What Is Therapy?

It may be easy to say that Coaching is NOT therapy but what does therapy mean? Many therapies exist to address some of the more serious disorders or problems that people face. Our home grown definition of therapy is:

The treatment of a human person that a trained professional (psychiatrist / M.D. or psychologist / PhD) utilizes to help their patient see and come to terms with the true reality of themselves which the person may have distorted as a result of a psychological disturbance or through some underlying bias, addiction, neurosis, psychosis, etc.

There are numerous schools of thought and science on therapy. In our estimation, only some of these schools of therapy understand and respect the anthropology, nature and social context of the human person correctly. For an Aristotelian, essence precedes existence, whereas, some areas of modern therapy are essentially existentialist in their philosophical foundations (we exist without any defined purpose, it is up to us to find and define that purpose).

While slightly more regulated depending on where you live, almost anyone can call themselves a therapist. We consider the domain of therapy to be only for of a trained professional who has received a medical degree in psychiatry or a PhD in an area of clinical psychology. Of course, just as bad coaching can do harm, so too, therapy grounded on the wrong principles can also cause harm.

We constantly ask ourselves, "where does the professional end and the personal begin in a coaching relationship?" It is a question that weighs on us because the boundaries are not always so neat and clear. Clients can easily extend their trust in a coach beyond his or her professional competence so it is the duty of the coach to know their limits and to be vigilant so as to focus - and limit - personal advice toward the primary purpose of improving the client's professional effectiveness and competence.

Therapy

The differences between a therapist and a coach are as significant as the words.

For a qualified therapist, the professional relationship is two-way and focused on the "personal" domain of the person. Doctor-patient privacy is protected.

For an executive coach the professional domain or the relationship is "professional" and three-way. Privacy with the client is protected so long as harm does not come to the organization sponsoring the coaching.

Sometimes, executives or professionals will retain our services outside of the sponsorship of their organization. In these relationships, our obligations are solely to the person who has requested the coaching.