Therapy Coaching can be distinguished from therapy in a number of ways. First, coaching is a profession that supports personal and professional growth and development based on the individual-initiated change in pursuit of specific actionable outcomes. These outcomes are linked to personal or professional success.
Coaching is forward-moving and future-focused. Therapy, on the other hand, deals with healing pain, dysfunction, and conflict within an individual or relationship. The focus is often on resolving difficulties arising from the past which hamper an individual's emotional functioning in the present. Therapy outcomes often include improved emotional and feeling states. While positive feelings and emotions may be a natural outcome of coaching, the primary focus is on creating actionable strategies for achieving specific goals in one's work or personal life. The emphasis in a coaching relationship is on the action, accountability, and follow-through.
Consulting Consultants may be retained by individuals or organizations for the purpose of accessing specialized expertise. While consulting approaches vary widely, there is often an assumption that the consultant diagnoses problems and prescribes and sometimes implements solutions. In general, the assumption with coaching is that individuals or teams are capable of generating their own solutions, with the coach supplying supportive, discovery-based approaches and frameworks.
Mentoring can be thought of as guiding from one's own experience or sharing of experience in a specific area of industry or career development, it is sometimes confused with coaching. Although some coaches provide mentoring to other coaches in training they do not typically mentor those they are coaching.
Training programs are based on the acquisition of certain learning objectives. Though objectives are clarified in the coaching process, they are set by the individual or team being coached with guidance by the coach. Training also assumes a linear learning path that coincides with an established curriculum. Coaching is less linear without a set curriculum plan.
Athletic Development Though sports metaphors are often used, professional coaching is different from the traditional sports coach. The athletic coach is often seen as an expert who guides an individual or team based on greater experience or knowledge. Professional coaches possess these qualities, but it is the experience and knowledge of the individual that determines the direction. Additionally, professional coaching, unlike athletic development does not focus on behaviors that are being executed poorly or incorrectly. Instead, the focus is on identifying opportunities for development based on individual stress.