Is There A Beef Between Therapists And Life Coaches?

(Full transparency — I’m a life coach. I am not a therapist, nor do I have any credentials in psychology or counseling. My wife, however, is a licenced psychotherapist and a life coach and I have had many conversations with her and her therapist colleagues about this topic. I’m not here to throw shade on therapists — in fact, I agree with many of their issues.)

“Snake oil salesmen.”

“Wannabe therapists who don’t want to do the work.”

“They’re dangerous.”

“A paid for friend or consultant.”

“More of them need to be sued.”

These are all comments from licensed therapists on a Reddit r/therapists thread, describing their thoughts on life coaches.

I’ve also read / heard many other disparaging comments towards coaches from other forums and Facebook groups, people who are even coaches themselves (but who are licenced in other areas).

To balance out the hate-fest on that Reddit thread, there were some therapists who said that they found it embarrassing that there was so much hostility towards life coaches from the therapist community. A few life coaches even snuck in to share a few of their thoughts.

Now, if you look up “why do life coaches hate therapists”, you won’t find anything (at least I didn’t). Just some articles explaining the difference between life coaching and therapy.

No Reddit thread on that.

So why the mud slinging from Team Therapy? What do coaches think of therapists? Is there common ground between the two?

I want to share what it is that upsets therapists (from what I’ve learned online and talking to therapists and licenced counsellors of all kinds over the last five years) and how they do have some legitimate concerns.

I also want to share what life coaches have to say about therapy, and how there may be some outdated perceptions present.

Finally, I propose finding some commonalities and perhaps how each camp can support one another rather than tear each other down.

My aim is to have a balanced look at the therapist-life coach friction that’s out there, and some of the misconceptions that both sides have of each other.

But first let’s all grab a chamomile tea and a gluten-free acai hemp blueberry muffin to calm our nervous systems, shall we?

The coaching business is a $2.85 billion industry globally, and there are approximately 71,000 certified life coaches worldwide. (I would probably double or even triple that number to include those who calls themselves life coaches without any training or certification.)

From 2015–2019, the number of professional coaches increased by 33% (2020 ICF Global Coaching Study).

In other words, coaching isn’t going anywhere soon.

I studied at iPEC. It was a 10-month program, with over 300 hours of practical work, and since then I have achieved my PCC (Professional Certified Coach professional with the International Coach Federation). That involves having over 750 hours of practical (paid) coaching under your belt. Plus passing a written exam.

Does this qualify me for even remotely approaching a client to diagnose and/or treat for mental health issues or trauma-related challenges?

Not at all.

You may think that means nothing. Well, it means a lot to me.

Life coaching is not meant for meant for diagnosing mental health challenges or trauma. It’s not meant for dealing with deep psychological issues. It’s not supposed to tread upon the territory of therapists, psychologists and licensed mental health practitioners.

And yet, many clients unknowingly come to coaches for emotional and mental health issues. Us coaches might not even know this is the case, because we aren’t trained to recognize mental health issue symptoms.

And some coaches don’t even care. They just want the client and cause irreparable harm by trying to play doctor.

More on that later.

The first step in understanding the anti-coaching stance is understanding WHY people choose to get coaching.

Coaching has an attractiveness over therapy because:

· There’s less stigma attached to hiring a coach than going to therapy. And while TikTok and other social media has made mental health a less stigmatized topic, there’s still an air of mystery and fear around therapy for some. Coaching, with its clearly defined terms, goals, and outcomes, is easier to understand and digest.

· Coaching marketing is superior. Coaches learn from marketing gurus, copywriters, and social media marketing strategists. They will hire out getting their websites done by pros. They know how to speak to their target audience with confidence and pizazz.

· Some mental health facilities are under-staffed and over-booked and many struggle in finding help. Coaches, even though they aren’t mental health professionals, are much easier to connect with and book with. They’re more open and flexible and are more appealing for those who are struggling to find anyone to help them.

