Why Health Coaching?

(And how’s it different from therapy?)

Both psychotherapy and health coaching draw from the same theoretical frameworks to help clients facilitate change, so skills and scope of practice overlap; it provides an opportunity for professionals to acknowledge that they exist along a continuum, with ultimate goal being to support clients’ mental and physical health. However, health coaching is not a mental health service. Psychotherapists are trained specifically to assess, diagnose, and treat mental disorders but of course, they may support clients who have coexisting chronic and acute somatic diseases.

Possibilities-Centered

Health coaching stems from positive psychology so that coaches are trained to help clients look at possibilities rather than problems and causes. Similarly, coaches support clients as they implement mindfulness, if it is something that the client is interested in adding to their own agenda. The skills of coaching are intended to support client-led self-identified health goals.

Goal-oriented Conversations

Another interesting point of difference is that there are no “in-between” check-ins between client and therapists (though they are…