What is the difference between Energy Coaching and Psychotherapy?
One of the most frequent questions prospective students ask me is: “How do Energy Coaches make the delination between psychotherapy and doing energy therapy in coaching? Sometimes in Energy Coaching we deal with the past, but the definition that (our coaching school) gave us is that therapists deal with the past, Coaches with the present and future. How do we resolve this dichotomy in people’s minds when educating them on what we do?”
Here’s my answer, from The Certified Energy Coach Program manual. I hope this will be of help to our wonderful international community of Energy Coaches out there. Enjoy!
* Coaching Defined - If you are working on what blocks the client from achieving their goals, you are coaching. Because the emotional roots of the client’s blockage came into being sometime in their past, you may visit the past in your energy coaching with them. As long as you are working with a view towards meeting the client’s goals in the present and future and not straying into serious clinical issues (eg; severe depression, suicidal ideation etc.) you are doing coaching. You are not doing psychotherapy.
* The “No Past in Coaching Fallacy” - You can and will at some points have to visit the client’s past. You cannot talk about any portion of the client’s life without doing so at some point, for all of their today and future is rooted deeply and pervasively in what transpired in their past. It is also a saying in the coaching world that “even business and corporate coaching eventually comes down to personal coaching”. And what is personal, has a past. Lose this mis-definition of what coaching is and isn’t. Coaching is focus on the client’s highest goals and aspirations of both today and future and moreover, a focus on development of the client as distinct from those goals.
* Presenting Issues - The issues that the client presents in coaching are different and usually less severe than those which bring a client into therapy. You are not seeing a client because of a psychosis, pervasive depression or antisocial behavior. (and if you are, and are not a qualified therapist, you shouldn’t be) Energy Coaches keep the contact information of local and national mental health help-lines and therapists on file to refer clients to as necessary. We refer willingly and appropriately when asked, or when the situation in our estimation warrants that we not work with a particular client due to the presence of clinical symptoms. Typically, coaching clients do not present such clinical symptoms.
What brings client into coaching is typically low in distress value compared to what brings them into therapy. A client coming into coaching may be there because she hates cold calling, yet has to do it in the job she has, or a performance artist whose recording jitters are causing him to not finish a long-planned video of his work. While these may have emotional roots that are dealt with using bioenergetics methods, they are not the same as a client coming into a psychotherapist to deal with deep grief following a family death, or an anorexic teenager being helped to deal with the fact that she has lost a serious portion of her muscle mass and is in the hospital being fed intravenously. These are psychotherapeutic and psychiatric concerns. They tend to be much bigger, much more immediately distressing, occasionally life threatening and sometimes have medical components. They are Not coaching concerns.
* Levels of Function - Energy Coaches may be anyone from licensed social workers, psychotherapists, educators or bodyworkers and may work with clients exhibiting a range of difficulties. Each works according to their own main profession’s ethical standards and with that range of clients that best fits their skills, abilities and licensure. Given this, some Energy Coaches may choose to work with very highly functional heads of organizations while others work with startups and the unemployed. Some may work with extremely restorative clients who need a tremendous amount of attention, love and special care while others may wish to work only with those who are self-starters all the way. Bioenergetic work can be done with superb results at any level of function, as long as the client is able to follow a home study and application program. This is the lowest level at which we can actually be said to still be “coaching”. Below that would be a population much better suited for psychotherapy and psychiatry.
I hope this has been helpful in explaining this little-understood topic. You are welcome to repost this with attribution.
Many Blessings,
Maryam
.jpg)
