Coaching with psychotherapy provides rich opportunity to explore and understand motivations, values and behaviours. Coaching at work with a psychotherapist invariably focuses on the big existential life questions, ‘what to do next’, a career change, facing a different life stage.
Two for the price of one
In recent years the ‘listening’ professions have become increasingly blended, offering a wealth of opportunity for those considering working with a coach or a counsellor, or someone who is qualified in both domains. This rich offering also brings a complexity to the search for the ‘right fit’.
If is often difficult to distinguish between the two approaches, largely because the skill sets are very similar, and to the outsider they look the same. All good coaches will listen deeply, ask poignant questions, and have a non-directive foundation in their work. The conversation typically will be outcome focussed, with insights and decisions happening along the way. The conversation is boundaried and contained to a specific topic.
The counsellor/therapist will have the same skill and approach, plus significant studying to have emotional capacity and confidence to work deeply to understand the source of what might be unknown. The territory for discovery is potentially unbounded, building an understanding of the self, often working in the early years of someone’s life to uncover the root of their being in the world and how these impacts on all aspects of their life.
Working with a coach-therapist really is ‘two for the price of one’, where there is the opportunity to work at depth and to focus on outcome. Each coach-therapist contract is unique and will be individually contracted to agree on how to work to meet personal objectives.
Jane is a coach and therapist
She has an MA in Integrated Psychotherapy and has Master Practioner accreditation in coaching. Her psychotherapy training covered humanistic, psychodynamic and existentialism, all of which informs her coaching work, in particular where clients are grappling with many of life’s change decisions. With these two qualifications as coach and therapist, Jane offers the choice and opportunity to work at a deep and broad level for her clients.
