THE STRUGGLE TO CHANGE
One key difference between therapy and coaching lies in the process of change.
Flushing Out FBI Desires and Frames
One key difference between therapy and coaching lies in the process of change. People who live in the past, are not okay in themselves, traumatized by a previous experience, and suffer from low ego-strength tend to be change-resisters. Yes, they need it and yet they strongly fear it. Why? Because the kind of change they need requires a fundamental change, an existential change, a change in the way they relate to reality. Yet without a solid sense of self and the ego- strength to face reality directly, they tend to fight the very transformations that would bring relief, freedom, and empowerment. So the therapist has to deal with “resistance” and use the therapeutic relationship itself to do so.
Not so with coaching. The population most appropriate for coaching are change-embracers. Because they live in the now (not the past), are up to Okay, and have the ego-strength to embrace reality—so change is attractive to them. They even think about and plan for change. Change for them isn’t fearful, but exciting, even part and parcel of the nature of life.