Coaching vs Therapy
What’s the difference? Even as I’m sitting here writing this I’m wondering myself, how do I explain this? So I’ll start with my simple understanding.
Coaching is future focused. Therapy is past focused.
But is it necessary to understand the difference in the approach when what you want is help to feel better? Yes it is. Why? It’s essential to look behind the title of therapist and coach and understand what the approach is.
You deserve to have the help and support you need to move through what you are experiencing right now and head towards a life that you want for yourself and those around you.
You need to feel safe and connected to be able to explore how your experiences have shaped your behaviours, to understand them without judgement or shame and to then raise your awareness as to how YOU can begin to create the life that you want.
Trauma informed coaching bridges the gap between therapy and coaching by looking at past experiences and how the nervous system has responded to help you, the client, in the present so you can live your life with more resilience and safety. Holding a safe space for my clients whilst this happens is both an honour and a privilege.
Personally I have made more progress with my healing since I have trained as a Narcissistic Trauma Informed Coach than I did from therapy and counselling. Whilst I felt better at the end of each counselling session, in between sessions, I didn’t know how to process what had happened to me from a nervous system perspective and so I continued to be triggered.
And I didn’t understand why I continued to be triggered. After all, I’d talked about what happened to me and considered ways to reframe my thoughts but because I continued to feel overwhelmed with the thoughts and feelings associated with what had happened to me this then triggered more hopelessness. “If therapy didn’t work, what’s wrong with me?” “What else can I do?”
Trauma informed coaching creates a safe place and attunement between me, the coach, and you, the client, to then support you as you step into self-leadership.
Being given the tools and strategies to cope and to reflect and to create a life without shame and judgement is so empowering and it lasts. And so you begin your life of experiencing post-traumatic growth.