· Coaching is shorter-term than therapy and having that marked end date makes it more attractive to some people rather than the seemingly open and never-ending commitment that therapy carries. (It also goes to say that some governing bodies for therapists don’t allow therapists to create and sell finite-numbered packages, so therapists are stuck with the one-session-at-a-time business model)

· Similarly, coaching tends to have a simply stated goals which is something people understand. “Create six figures in six month, “Build your confidence in 90 days”, “Reach you personal goals in two months”, etc. tend to capture people’s imagination more than “hey let’s delve into every painful event in your life and heal those”.

Now, having said all this, not all is copacetic in the coaching scene.

Let’s look at what complaints’ therapists have about coaching, and explore each:

1) Coaching is unregulated, unlicensed and unsupervised.

Yes, yes and yes.

While the ICF (International Coaching Federation) is called “the main accrediting and credentialing body for both training programs and coaches”, it’s not a governing body. It doesn’t have an exacting and precise series of steps to codify and train coaches who can be held to strict universal standards and operating procedures.

Unlike doctors, accountants, nurses, dieticians, architects and yes, therapists, anyone can just call themselves a coach and that’s it. There’s no challenging it.

And that’s a problem in the coaching industry…even for other coaches.

It’s a buyer beware edict when it comes to coaching. It can be the Wild West out there.

Are there scammers?

Absolutely.

It’s important for prospective clients to ask questions to the coach — where they studied, who have they helped, what testimonials do they have, etc.

Any coach worth their salt will gladly answer these honestly.

Personally, I would love if there were a governing body, with regulations, supervision, and even a license. Do I see it happening soon? Probably not.

So therapists do have a legitimate concern about the safety of clients seeking help outside therapy, but they also put powerful, ethical, useful coaches in the same category as the scam artists, which isn’t entirely helpful.

2. Coaches aren’t trained to deal with mental health issues

This too is 100% true.

Coaches will say that they aren’t therapists, and will say that they will refer if they feel like someone needs therapy — but how do we know if someone is struggling with mental health issues if we’re not trained to recognize them?

That’s a dilemma.

And as much as coaches try to steer away from mental health issues, there is going to be a crossover. It can’t be helped. I have yet to have a client NOT bring something into a session that comes from an old wound or issue.

The goal is to discern between what is ours as coaches to work with and what isn’t ours to work with. But then we go back to the question of how do we know what those are?

Ugh, it’s a tough call.

Strong and experienced coaches have a sense of where to draw the line and will remind clients of the immediate goals and what their overall aim is.

Many coaches, on the other hand, can cause irreparable harm by pretending to be armchair therapists. Just because they have gone to therapy, they figure they know what they’re doing.

That’s like saying because you’ve been in lots of planes, you know how to pilot them.

There are some coaches who trigger their clients, who give damaging directives, and try to pull their clients into the deep end when they aren’t willing or ready to do so.

Again, this is harmful, and gives the coaching industry a bad name.

I’m not sure what the answer is for this one — perhaps if there were a governing body, there would be mandatory training on recognizing mental health issues — but then would coaches then just becoming therapists?

It’s a hard one to have an answer to.

3. Coaches are unethical, shady, and make more money than they deserve

This partially piggybacks off the last point, but let’s open it up a little more.

Again, there are some coaches who are only in it for the money.

They see other coaches making large coin and copy their methods.

Or they’re great salespeople but struggle with delivering the goods.

This can be said about any industry.

So while there are shady folks, I can tell you from the hundreds (if not thousands) of coaches I have spoken to over the years, I can maybe count on one hand how many greasy folks I’ve encountered.

Coaches are called to helping others. They all have the fire in the belly to be of service.

Many have left lucrative careers and stable jobs to struggle with the uncertainty of entrepreneurship and in standing out from the crowded space of coaching.

Most coaches I know end up going back to old jobs, or just retire, or switch to something else because it’s too hard to find clients and make a decent living.

They leave crestfallen.

I would argue that most coaches who fail at entrepreneurship are the absolute opposite of the schemers and scammers. They’re too sensitive for the marketplace, unsure of themselves as salespeoople, and then go back to the safety of salaried work.

Which then leads into the point about coaches making too much money, as if one were to equate education with compensation.

