Coaches are like wizards from fairy tales. It is worth wishing something for us, and they will help to realize any dream. But there are situations when we ourselves are not sure of our desires …
Sometimes we feel that we could feel better and live more interestingly than now, but what can we do about it? Someone plunges into psychoanalysis, someone is helped by meditation, someone is carried away by travel. And someone turns to coaches – they help determine life goals and teach them how to achieve them.
Business coaches increase our efficiency. Wellness coaches help to tidy up the body, “tame” good habits. Life coaches teach you how to balance family, career and hobbies. There are specialists in weight loss, relationships or public speaking. Will working with a coach replace a course of psychotherapy? And how do we know what is best for us?
A-priory
Psychotherapy is a system of therapeutic effects on the psyche of an individual. Only those who have received a higher psychological or medical education can conduct it. We ask for this kind of help when we feel bad, sad and hard, when we feel lost and need support. “The task of the doctor is to help the patient find … his own worldview and his own system of values,” wrote psychotherapist Viktor Frankl.
How is this different from coaching? The coach has a different task: he inspires the client “to the maximum disclosure of personal and professional potential,” according to the Code of Ethics of the International Coaching Federation (ICF). We go to such specialists when, on the whole, everything is in order with us (including our worldview and system of values!), but we know that it can be better. When we have the motivation to work on ourselves and we are ready to make an effort.
The coach does not set the direction for the client, but helps him get where he wants to go.
“The word “coach” (coach) originally in English meant “crew”, a device with which you can get from point A to point B, says wellness coach Anastasia Chigarinova. “This very accurately characterizes our work: we do not set the direction for the client, but help him get where he wants to go.”
But what about clients with a personality disorder, depression or crisis? In such cases, it is this condition that becomes the problem that should be solved in the first place, and coaches will refer the mentees to specialized specialists.
“In my practice, it happens like this: a client notices that he avoids some products, actively divides food into “good” and “bad,” says Anastasia Chigarinova. — This question is outside my area of expertise as a coach. And I recommend seeing a psychotherapist who deals with eating behavior problems.
I see the goal
We come to a coach when we want to improve our business skills, build a new lifestyle or change our image, that is, we have a goal, we are ready to act and we have the strength for this. “The right question is already half the answer,” says coach Olga Kozlova. – A well-set goal is already a big step towards its achievement. But the key task of our work is to teach the client to independently cope with such life challenges in the future.”
We turn to a psychotherapist in a different situation: when we are not talking about tasks for which we need to find the right tools, but about conditions that reduce the quality of our life.
When a client turns to a psychologist, he does not always have a specific goal
“Whatever fantasies swarm in the patient’s head, no matter how he presents himself, he came for help because he is going through an existential crisis, that is, he cannot satisfy the psychological needs with which he identifies himself with the current way of life, he cannot receive something that he needs like air,” wrote the founder of Gestalt therapy, Frederick Perls, in his book The Gestalt Approach and Witness to Therapy. In a state of crisis, it can be difficult for us to formulate our wishes and expectations.
“When a client turns to a psychologist, he does not always have a specific goal,” explains Anna Reznikova, a specialist in solution-oriented short-term therapy, psychologist. “More like a wish, a request. It can sound quite abstract, for example: “I want to change my life.” Or “I want my relationship to be different.” Others – what are they? He doesn’t really understand himself. And the task of the therapist is, first of all, to help him discover what exactly and in what direction he wants to transform.
On equal rights
We turn to coaches and psychologists when we realize that we cannot “fix” something in our lives with our own hands. But does this mean that we can fully rely on the one who works with us? Coaching professionals assume that we ourselves know our strengths and weaknesses better than anyone else.
“The coach relies on the life experience and expertise of the client, and not on his understanding of the processes that occur with those who asked for help,” explains Olga Kozlova. – If the coach becomes a “leader”, then the client will have problems with taking responsibility for choices and decisions. And if the client becomes the leader, the coach turns into either his secretary or “free ears”. This strategy will not succeed.” Effective coaching is based on peer-to-peer relationships.
Of course, the specialist reserves the right to a point of view, but talks about it only if it can be useful to the client. “If the coach wants to share how he sees the situation, to offer something to the client, he uses what in coaching is called direct communication. That is, she voices her opinion only with the permission of the client, and does it without judgment: without a sense of her own rightness, ”concludes Olga Kozlova.
Point of support
In therapy, roles are distributed differently. “At first, the client “relies” on the therapist,” emphasizes Anna Reznikova. — At the same time, we, like coaches, cannot appeal to our own personal experience, because everyone has their own. And it’s not a fact that my experience will be relevant and correct for another.”
The skills of a coach will be useful to us when we have already dealt with global problems, got rid of anxieties, got out of depression. If we already have little strength, and we still set ourselves a serious task, it can play the role of the very straw that broke the camel’s back.
“At the same time, psychotherapy will not replace coaching,” continues Anna Reznikova. – As a psychologist and as someone who used the services of a coach, I can safely say that this technique perfectly solves specific, clear tasks. And if I see that in the process of psychotherapy a client has coaching requests, I recommend that he contact a specialist in this field.
“I denied my health problems”
Before demanding achievements from ourselves, it is worth assessing how much strength we have for this at the moment. Andrei, 29, describes how working with a coach worsened his depression:
“I experienced not the best of times. My business – selling interior items in social networks – developed very slowly, I got into debt. Relations with my wife deteriorated: she was tired of supporting my aspirations at the expense of the family budget. I felt like I was just not trying hard enough, but if I put the effort in the right direction, everything will work out. And I turned to the coach.
He gave me the first task: to keep a diary of the actions that I take to achieve success and the results that I get. But I didn’t even find the strength to create a file for this on my laptop. The same story happened with the rest of the exercises. Added to the guilt towards my wife and partners was the feeling that I let the coach down by not showing any results. From the realization of my own insignificance, it became even worse for me, even suicidal thoughts appeared. My wife found me a psychotherapist, and he diagnosed clinical depression. I started to heal.
Now it is clear that coaching was then not only useless for me, but also exacerbated my serious condition. On the other hand, this experience worked like a litmus test. If not for the failure with the coach, I would have denied for a long time that I have serious health problems.