Sure, you want to improve your life, but how do you know whether you need gentle handholding or intense work for issues that haven’t been acknowledged yet? Life coaches, counsellors and therapists work in similar, often overlapping, fields. But there are significant distinctions between them. Here’s how to tell them apart.
First, find your focus. Therapy and counselling both deal with mental health and emotional healing; life coaching focuses on goals or skills. Therapists are trained and licensed mental-health professionals.
Sure, you want to improve your life, but how do you know whether you need gentle handholding or intense work for issues that haven’t been acknowledged yet? Life coaches, counsellors and therapists work in similar, often overlapping, fields. But there are significant distinctions between them. Here’s how to tell them apart.
First, find your focus. Therapy and counselling both deal with mental health and emotional healing; life coaching focuses on goals or skills. Therapists are trained and licensed mental-health professionals. Life coaches are not equipped to diagnose or treat mental-health conditions.
“Coaching is not for the resolution of underlying trauma or mental disorders,” says Semira Khaleeli, an executive coach at the Imagenation coaching and training institute. “It is to ask questions to help the person explore the resources that can help them reach their goals. The belief in coaching is that every person has the resources to find their solutions.” In most cases, people start out by signing up with a coach. Their sessions with a coach may make it easier for them to recognise and acknowledge the need to dig deeper.
How deep are you diving? It’s important to understand the distinction between counselling and therapy by first distinguishing between a counselling psychologist and a clinical psychologist. “The former focuses on healthy individuals with fewer pathological mental problems,” says counselling psychologist Raisa Kaur. Those like her typically work with psychologically stable individuals who want to reduce stressors in their lives such as social anxiety, emotional distress, and insomnia. The goal is to provide them with coping skills. “Both mental health counsellors and counselling psychologists help patients understand and address their concerns about their emotional, physical and social health,” says Kaur.
A clinical psychologist focuses on people who have diagnosable mental illnesses that include, but are not limited to, non-clinical depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder.
There are degrees of difference. Counselling psychologists typically have at least a Masters degree in counselling psychology, as well as additional training in counselling techniques. They can deal with complex issues such as self-improvement, personality development, family conflict and behavioural conditions. A clinical psychologist must have a Master of Philosophy or M Phil degree in clinical psychology from an institute recognised by the Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI). Clinical psychologists can also work as psychotherapists, assisting people in overcoming problems such as anxiety, non-clinical depression, trauma, and marital conflict by utilising “talk therapy” and scientific psycho-therapeutic techniques.
Some issues are short-term. Counselling is similar to therapy in many ways but is generally considered a shorter-term intervention than therapy. Counsellors are trained to help clients deal with psychological conditions such as anxiety and non-clinical depression, and can also help people work through emotional problems and self-esteem issues. While therapy is usually conducted in one-on-one sessions, counselling is common in both one-on-one sessions as well as in peer groups. It is worth noting that neither a therapist nor a counsellor may prescribe medication. Only a psychiatrist — that’s a mental-health professional with a medical degree — should do that.
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