Is this therapy?

“Attachment figure — someone who provides a safe haven where the other can be deeply seen and feel safe and secure.”

Dr Dan Siegel

It was the opening round of our group supervision session and Sam was reflecting on his recent experiences of coaching clients in a financial services organisation:

“A common question I have heard from my coachees at the end of their session is, ‘Is this therapy?’ I am now starting to question if I am doing something wrong to create this impression.”

As Sam paused, I could see several of his peers nodding in agreement; this was something they were experiencing too, and there was a felt sense of anxiety in the group as a result.

The straightforward answer is no, coaching is not the same as therapy. Both professions are very distinct in terms of client needs, orientation, and purpose of each helping relationship. A fundamental distinction being that coaching focuses on the coachee’s performance, development and wellbeing at work, while therapy focuses on healing trauma and mental ill health.

In a previous blog post, we explored the coach’s experience of meeting a therapeutic boundary, the differences between coaching and therapy, how to recognise this boundary and competently manage it.

The intention of this blog post is to help new coaches understand the common factors and experiences that may result in a new client experiencing transformational coaching as therapeutic.

We will also explore how best a coach may respond in these moments.

Like therapy, a strong relational container is at the heart of coaching. Longitudinal studies in both coaching and therapy have concluded that the human-to-human relationship established between the coach/therapist and client is the critical ingredient to determine the success of both interventions.

Within this relationship, as a coach we are intentionally being a secure attachment figure, which as Dan Siegel describes above, means the coachee feels safe, seen and soothed.

As a result of the contracting and these relational conditions, the coachee will experience a deep level of trust, benevolence, empathy and presence from their coach; they will feel psychologically safe to take a risk and be vulnerable. Being vulnerable is described by Brene Brown as involving risk, uncertainty and emotional connection. This level of expressed vulnerability is one key factor in transformational coaching that coachees experience as therapeutic — especially when you compare this to their everyday experiences of conversations and relationships at work.

Similarly, when listening and facilitating the coaching session, coaches hold a non-judging and compassionate attitude, with a strong belief in the coachee’s potential. Where else may they have experienced a relationship like this? These ways of meeting and holding the coachee create a thinking space where the coachee can be deeply open and honest.

As a result, the coachee often finds themselves voicing things that they may have not shared before — in some instances, even to themselves. This deep sense of psychological safety of being genuinely heard and seen can naturally evoke emotion, insight, and self-reflection, and so feels therapeutic.

Transformational coaching facilitates a process of embodied introspection, making the unconscious conscious, where the coach will listen deeply and generatively; ask insightful questions; and introduce exercises and psychological models that enable the coachee to examine and experience their deeper identity, purpose, values, beliefs, patterns, hopes and aspirations. This felt introspection may feel very similar to therapy — although as described earlier, the intent of therapy will focus more on healing past wounds and trauma. Coaching holds an intention to activate the coachee towards change and goal attainment, maintaining a present and future focus, and this is a different orientation.

However, when a coachee is reflecting upon their work, development, performance and aspirations, coaching is fundamentally holistic — and emotions such as excitement, fear, anger, doubt and hope will arise and be brought into the coachee’s awareness. A transformational coach will not ignore these: he or she will enable the coachee to be present with this energy, and understand and release their emotions. This experience may also feel therapeutic to the coachee, especially as emotions are often repressed in the working environment.

So, with this relational depth in transformational coaching, it is common for coachees to experience coaching as therapeutic (we say with a little “t”) — and yet it is not therapy (Big “T”).

The first time a coachee questions “Is this therapy?” can understandably be very disorientating for a new coach like Sam: the coach often feels responsible, or as if they are doing something wrong by taking a client into unsuitable territory. It is important here for the coach to remember that unlike a therapeutic client, the coachee is healthy and autonomous, and is self-organising what they share with their coach. This means the coach can learn to trust the coachee is comfortable sharing what they are sharing, and hold them in an equalising, adult-to-adult relationship.

As a coach, we do perform the role of an educator for our coachees: remember that they are often new to coaching, and so, through our ongoing contracting conversations, our intent is to help them to get the most from their experience of being coached.

Below is one example of how a coach may respond to this question:

“I really hear that you are asking is this therapy — may I check what is behind your question?

It is quite normal that coaching can be experienced as therapeutic, as you are talking in a non-judgemental space about what is most important to you in your work and life. I often say to clients that coaching may feel therapeutic, as where else do you get to discuss — in a confidential space — how you are really feeling about your work? But coaching is not therapy.

Do you remember the conversation we had at the start of our relationship about the differences between coaching, counselling/therapy and mentoring? I am curious what else would be useful for us to discuss, so that you can understand the difference and so you can be even more comfortable?”

In the response above, you will notice that the coach acknowledges the question, so that the coachee feels heard, and then explores what is beneath the coachee’s question. The coach then continues by normalising the coachee’s experience and explains that whilst they may be experiencing some catharsis or the coaching space as therapeutic, this is a different development relationship with a different intent. The coach does this by reinforcing the earlier conversation about the differences between coaching and therapy (which took place as part of the initial contracting phase for the coaching programme). Finally, the coach then spot contracts with the coachee to mend any potential rupture — and see what else needs to be discussed so the coachee is even more comfortable within the coaching relationship.

As coaches, we own the process, so in these moments the coach’s stance is vital. In situations like this, it is important for the coach to be present and self-regulated; to hold authority; not take on projected discomfort; and to educate the coachee so that he or she can get the most from the coaching process.

Ultimately, coaching is about facilitating personal change and growth. When the coachee starts to trust their coach and the coaching process, by being vulnerable and honest, they will let go of unhelpful patterns and blocks — and gain greater insight and clarity on their identify, purpose and vision for their life and work.

Coaching will become transformative in ways that they never imagined.