As mentioned earlier, coaches are more aware of strong marketing, ease of connecting, super easy onboarding, and a sense of customer care that many therapists struggle with.

Many therapists are hamstrung with only being able to offer one session at a time, so they can’t create attractive packages for clients to purchase.

Some governing bodies restrict how therapists can promote themselves.

So of course coaches, who in some ways are attracting similar clientele, have the freedom to create whatever they want…and charge whatever they want.

There’s a reason why the coaching industry is in the billions of dollars — people are willing to pay.

Therapists feel this is unfair, given that they’ve spend so much time and money on training and supervision and all the trappings of being licenced.

It’s like when Uber swooped in and taxi drivers, bound to their yearly 5- and 6-figure licensing fees, expensively-fitted cars, and strict guidelines and laws, started to loudly protest.

Is it fair?

Depends on whose side you’re on and what you define as fair.

I would love to see restrictions on therapists and how they market themselves and charge to be loosened and let them compete openly in the market.

As a matter of fact, because of the gap between what therapists bring in and what coaches make, many therapists turn their attention to coaching, simply because it’s more lucrative.

So, what do coaches say about therapists?

Most of the coaches I know hold therapists and other licensed professionals in high regard, for the most part.

We know that we don’t have the years of training and supervision, etc. under our belt.

We’re happy to recommend clients to therapists, because we know that they can do what we can’t.

One misconception that sticks with coaches, and which needs to be repaired, is that “therapists deal with the past while coaching deals with the present and future”.

This is outdated.

Therapists deal with the present as much as any coach does. My own therapy focuses on how I can improve where I am now, and to be future-focused for success.

We spent maybe two sessions in total exploring the past, but that was because I was a new client and I needed to give him context to my current struggles.

Other than that, we’re looking upward and onward.

Some coaches use that old saying to feel superior in some ways, or at least to feel like they have worth and merit as coaches.

But the reality is that we all deal with the past, present and future in some way or another because they are intertwined.

The other outdated notion coaches hold is that therapists work with dysfunctional people to move them to functional, while coaches work with functional people to move them to optimal.

Again, I disagree with this.

Not everyone who sees a therapist has mental health issues or is dysfunctional.

Therapists see all kinds of clients at all different levels of growth.

Sessions may stay stuck in the past because that’s where the client keeps taking it, and has nothing to do with the therapist or the modality.

Coaches need to realize that they aren’t the only ones who move people into optimal.

We’re all here to better our clients’ lives — from today on.

So, what can we do to close this fissure between therapists and coaches?

I think it’s in recognizing that each have their own strengths and focusing on those rather than the shortcomings or differences between the two.

And also understanding that we aren’t competing — we’re all here to help people become greater versions of themselves, to reach their goals, to grow, expand and challenge themselves.

Everyone brings their talents, strengths, ways of doing things, and training to the table to work with their clients.

There are different styles, different modalities, different approaches, and we all have a different vibe.

We’re all here because we’ve been called to service.

Some folks really do need therapy. Some folks are comfortable with just getting coached.

Some do both at the same time (like me!)

As a coach, focusing on what I can do to help others, rather than dissing other service providers, is a much more productive use of my time, and my clients benefit from this outlook, as my energy is on them and them alone.

The moment I stopped seeing other coaches and therapists (and psychologists, etc.) as competition, and started seeing everyone as yet another unique and needed instrument of change to help others, the more at ease I was with just showing up as myself.

And proud to be part of a larger community of those who are willing to step into the trenches and bear witness to someone else’s journey.

I know coaches who have a roster of therapists who they refer out depending on the needs or requests of the client, and I know therapists who have coaches they trust to refer when someone is seeking specific coaching.

How cool is that?

I’m a coach, and you don’t have to like me or believe in what I do.

You may disagree with this entire post.

That’s fine…skip ahead to something else then.

But if you’re in the coaching or therapist space, I’d love if we could work at improving things and helping one another, rather than tearing each other down.

Peace out.

Hey did I mention I was a life coach? Oh maybe 36 times in this piece. Whatevs. If you want to learn more about what I do and who I help, check out www.therealpaulsilva.com and take a look around. I’d love to hear from you.