Future-focus does not distinguish coaching from therapy

A friend recently said to me, “I watched an interview of a life coach and she said ‘Therapy is different from life coaching because therapy is about the past and life coaching is about the present and future.’ Is that how you see the difference between therapy and life coaching too?” I responded, “No. I’d say that 90% of my practice is future focused and concentrates on improving functioning and goal attainment today” I started poking around the internet and it seems like many prominent life coaches say the same thing - that future-focus is what distinguishes them and also what prevents them from needing any type of therapy license. I think this distinction is wrong.

Most of what I do is to help my clients overcome barriers to success in their present and future lives. In fact, I find it nearly impossible to do any sort of meaningful therapy work without the present and future as context. I expect tangible results from my therapy, in terms of reduction in symptoms, improvements in functioning, and achievement of goals. The way I get there, however, is to identify and overcome both the practical barriers to success, and clinical ones. I can “motivate” the heck out of you, but if you’re dealing with anxious avoidance, attentional issues, or depression, it’s going to be pretty demotivating if we don’t deal with clinical issues first.

According to this interview of a CBT therapist and a life coach, the day-to-day practices of a CBT therapist and a life coach are quite similar with the exception of addressing clinical issues directly. Life coaches say they do not do that. But throughout the interview, the life coach mentioned using several psychotherapeutic interventions. She just didn’t label them as such. If the practices of many life coaches and therapists are so similar, what is actually different about them?

First, the quantity of training required to be any type of licensed therapist is much greater than for a coach. Tony Robbins (linked above) mentioned that his life coaches have over 250 hours of training. My graduate school classmates who went on to get licensed in Oregon, have two to three years of full-time classes (Fall, Spring, and Summer terms), over 400 hours of pre-degree internship experience, and then approximately 3000 hours of supervised clinical experience before becoming fully licensed. My doctoral colleagues have even more. Counselor training and experience must meet national requirements (American Counseling Association, American Psychological Association, National Association of Social Workers) and include a variety of subjects defined by the national accrediting agencies, including ethics. This is a HUGE distinction in terms of the knowledge mental health folks have to draw on, to do “the same job.” We also have to pass national board exams and complete minimum continuing education in clinical skills, suicide prevention, and ethics, to maintain our licenses.

We are held to strict ethical standards, by law. Being ethical isn’t just a reputational issue or something we should do to be nice. If we do not adhere to all of the ethics and laws of our professions, we can be disciplined by our licensing boards. We live under the threat of having our licenses revoked if we do not meet our profession’s standards and we know that if we lose our license in one state, we often cannot get a license in another state. Unethical behavior can end your career, as a professional therapist. These ethics also govern how we structure our businesses financially and prohibits us from taking advantage of our clients.

I’m not saying that life coaches don’t add value. I’m sure they do. Some people have real talent for mentorship and peer support and I don’t begrudge them having a peer support or mentoring business. However, the reason we have educational standards for therapists is because in trying to help others change their lives, we (more often than not) wander upon mental health issues. I can only recall a couple of career counseling clients who did not have underlying anxiety, trauma, or attentional issues that were in the way of their success. While I may use more “diagnosticy” language to describe these blockers, these seem to be the same blockers life coaches are helping their clients overcome.

You might say, “No problem - I’ll just decide what type of support I need.” That’s fair, as long as consumers fully understand that the life coach they’re seeing is differently qualified than a therapist to perform the same type of support and life coaches aren’t helping us make an accurate distinction. They aren’t held to ethical standards in advertising though so they say things like this: “Zander reports that working with her twice a month for four months will ‘totally turn you around’—especially if you do your homework. ‘In four months, you won’t recognize yourself,” she explains. “In six months, you’ll be in a different life. You’re not going to go back. Anyone who is staying longer than six months is learning and having a ball. You lost the [weight] and now you like your trainer. It shifts into triage and maintenance and more success.’” As a therapist, I cannot make promises like that because I know that in four months, we might unearth all sorts of barriers to success that we then have to address. If you come to me wanting to lose weight, I’m going to send you to your doctor for medical screenings, see if you might have an eating disorder, work on your real motivations for losing weight and make sure they’re congruent with your value system, and then I’m going to suggest evidence-based approaches to healthy lifestyles. Oh and if you need advice on eating and working out, I’m probably going to refer you to actual experts in nutrition and fitness because those two things are not under the scope of my license. I can’t just tell you “Be accountable and go work out!” The problem is that consumers don’t always understand the difference in training between therapists and coaches, so they’re not always making informed choices.

This is why it continues to baffle me that professionals who essentially claim an 80% similar scope of practice to mental health professionals, don’t need a license to practice.