Coaching vs. Therapy - What’s Right For You?
Photo by Vladislav Babienko on Unsplash
Over the past few years, coaching and therapy seem to have become intermingled, and although they can feel quite similar at times, it’s important to be fully aware of what you need as an individual and what each of these services tend to offer.
Most people, especially students, tend to default to thinking they need therapy services when they actually need coaching, or something else altogether.
Part of my process when I am doing an initial consultation call with international students is to find out about their current situations, goals, and then identify what service would better meet their needs.
What are the pros and cons of each option? What types of skills or knowledge will the student gain from coaching as compared to therapy?
Before you reach out to a therapist or coach, I recommend you take a step back to think about your current situation, what you might need help with, and the academic, professional, or personal goals you want to reach.
Let’s go through some of the signs you may benefit more from one over the other, so you can spend less time searching for the right fit and more time actually start receiving the assistance you need.
Reactive or Proactive?
The biggest difference between therapy and coaching is the timing of which individuals reach out for help.
Therapy
If you’re looking for therapy services, it may be because something has dramatically changed in your life and you’re experiencing some mental health symptoms or a decline in your overall level of functioning. You may be feeling increasingly anxious or depressed, or you may notice that you’re having trouble sleeping or focusing. Or you know you need to finish all the school assignments, but for some reason, you just feel exhausted and can’t seem to gather the energy needed to start working on them. These are a few signs that therapy is the type of support you need – perhaps sooner than later because you don’t want it to get to a point where your academic performance begins to suffer.
Therapy is a reactive solution, an intervention to a problematic situation that has already occurred. Once you’ve identified these changes in your daily functioning, or you’ve noticed that you’re facing these challenges, that’s when it’s time for you to search for professional support.
Coaching
When we look at coaching, however, it’s much more proactive and students usually have more of a positive outlook for their future.
Commonly, students looking for coaching are individuals who can foresee potential challenges coming their way and do not want to “wait” for problems to occur and then find out whether or not they can meet those challenges. They want to know what’s to come and find out ahead of time what skills they should start developing “now,” so that they don’t scramble at the last minute and run the risk of falling behind the curve.
By proactively building up their skills early on in their academic career, they’ll be better equipped to deal with those challenges when they occur. Students who look to get coached by a professional are looking for someone that will help them grow into the successful person or professional they want to become.
In my previous articles, I’ve shared some of the important skills international students coming from a very different culture need to acquire. I invite you to browse through my blogs to identify topics you may be interested in. Know that some of these things may seem “no-brainers“ to you, yet believe it or not, they actually have tripped many international students and eventually caused them quite a bit of distress in some of their time studying in the U.S. I certainly don’t want this to be your experience.
Takeaways from Therapy vs. Coaching
Another main difference between therapy and coaching are the takeaways and skill development you’ll see.
Therapy
In therapy, your main focus will most likely be to learn about coping strategies to restore your level of functioning, better manage your stress, and prevent the further decline of your well-being. The specific goals will be different for everyone, but in most cases, you’ll be focusing on ways to “correct the course” and learn to take a different direction that would serve you better in the future.
Most therapy clients are looking for the skills to return to their well-being baseline because it’s simply too hard to stay where they are in a gloomy state. The initial focus tends to be about fixing what’s not working rather than building yourself up further. Of course, over time, this may change. You may reach a point where your well-being has significantly improved and you want to focus on taking that next step to be better prepared for challenges to come in the next phase of your life, such as career. This is when the shift from therapy to coaching takes place.
Coaching
Coaching focuses on developing skills to take that first step before big problems actually occur.
Heed that warning or heads-up from your international student advisor or family, friends who know what it’s like to study abroad. Or you may notice the stark difference between the American classroom and the school environment you grew up in and how that makes you feel. If you are totally at a loss and not sure what to do or if you feel very different from your American peers and that makes you very uncomfortable, that’s the very first signal that tells you you may require some coaching in navigating the process of studying in the U.S.
Pay attention to what aspects of your experience in the American college that make you feel unsure or uneasy. Notice what you may be avoiding but actually most of your American peers are eager to do. These situations may reflect differences in academic values between the U.S. and where you came from. For example, international students engaged in coaching work with me tend to have a drive to better deal with the change in cultural settings and social norms here in the U.S. These issues may not have yet negatively affected their well-being in the beginning days of school, but they can become issues that eventually will if they don’t proactively seek out help.
So what are you looking for? Are you searching for a way to build upon your skills that are vital for your academic and professional success in the U.S.? My sincere hope is that you won’t have to go through challenges in a way that compromises a big part of your well-being and future.
Similarities of Therapy and Coaching
Now that we’ve gone over the main differences, let’s look at some of the similarities between these two types of services.
Both services may offer individual and group options. If you’re looking for group sessions for either service, they’ll most likely look at more common experiences shared among you and your peers, whereas discussions of individual sessions will be focused on your personal situation and goals.
No matter which service you seek, I encourage you to schedule a consultation call with the professional you’re interested in working with. This is the best way to ensure you’re a good fit and their professional skills align with that you’re looking for.
Lastly, both services will take time to adjust to. Whether you’re opening up about your problems, or trying to learn something new, it takes time and repeated practice to heal and/or grow. Commitment is key in achieving more lasting results.
Hopefully my advice above has helped you to figure out, or at least question your own assumptions, about the type of service(s) you may need.
I offer students free consultation calls to identify whether or not we’d be a good fit. When you contact me, I’ll help you identify which type of service would be suitable for you. Even if we don’t end up working together, I hope I can assist you get to where you need to be!
About The Author
Many years ago I came to the U.S. from Taiwan and studied in a field that rarely accepted “fresh off the boat” international students from non-English speaking countries. I’m Dr. Vivi Hua, Psy.D. and I help international students navigate the cross-cultural aspects of their experience in the U.S., so they can succeed academically and socially and build a life and career that they desire!