Have you ever gotten tired of the amount of coaches out there who are offering semi-counselling solutions to coaching needs?

Seán Weafer, expert on 'R-evolutionary business', leadership and performance:  

I blame this on the plethora of counsellors, who in re-inventing themselves in line with the growth of coaching about 5-6 years ago, established coaching ‘schools’, ‘academies’, ‘colleges’ and ‘institutes’ – and unleashed on the world masses of poorly trained coaches with more of a counselling than a coaching base.

Coaching is becoming synonymous (even in business) with ‘ladies and gentlemen’ of a certain age who involve themselves in the lives of others providing advice and suggestion as to how they can live their lives/careers more fully – and clearly not understanding the boundaries between when it’s appropriate to ‘counsel’ as a coach (never…) and when to coach.

Differences between coaching vs counselling

Let’s get it clear shall we? Counselling was designed to address ‘root causes’ in a person’s life. ‘Root causes’ are issues that have occurred in the past of a sufficiently traumatic or emotionally destructive nature that it impacts negatively on a person’s behaviour or coping mechanism.

Dealing with such behaviours can release traumatic emotions and spontaneously re-lived experiences, which require the attention of fully-qualified therapists and counsellors – and not half-baked ones. These are powerful emotions which require long-term engagement and care – not the short-term, future-based, intervention that coaching is meant to be.

Are coaches trained in handling abreactive responses, obsessive compulsive disorders, transference and counter-transference in clients? I certainly haven’t (as yet) found one that is. What about following the simple rule of ‘in in doubt – refer it out’ and knowing when presenting issues are contra to coaching?

Distinctions of a coach

Coaching is about helping people focus on clear and critical challenges of the ‘now’. What emotions that are unlocked are essentially positive – and used to motivate the client to taking responsibility for their career and their lives. It’s about personal accountability and personal freedom and not dependence on a ‘coach’. Let’s start drawing some distinctions and facing up to the ‘elephant’ in the room.