There are a lot of ways that you can accompany another to greater health and wellness. Two of the most common are coaching and counseling.
You might be asking, “Which would be a better fit for me, coaching or counseling?” You know they are different, but not enough to discern whether one fits you better.
It’s a common question we address when helping people discern our Catholic Mindset Coach Certification at Metanoia Catholic, and today I want to share some helpful questions we’ve used to help others discern if they should pursue a path in coaching or counseling.
Of note, I’m being intentionally general in the lines I draw between coaching and counseling. I get more specific in my podcast Coaching vs. Counseling vs. Spiritual Direction.
If you feel like you need more help in your discernment…get a coach (see our Catholic Coach Directory)!
Question 1: What gives you a greater sense of personal fulfillment?
I once spoke with a friend who started as a counselor and transitioned to coaching. He noticed the heaviness he felt when he’d come home after a full day of counseling. It was emotionally taxing, and the stress was impacting his marriage and family.
He also noticed that his peers weren’t experiencing the same emotional fatigue as he was working with clients who were mentally ill. People struggling with severe depression, anxiety, and diagnosable mental illness were, no surprise, the bulk of his clientele.
At the same time, he noticed he felt engaged and energized when helping someone move beyond healing to a place of thriving. Helping people grow on the positive psychology end of mental health proved to be more personally fulfilling.
- Which do you find more personally fulfilling: conversations that help people who are hurting arrive at healing, or conversations that help people who want to grow in greater wellness start moving forward?
Question 2: Who do you want to help?
Which of the following scenarios fits you better?
Scenario 1: Do you want to help people overcome a diagnosable mental illness, or move from a place of mental illness to a baseline level of mental health? If so chances are you’d find counseling or therapy a better fit. The schooling for counseling and therapy has a heavier focus on forming practitioners to diagnose and treat mental illness. If this is you, you might find yourself saying:
- I want to help people process their deep-seated traumas, or
- I want to help people experience healing (which happens in coaching too, but is not the primary focus), or
- I want to work with people on their past pains so they can have more freedom and mental health today.
As a general rule of thumb, counselors tend to look backward, while coaches look at the present and future.
Scenario 2: Do you want to help people who are mentally healthy progress to a place of greater thriving and wellness? Do you prefer a positive psychology approach to accompaniment which helps your clients identify what they do well and do it more excellently? Do you have a niche you wish to serve, like weight-loss, career advancement, emotional intelligence, fitness, nutrition, parenting, romantic relationships, etc..
If this is you, you might find yourself saying:
- I worked with a coach and it transformed my life. I’d like to help others like that, or
- I’d love to be in some role where I can professionally accompany someone, but I don’t want to go back to school and invest the time and money to become a counselor, or
- I’d like to work with people pursuing excellence on the positive side of mental health.
If you align more with the first scenario, the counseling and therapy path may fit you best. If you felt more resonance with the second scenario, you’d probably enjoy coaching more.
We have a fun quiz you can take that gives some insight on the type of coach you’d be. Click here to see if you are a Visionary, Commander, Healer, Guide, or Encourager coach.
Question 3: What do you want to help people with?
This question is similar to questions 1 and 2, but approaches the discernment from a different angle.
How would you complete the following statement?
I want to help people with ____________ so that they can experience _________________.
Consider your answer:
Bend towards counseling: Are you helping people predominantly on the lower end of the mental health spectrum, i.e. overcoming severe addiction, trauma, PTSD, depression, diagnosable mental disorders, or conditions that require specific therapies or medication? Is the primary goal healing, and getting them back to a functional place where they can begin moving forward with their life?
Or
Bend towards coaching: Are you helping people predominantly on the upper end of the mental health spectrum to advance in specific life skills, overcome specific challenges, or achieve goals? Is your hope that they will become the best version of themselves, achieve new levels of thriving, and find greater meaning and purpose?
Where do you go from here?
Hopefully, these questions have revealed whether you lean more toward a career in coaching or counseling.
If you’d like to investigate Catholic coaching further, check out our blog How to Evaluate a Catholic Faith-Based Coaching Certification.
