Naturally, and reasonably so, a lot of people wonder what differentiates psychotherapy (i.e. “talk therapy” or, just, therapy in this context) from life coaching. Since I’m far from being the first person to weigh in on this topic, I’ll keep it fairly brief:
In the most simplistic and straight-forward manner, what largely separates therapy from coaching is depth and pacing. Put another way: therapy tends to cover more ground (higher depth) over a longer period of time (slower pacing) whereas coaching is more likely to emphasize practicality (lower depth) and brevity (faster pacing). Keep in mind that this is a very broad observation to illustrate a pattern of differences in the experience and direction of the two services. Realistically, overlap definitely exists.
Ultimately, each service has its own goal that serves a different client need. Not everyone needs to spend a vast amount of time fostering extensive insight into their own lives (i.e. more therapy like) nor is everyone ready to take immediate and sustained action toward change (i.e. more coaching like). Therapy and coaching respectively address a different phase in a client’s growth and journey.
Citing an example from my own practice: I approach the intake process between therapy and coaching in an intentionally different fashion. As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, I initially invite clients to explore their family history and otherwise extensively get to know them through various relational contexts. In my role as a coach, however, clients immediately begin identifying their personal values in service of building a foundation for developing decision-making skills, an increased sense of priorities, etc.; the emphasis, here, is essentially behavior > processing.
If there’s any major takeaway, it’s that the kind of support we need is always going to change depending on where we’re at in life. Frankly, there are plenty of times when neither therapy nor coaching is the way to go. The point is that we’re paying any attention at all to what keeps us going to where we’re meant to be.