•   While both counseling and personal coaching involve the change   process and a course of life improvement, there are significant differences.

Counseling does enrich lives and involves goals;   however, it is primarily a prevention and intervention process and often   there is health insurance reimbursement. Counseling deals with mental health   issues— which are or may become unhealthy. Through counseling, a person   moves from “mental illness” into “mental wellness.”

When counseling fees are covered by   insurance, you must be diagnosed by the counselor and labeled with a   “mental illness” in order to qualify for coverage. This   diagnosis/treatment becomes a part of your medical records and may result in   a loss of privacy, especially when you use insurance benefits.   Counseling/therapy deals with emotional healing and relief from psychological   pain.

While coaching is frequently   practiced by licensed mental health professionals as a therapeutic method,   the field of coaching is primarily an enrichment process through which   a person progresses from “wellness” into “excellence”.

Coaching is an out-of-pocket expense. Costs   are comparable to physical self-improvement expenses such as massage, salon   and spa services, and personal training. You are in control and can choose   whom to consult for what reasons and how often. There is increased privacy   and confidentiality with no medical record of “mental Illness.” The   field of coaching does not deal with emotional healing or relief from   psychological pain.

Coaches—without a professional   mental health license—are not qualified to provide the services a therapist   performs. Counselors, however, by nature of their professional training,   often have excellent training, skills, and experience to provide professional   life coaching.

COMPARISON

COUNSELOR

COACH

Orientation

Intervention,Prevention,& Enrichment

Enrichment

Goals

Illness into Wellness

Wellness into Excellence

Approach

Why did you? How can you?

How can you?

Focus

Healing the Wounds & Moving On

Imagining the Possible & Doing It

Process

Exploring the Past,

Improving the Present and the Future

Designing the Future

Which is Right for YOU?