What is the difference between coaching and psychoanalysis/therapy?

Although both professions are very similar - they both employ the technique of interviewing to discover the client’s issues and the technique of analyzing the client’s behaviors and motivations when meeting systematically - coaching is not therapy.

Coaching does not focus on the past nor the client’s self-concept, his weaknesses, emotional disturbances and teaching of the behavioral norms. It is instead a process where problem-solving, education, and the slow elimination of the client’s frustrations are the fundamental practices for creating positive change.

Additionally, coaching is a fast-paced, dialogue-implementing process best suited for individuals who are generally mentally healthy, yet are looking for greater and faster personal growth and life fulfillment; these healthy individuals with aspirations for betterment feel and understand how much they can benefit from the coach’s information, her support and her patient, non-judgmental monitoring.

Finally, coaching clients decisively wish and prefer to look forward, not backwards…. and their sense of self is steady and “rounded” enough that their interest typically remains attached to the ideas of self-discovery and self-improvement, and not so much to the idea of inner healing characteristic for therapy patients.

Both therapy and coaching, however, offer an important opportunity for building self-knowledge… and thus a better and happier life.