like to live.

No,

I don't want my heart to shut down and die.

Like,

Okay,

But to live that in a day-to-day,

Moment-to-moment way with all of this going on and all of this going on around me,

That's another thing,

Which is why we need some of this stuff.

So I'm curious if you'd be willing to maybe touch on some of the profundity and the power and even the necessity of the community component with some of this,

Because both you're doing individual but also group coaching work.

I am doing individual and group coaching work.

And then in the fall together,

We're going to be doing an even more dynamic,

Immersive group coaching program.

So yeah,

Tell me why the emphasis on group coaching?

Yeah,

That's such a great question.

I'm glad that you asked it.

Over the last couple of years,

I've been,

And this is kind of the intuitive part of my work.

I'll just give a little bit of background.

Working with a number of clients week to week,

10 to 20 clients a week,

You start to see patterns that happen in the world across all walks of life.

And it's kind of undeniable when these patterns start running through.

It's like,

Oh,

Everybody's experiencing,

Or a lot of people are experiencing grief right now.

What's happening?

Oh,

Well,

A war just started,

5,

000 miles away,

That type of stuff.

And with that sort of patterning experience over the last couple of years,

I've just felt this strong pull and need for myself and for clients.

We're social beings.

We have to keep coming back to each other.

There's just really no way around it.

It's a little bit challenging in this culture because we're taught just rugged individualism.

And so there's some coming to terms with what it means to be in community.

It's not always easy,

But the benefits far outweigh the challenges that we have to work through.

And once we've learned how to be in community in a really healthy way,

It's incredible.

The learning,

The kindling of spirit,

It's exponential.

And for myself as a coach,

And I guess one other thing that I'll say is when I refer to community,

I'm not just talking about the human community.

I'm also talking about the environmental community of trees and plants and animals.

And I'm also talking about the cosmic community of stars and planets and sun and all of that and the way it all works together.

And as a coach,

And even as a therapist,

The work that I have done,

I recognize that one person cannot have all the answers nor be the guide all the time in every moment.

And it's a very powerful experience to be able to not only witness the wisdom in other people and other beings,

But to also be supported by it as a guide,

Right?

And for other people,

Other participants in group coaching to recognize that it's not just this person that's sitting in the high chair,

So to speak,

That has the answers.

It's actually everybody.

We all have the wisdom deep within us.

We're born with it,

Is my belief.

And some of us have done maybe some study or some work to develop that.

That's really all.

It's not that,

Nobody's deficient in it.

That's not really the way it works.

And anyway,

Being in a group,

We get to see that from other people that kind of look and feel like us rather than in a teacher role,

Which makes a difference.

I guess I can see it two ways,

That in the type of coaching that particularly we really work with people in,

There's this kind of awakening to these components of community that we don't normally experience.

And it's spiritual community is really what we're talking about.

And I've had experiences of what it means like to live in spiritual community.

That's like moment to moment,

Day to day,

Constant intentionality.

And that's not necessarily what we're talking about,

Although that does have a place and an important role at times for different people.

But with the work that we do with people,

It's like we awaken people to subtle community and intentional community.

And so with subtle community,

That's the kind of community that you're talking about when you talk about the community of the ecosystem,

The community of the natural world,

Of the beings that don't talk like us and aren't loud like us and don't move like us,

But still have a lot to say and to teach us.

And so learning to listen to those subtle kind of energy communications that are happening all around us constantly helps us to learn to listen to that same type of thing happening inside that's equally subtle.

And then with the intentional part,

There's something magic that happens when you come together with a group of people that help hold you accountable for your greatness,

Which is I think part of what group coaching does.

It's more than just family.

It's more than friends that support you to the point of a fault,

That love you to the point of enabling,

Right?

Intentional community says,

You said that you are this person and you want to be this person and you're still making choices like this.

Tell me why,

Tell me about this.

Because when I experienced this,

I had this experience too,

And this is what helped me with it.

And that happens in a group dynamic.

That doesn't happen by myself locked away or if I'm in these same relationships that enable the same type of patterns over and over again.

It's like,

What really happens when we come together in these ways that are purposeful,

That are inspiring,

That are not always pretty,

They're ugly,

They're sloppy,

They're messy,

They're drooly and snotty and teary sometimes,

But they're real.

And it's that kind of authentic realness that I feel like we're missing today.

And that's what I'm working on it myself.

Like,

How do I become the unabashed,

A completely authentic communicator that just reveals my full blown self in every moment.

And to be in a group doing that is kind of an intimidating thing.

So I'm grateful that we've done the work that we have individually and together to create the space to bring people together in those ways.

Because I think that's the,

In some ways the most challenging part and the core part of what it means to guide and be a coach like this is can I create space and then hold it for people to be themselves and to let healing happen and to not run away from it.

Yeah,

Yeah,

That's really beautiful.

A couple of points from that I would say is that this accountability piece,

I really love this accountability of your highest self.

That's beautiful.

And when a group of people come together with that intentionality and don't know the other conditioned parts of you,

There's more likelihood that they can hold you to that.

And the other thing is,

Is sometimes being called in to your spirit from a community member feels different than being called in from a leader who often replicates the role of parent in groups.

And so that's another kind of hidden value of the group is that sometimes the other participants can see that and speak in a way that is more accessible.

And the other piece that you named is shadow,

Right?

How shadow comes up in groups.

And I just wanna say,

Don't be afraid of it.

I mean,

That is part of what therapy is,

Is it's working with a shadow.

It's kind of gotten to this place where it's exclusively working with shadow and not even thinking about spirit,

Right?

And with group coaching,

We wanna look at both.

And because a lot of people have relatively unhealthy relationships with family,

Or we just haven't been taught how to live in harmony,

How to communicate really well,

How to work with lots of different people,

That shadow aspect of community is gonna come up.

There's different stages that people have named in the group process,

And one of them is called storming.

And storming is where the shadow stuff really starts to come to the surface.

And it can be kind of unsteady and challenging to work with,

But also super valuable.

And we actually can't move forward without it.

It is literally the soil,

The compost that we use in order to continue to grow our spirit and open our heart more.

So it's all there in the group.

Totally.

Just like there's no dharma without karma,

Right?

You cannot experience one without the other.

There is no shadow without light work and vice versa.

Totally,

Totally.

Yeah.

Cool.

Good stuff.

Yeah.

Good stuff.

Thanks.