There’s a wide range of helpers available—consultants, therapists, counselors, mentors, and coaches. How do you choose the right one?
What Sets Therapists, Counselors, and Coaches Apart?
Here’s a simplified breakdown:
- Therapists help you develop skills to think or act differently, often focusing on mental health.
- Counselors give advice, often problem-solving immediate issues.
- Coaches, like me, use questions to guide you in exploring your world.
| Therapists/ Counselors | Inquiry-based Coaches | |
| Intention | Seek to resolve | Seek to create |
| Object | Challenges in the present. | Changes in present behavior or experience (eliminating negatives) A brighter, more effective and/or profitable future (creating positives) |
| Strategies | Understanding and resolving the experiences of the past. | Goal setting Vision Creation Values clarity Resolving dilemmas Shifting the behavior and attitudes of the present. |
| Pitfalls | Focus on the past and/or “negative” experiences can exacerbate problems for some people. Also, due to the practice of diagnosing, some people wind up believing that they “are” their diagnosis. | Coaching is an unregulated industry. Anyone can call themselves a coach and seek payment for services despite lack of experience, talent, or training. The buyer must beware. |
Recent Shifts in Professional Support
The focus of these professions is shifting towards positive psychology, aiming not just to fix problems but to enrich lives. I once considered becoming a mental health counselor, but coaching aligns best with my skills and outlook.
How to Choose the Right Helper
Depending on your current challenge, you may benefit more from one type of helper over the others. Here’s a quick guide:
| Current challenge | Helping professional |
| Frequent experiences of difficult emotions, difficulty taking care of yourself, finding yourself a mystery, feeling helpless to change anything. Lots of time and emotional energy (sadness, anger, anxiety) spent over events of the past. | Psychotherapist |
| You’ve tried to figure things out on your own but mostly you have no idea what you’re doing. Getting a job, starting a business, being an adult, finding and being in a good relationship, getting along with your spouse — whatever the topic, it’s a mystery to you and you just need someone to explain to you what’s going on and what to do. | Counselor or mentor |
| You sense that you have an opportunity to do even better than you’ve been doing. You work hard. You follow through. You wish you had a source of consistent feedback from someone who won’t take your failures personally, someone who can help you figure out your next steps without telling you what to do. Sometimes your confidence falters even though you know (intellectually) that you can probably do things on your own. You just believe that with some support you could do a lot better. | Inquiry-based coach. |
It’s very likely that you would do well with a combination of the above, either by connecting with one professional whose approach combines disciplines, or by contracting with two different professionals at the same time.
My Approach
I focus on inquiry-based coaching, incorporating emotional and business mentoring as needed. While there are specialized niches within each category, that discussion is for another time.
Interested?
Your curiosity is the only thing you need to start the process. Contact me for a no-obligation chat. I look forward to helping you on your journey.
