DISCERNING CLIENT’S NEEDS IN DETERMINING IF READY FOR COACHING

Recently I presented Coaching to a group of psychology students and described the differences between therapy and coaching. As part of the presentation I said that, as a coach, I do not do therapy; instead when I meet clients who need therapy, I refer to therapists. I then went on to discuss how I discern the difference and, using the notes from the ACMC Training Manual, presented the following criteria for when to refer someone for therapy:

• Their primary need is to heal past hurt or trauma — Strong sense of Trauma
• They don't have the ego strength to face what is — Weak sense of self
• They have mainly a victim mentality — Weak sense of responsibility
• They need re-parenting/risk of transference. — Weak sense of personal authority

This proved to be a very useful presentation for me, as within a couple of weeks I found myself, with some help and guidance from Michael Hall, using this very criteria. At Michael’s suggestion I have written the following two case studies, as well as some of my learnings and conclusions from the experience.