How is grief coaching different from grief counseling and grief therapy?
Psychotherapy focuses on emotional and behavioral problems with the goal of bringing the client to normal functioning. In therapy, the therapist is considered a hired expert. Therapy often begins as a result of a crisis. Therapy most often takes place in-person. Therapists are limited to practicing within the locale of their license (i.e. within their state or province).
Coaching often is more holistic, addressing the whole person rather than just the “dysfunction.” A coach is a collaborative partner who joins the client on a journey toward greater fulfillment in life. The goal of coaching is to help you move from where are now to where you want to be. You have an active role in describing the purposeful and fruitful life that you are aiming for.
In coaching, your coach will ask you questions that are rooted in the belief that ultimately you know what is best for yourself and your future. Your coach will help you explore what blocks these goals and give you support in choosing alternatives. Coaching does not see grief as a dysfunction, but rather as a normal human response to loss.
While types of therapy vary widely, and some are more successful than others, some of the fundamental distinctions between coaching and the most popular types of counseling are as follows:
| Traditional Therapy or Counseling | Coaching | |
| Primary Life Focus | A person’s past, which usually includes some form of trauma. Deals with healing emotional pain or conflict within an individual or in a relationship between two people. BUT: some forms of therapy, or individual therapists, do focus on the future. | A person’s present, in order to help them design and act toward the future. While positive feelings may be a natural outgrowth, the primary focus is on creating actionable strategies for achieving specific goals in one’s work or personal life. The emphasis in a coaching relationship is on action, accountability and follow through. BUT: a responsible coach knows when it’s useful to look at the past, precisely because the past informs the present, as well as in order to help extinguish limiting belief systems. |
| Subject Focus | Feelings | Action and outcomes |
| Model | Medical or clinical, relying on diagnosis of pathology or relationship conflicts | Learning/developmental, focusing on attainable goals and possibilities |
| Nature of Issue | Identifiable dysfunction | A generally functional client desiring a better situation |
| Treatment of the Past | Understand and resolve the past | Understanding the past as the context in which future goals are set |
| Questions Asked | WHY? | HOW? WHAT? Asking WHY, a form of seeking insight, is emphasized less than action |
| Client Goals | Help patients resolve old pain and improve emotional states | Helps clients learn new skills and tools to build a more satisfying successful future; focuses on goals |
| Accountability for Goals | The goals of therapy are often necessarily vague or intangible, or not easily measured. It can be difficult (even undesirable) to identify success with much particularity | Coaching goals, like business goals, usually have to do with one’s external world and behavior, and therefore can be measured. |
| Relationship | Doctor-patient relationship (The therapist is the expert) |
Co-creative equal partnership (The coach offers perspectives and helps the clients discover their own answers) |
| Function | The Therapist diagnoses, then provides professional expertise and guidelines to provide a path to healing | The Coach stands with the clients and helps him or her identify the challenges, then partners to turn challenges into victories, holding client accountable to reach desired goals |
| Training or Educational Background | Therapists require extensive expertise in the subject matter of the therapy: marital counseling, childhood abuse, etc. A therapist can try to coach. | Coaches, who deal in process, do not require subject matter expertise. But coaches cannot try to be therapists. |
| Style | Patient, nurturing, evocative, indirect, parenting, cathartic | The same, excepting parenting, but also catalytic, challenging, direct, straight talk, accountability |
| Rate of Change | Progress is often slow and painful because the issues are often subconscious and fundamental | Growth and progress are rapid and usually enjoyable |
| Responsibility for Outcomes | The therapist is responsible for both the process and the outcome | The coach is responsible for the process; the client for the results |
| Disclosure | Limited, if any, personal disclosure by the therapist | Personal disclosure by the coach used when relevant as an aid to communicating (a similarity with mentoring) |
| Payment | Often covered in some part by insurance; almost never by any other third-party | Not covered by insurance; employers may pay for coaching of individuals |
