“Therapy and coaching both provide a safe space for clients to identify and address behaviors, beliefs, relationship patterns, and coping mechanisms.

Therapists are the trauma surgeons and paramedics of the mental health community. Operating in a medical model of care, therapists (or psychologists, psychiatrists) have the skills necessary to help when a client requires diagnosis, assessment, and treatment. For individuals struggling with mental health crises or suffering from active suicidal ideation, therapists – with their expertise and experience – are best suited for providing care when we’re at this stage of our journey.

Coaches seek to validate our clients’ experiences, offer insight and guidance, and provide support and encouragement to help them reach their goals.

Clients can move between therapy and coaching based on their need and preference. It is also not uncommon and can be highly effective for clients to seek both coaching and therapy at the same time.”

What coaches do:

We provide education and insights that reinforce the wholeness, capability, and agency of our clients.

We work with clients as equals and peers (not as superiors). Coaches function as guides and mentors.

We empower our clients with “choice and voice” and provide a safe, non-judgemental space for clients to explore their behaviors and blocks.

We help clients set goals and create visions, helping them map out a path that brings them closer to leading the life they want to live.

We primarily focus on the present and future, supporting clients to build a life they wish to lead.

We only discuss or revisit the past to gain gentle understanding of why or how current challenges came to be.

What coaches do NOT do:

We do not operate in a traditional medical or therapeutic model.

We do not pathologize and instead approach the client as an individual who is having a normal reaction to a human experience.

We do not treat, diagnose, or assess the client’s mental health.

We do not ever prescribe or give advice about medication or supplements.

We do not work with clients who are at risk of harming themselves or others and are compelled by ethical practice to encourage our clients to seek appropriate medical or therapeutic intervention, if so.