Coaching vs. Counseling, Consulting, and Mentoring

I am fortunate to have training in the various disciplines of counselor, coach, and supervisor/mentor, and there are important distinctions. If we work together, it might help you to have clarity about the difference between coaching, counseling, and other types of professional services such as consulting and mentoring, so that you’re clearer about what you’re seeking.

By law, my work as a mental health counselor is currently limited to clients from the State of New Mexico and Florida, where I am a licensed professional clinical counselor (LPCC). Regardless, I still value the coaching model – and I also prefer to move to a coaching model as soon as the client is ready, in my psychotherapeutic practice.

What exactly is a coaching model?

Essentially, it entails a strength-based focus and values client autonomy right from the start. Like a psychologist or psychiatrist, a counselor is often seen as an “expert” to whom one goes for a “treatment”.

Coaching is not like that. You are the expert in coaching, and if I am your coach, I help to reveal your expertise. Coaching focuses especially on where you are presently and where you are headed. It has the goal of helping you gain clarity about your present and your vision for the future, eliminate obstacles to your success, accelerate the pace of personal growth, and achieve results that empower you to live your best life – professionally and personally.

Coaching vs. Counseling

While coaching is forward-focused, counseling tends to deal more with past issues in which you may find yourself stuck and struggling. It is more directly focused on past trauma and the unconscious, as it plays out in psychological defenses. This is important work and sometimes is necessary before progress can be made. But within the coaching model, while we might discuss something that has occurred in the past for the purpose of clarifying the present, coaching does not generally focus on resolving the past, as such. It takes the present as the path. For example, freedom from pain can involve training our brain now to work differently right now, and that can be our focus.

Clients often come to see me about chronic pain, but that issue tends to affect many others, so in addition to the presenting issue that brings you to me, we can also focus on other areas of your life: Relationships, Finances, Spiritual Life, Work and Business, or Physical Health and Environment. A satisfying life includes all areas of life.

A simple rule of thumb to know whether you should be in coaching or counseling: If your past is the main issue, counseling is your best option. If your past feels more like a fact (regardless of whether the circumstances were difficult or negative), you are probably ready for coaching. If it appears that there is an issue for which you may need counseling and you live in the State of New Mexico, we can work on it together, and also as a bridge to a coaching model. Otherwise, I am happy to discuss with you the forms of psychotherapy available, and what may benefit you.  

Coaching vs. Consulting

A coach focuses on helping you walk your unique path to success. As the client, you are responsible for the results you receive as a result of coaching. I help you discover how to become more of who you need to be to achieve those results and identify what you may need to do differently. A consultant takes responsibility for a specific project, acting as a specialist, providing specific deliverables and knowledge. Although I do have knowledge to share, my goal is to bring out your inner expert regarding your situation and how to resolve it. I believe in your ability to fully experience your potential and will provide a safe, consistent space for you to develop your potential.

I have specialist knowledge in several areas. The first is my professional experience as a clinical counselor, including training specific to trauma (such as EMDR and The Flash Technique), addiction (e.g., Motivational Interviewing), anxiety (mindfulness-based methods), chronic pain (e.g., Pain Re-processing Therapy), and many others. These all naturally also inform my work as a coach, as a framework to understand what I’m seeing and what might benefit. In addition, my long-time experience as a student of Buddhism and a practitioner of meditation and yoga provides as much a theoretical and practical background for my work as does Western psychology. As it happens, I also have years of experience as a writer and editor in the software industry. None of this knowledge need come to the forefront, unless it becomes directly relevant, or you are personally interested. In that case, whether my knowledge has come personally or professionally, I will gladly share my understanding.

Coaching vs. Mentoring

Mentoring is very similar to coaching, but with a crucial difference. As a mentor (or supervisor) I guide you towards a specific path of development. For example, if I am supervising/mentoring a young counselor, I have an agenda that I need to follow to make sure my supervisee develops certain capacities. But as a personal coach, I focus on the development of people in general, and the development of your unique path in particular.

We are all different, and I am more interested in helping you onto the unique path that is meant for you—which may be quite different than the path I have taken, even though the purpose of our paths may be very similar. The job of a coach is not to tell you what to do, but rather to help you uncover the answers that lie within you, to be a catalyst for your success.