What is the Difference between Counseling and Life Coaching?
Posted on May 24, 2017 by Justin Cassens, One of Thousands of Relationship Coaches on Noomii.
To make a better distinction here's my analogy of Counselors as Mechanics and Life Coaches as Driving Instructors.
Put very simply counselors are experts trained to heal psychological and emotional trauma. Counselors have a medical approach of treating patients. Life coaches step in when clients are stable and ready for life change but don’t know how to implement that change or how to reach for a dream. Life coaches have a teaching approach to help clients become unstuck in life and guide them to their own success.
Imagine that the ability to get through the day is a car. Counselors would be the mechanics that fix the problems deep in the engine to keep the car running and safe on the road. They know how and when to change the oil, rotate the tires, and service the brakes. Once the car is running and safe, the next step is learning how to drive, and that is where life coaches come in. Life coaches are the instructors.
Driving is about a lot more than just turning the stirring wheel and pushing pedals. There are rules and regulations to follow. Which side of the road to drive on, when to stop, and where vehicles are allowed. Learning those alone takes time. Working with an instructor speeds up the process, as well as reduces the number of collisions, how much the gears grind, and the chances of getting a ticket.
The instructor has been there and teaches from the passenger seat. However, many people learn to drive from family or friends, so why would we need a life coach? Sometimes we don’t have the instructor we need. Either they’re not available to teach us or we don’t have someone with the necessary skills to learn from. How do we learn to drive stick when everyone we know has only ever driven an automatic?
Likewise, what if we want to make a drastic change? A trained instructor has tricks from teaching multiple students as well as unique experience to offer. If we’re done driving a car and instead we want to drive a big rig, a boat, or even an airplane then we’ll need an instructor. Trying to drive something we’re not used to is a good way to end up in a crash and we’ll end up back at the mechanic’s to get it fixed. It would be much more empowering to drive back for a tune up than being forced to ride back in the passenger seat of a tow truck.
Mechanics and instructors, both highly skilled specialists, work best in tandem. When the check engine light comes on the instructor will tell you to take the car to a mechanic because instructors have dedicated themselves to teaching people to drive. When you ask a mechanic how to drive something new they’ll point you to an instructor that will support and teach you what you need to know because mechanics have dedicated themselves to making cars run.
Counselors provide the indispensable service of maintaining ourselves. Life Coaches teach us how to succeed whether it’s learning to dive deep or fly through the sky. So the question remains: Where can I help you to go?
