Self-help, coaching or advice: which ones are right for me?
Self help?
Many years ago, it used to be considered a rite of passage for boys to learn how to fix their own car and for girls to become experts in the kitchen. The times change! Cars are now so complicated that very few people have the skill or the time to fix their own car; Many women are so busy at work that they have to struggle to keep up with family obligations, not to mention the latest fancy kitchen gadgets.
But while these skills can be learned, today it takes a higher level of talent and focus. Today we rely much more on specialists for many of the services we require.
The same is true for mental/emotional self-help. It is noble and encouraging to help yourself or a friend through a rough patch, or just to be curious about your own potential for growth.
Maybe you know “something isn’t quite right” with yourself, but you’re not ready to accept professional advice; you just want to browse and explore some self help options and get some ideas. However, you know that something is definitely wrong and you need to seek some kind of relief. You can seek specific help or ask friends or family for recommendations. Or, you may have had, or are receiving, some form of coaching or counseling and want to build on what you learned in the sessions.
Maybe you are fed up with how your life is going. However, you may want some helpful exercises to combat negative emotions or bad habits or patterns. You may want to feel loved or less alone, develop life skills, make better decisions, manage your mood better, find passion, purpose or motivation, be your ideal weight, master rejection or stress or self-empowerment, etc.
While self-help can bring great results, we also need to recognize when we can no longer make progress on our own, when we are not getting good help from friends and family, or when we may have serious problems that need a trained professional to help.
In short: we need to know what types of assistance are appropriate for our particular circumstances: self-help, coaching, and/or counseling.
What is Training?
The human potential movement and positive psychology brought coaching to the fore in the 1980s. Corporations used coaching to manage change resulting from downsizing, mergers, and acquisitions. In the last decade, we have seen coaching take off and provide people with the tools to reach not only their potential and their professional goals, but also their personal ones.
The International Coaching Federation (ICF) defines coaching as the relationship between the Coach and their clients that helps people to meet objectives (generally established and specific) and improve their quality of life. A Coach is basically a personal cheerleader (trained and experienced) who encourages, endorses, acknowledges and supports him until he feels comfortable enough to stick to his goals on his own. Lifestyle or Wellness Coaches are like Sports Coaches or Personal Trainers, in some ways, but they differ in many other ways. For example, they focus on helping him become a winner, not (usually) on his physical performance, but on his lifestyle and work-related goals.
Coaching offers versatility to clients. Coaches must be excellent active listeners to help their clients develop insight into their resistances and take the necessary steps toward positive change.
Most Trainers have some formal training, but few are ICF Certified at this time. Coaching is a relatively young field, and as it grows, more coaches will be asked to meet ICF bylaws, recertification standards, and other requirements. Coaching works best before and after psychological treatment (if necessary). Help the client to recognize his resistance to change and then what he can do to achieve the established goals.
What is Psychological Counseling?
A Psychological Counselor, also known as a Psychologist, is a trained (in an accredited school) and licensed (by the State) mental health professional who may use one or more approaches to help their clients achieve some level of self-understanding and therefore behavior modification. There are many different “schools” of mental health counseling thought and many different mental health professions that can offer effective therapy. Today, most psychiatrists (doctors who specialize in mental health) focus on symptom relief through medication management and typically do not do much talk-based therapy beyond ongoing medical and symptom evaluation. The combination of medication management plus Psychological Counseling has proven to be very effective for many of the most difficult cases.
Counseling is a healing process, usually based on conversations, that occurs in a confidential, safe and trusting environment. The Counselor helps the client solve problems by listening, reflecting, exploring deep feelings, and asking provocative questions. Counseling offers clients a unique opportunity to reflect on, understand, and challenge their irrational thinking. The client learns to accept himself as he is through understanding and then making fundamental behavior changes for the better. The goal of psychological treatment is to help the client find the strength to make these fundamental changes to face their unique challenges.
Some people think that counselors have white coats, beards, and make their clients lie on a couch. This is (largely) a myth along with the misperception that counseling is “only for the crazy,” the self-absorbed, or those who believe they need many years of analysis. Conversely, people often seek counseling when they feel something is “wrong” in their life, they feel they need relief but can no longer help themselves or turn to friends or family. This could be for interpersonal, work, or other needs. They need to receive an unbiased, objective and professional point of view at this time in their life.
Treatment usually occurs in person and on a weekly basis, but for many clients with less serious problems, effective counseling can occur online or over the phone and does not take long to achieve results. Most health insurance policies offer coverage for psychological counseling sessions.
Even more recently, some psychologists are finding that coaching can be a very helpful adjunct for their patients both before and after counseling to identify or maintain better behaviors and thoughts.
How to choose professional help?
There are some basic areas in which counseling and training differ. The subjects, objectives, relationships and treatments are not the same for these two aid modalities.
Traditional counseling is primarily concerned with uncovering and understanding a client’s past emotional pain, while coaching, for the most part, focuses on stimulating a person’s positive emotions in relation to their present and future vision of themselves.
Coaches typically focus more on client-specific stated performance or life goals, such as positive functioning, achievement, focused action plans, and specific results. Instead, counselors focus on deep, not always obvious ideas and feelings and identify the causes of dysfunctional behaviors (understanding which provides insight into positive behavior change). They may work closely with a psychiatrist, if warranted, for medication management, which can be very beneficial in some cases.
Counseling and coaching differ in function of the client relationship: counselors are experts and coaches are co-creative partners in the team. The role of change in coaching is to make the process enjoyable and motivating for the client. In counseling, the change process can be emotionally painful until the client reaches equilibrium, at which time deep personal insight and therefore behavior modification can be achieved.
There are several other distinctions between coaches and advisors: for example, the amount of self-disclosure, who is responsible for the results, and how payment is treated. With coaching, the Coach manages the process but the client is responsible for the results. In counseling, the Counselor is responsible for focusing the client’s outcomes so that the client achieves the required self-understanding.
Coaches can take classes and can do an internship and continuing education, while counselors must show years of coursework, a graduate degree, and pass state-sanctioned licensing exams, in addition to taking periodic and mandatory continuing education. Many psychological counselors hold a number of additional certifications, eg, Employee Assistance Programs, Substance Abuse, Eating Disorders, etc. Both counseling and coaching can play a valuable role in helping you achieve your goals when self-help and friends are no longer enough. All methods have a useful role to play, and indeed work well together at the appropriate times.
The full article, available free of charge on our website, contains a very helpful “Choice Matrix” that summarizes and expands on this material. In addition, there are many other helpful self-help articles, as well as an inexpensive online store for in-depth materials and self-help exercises.