I chose the energy of Coaching.

Why I decided to be a Transformational Coach.

Somebody recently asked me why I decided to practice Transformational Coaching rather than as a licensed mental health care practitioner.

Because I have a Bachelor’s and Master’s in psychology, it gets confusing for others.

The short answer is, though I’m a member of the American Psychological Association, I just didn’t have any interest in working as a therapist.

I was never drawn to it, and I’ll tell you why.

I feel an energetic difference between the two. Although I recognize the importance of therapy–I spent some years in therapy myself–I am not aligned with the energy of it, professionally. In other words, it’s a great place to visit, I just don’t want to live there, day to day, with my own private practice.

So I made the decision to pursue Transformational and Executive Coaching. (More on Executive Coaching in a future article.)

A quick word about Life vs. Transformational Coaching

First of all, Transformational Coaching and Life Coaching are not the same thing. This is a common misunderstanding. This is what Symbiosis Coaching has to say about it:

A life coach is typically more focused on assisting individuals in identifying and overcoming obstacles that are holding them back from achieving their goals. In contrast, a transformational coach focuses on helping individuals identify and embrace the changes they need to make to achieve their desired transformation. 

As a result, life coaches tend to be more concerned with the present and future, while transformation coaches are more concerned with the past and present. 

Transformational coaching is coaching focused on deep, sustained personal change—change that requires a new way of thinking, or brings about a foundational change in a core, embedded mindset or behavior. Transformational coaching is needed when strong thought patterns need to shift to bring about more healthy behavior, or to develop a new capability, while broadening a person’s capacity for resilience, or for achieving dreams and goals.

Whereas one can be a great Life Coach with a professional certificate, a great Transformational Coach has undergone the same educational journey as a Master’s-level therapist.

Transformational Coaching vs. Therapy:

Transformational Coaching and therapy have a lot of crossover. But the hard/fast rule that separates them can be simplified to this: A coaching client needs to be self-correcting and self-generating. They need to know when they’re straying into harmful patterns, and they need to have some idea of how to course-correct. They have to be capable of some level of accountability.

If a person doesn’t have the ability to self-correct or self-generate they aren’t a good candidate for coaching, and should be referred to a licensed therapist.

To me, the self-correction and self-generation pieces are what I find to be energizing and inspiring. Transformational Coaching is a collaboration, a partnership–not a hierarchy. A hierarchical relationship has to be the case with the strong boundaries necessary for therapy.

Why it’s so exciting for me.

To me, the excitement of coaching is in the movement; the energy. It’s about building a whole new life story, with a new way of seeing and experiencing.

It’s active; constantly evolving. A beautiful metamorphosis.

I have clients who also have psychotherapists–any therapist will tell you that coaching is a great adjunct to therapy. I work with therapists in collaboration with clients who have serious DSM-IV diagnoses. When they’re with me, though, for those 50 minutes I don’t want to hear about their DSM-IV diagnosis.

I try to help them see that it’s not all that relevant to the work we do together. Personally identifying with a diagnosis is a very real phenomenon, which can greatly delay psychological healing. It can sometimes lock a person into the very behavior they’re trying to shift.

So, for those with a serious DSM-IV diagnosis, seeing the therapist is necessary to their well-being. But if they’re also working with me, detaching from the label–even if for only an hour a week–can be a critical piece to their wellness puzzle.

I’ve had psychiatrists reach out to me personally to tell me that the work I’ve done with their client has shifted them more effectively than the therapeutic process ever has.

Deepak Chopra in his book, The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire, writes:

Consciousness orchestrates its activity in response to both attention and intention. Whatever you put your attention on becomes energized. Whatever you take your attention away from dwindles. On the other hand, intention is the key to transformation, as we have seen. So you could say that attention activates the energy field, and intention activates the information field, which causes transformation.

We have to decide what our focus is.

Years back, when I was considering which track to follow for my Master’s program–Therapy vs. Transformational Coaching–I read something comparing the two. It said something like, if you’re a therapist and you see your client in the grocery store, for privacy purposes, the ethical thing to do is to pretend not to know them. And you should never let them know you care for them personally.

I mean, that’s fair. Though we’ve made a lot of progress, there are still stigmas attached to mental health support. Of course a therapist should be discreet in public. And with certain serious psychological pathologies, strong professional boundaries must be maintained at all times.

I just didn’t want to live within those parameters, myself. It felt a little too rigid for me.

There are no such restrictions with the field of coaching.

The psychology of love.

There’s nothing unethical about showing care in coaching, because the coaching relationship isn’t based on a power hierarchy. It’s no different from running into your accountant or your interior designer or your veterinarian. There’s no societal mandate to hide the coaching relationship.

It’s simplistic, I know, and I’m sure everyone has their own guidelines for how they run their practices. I know there are psychotherapists out there who express love to their clients, and I’m sure there are coaches who may not acknowledge a client in a grocery store.

But I love being able to tell my clients I care for them. Because I do. And I believe that openly expressed love and trust is a critical piece to the efficacy of transformational work. (And, by the way, many APA licensed therapists believe the same. In fact, there is a respectable amount of peer-reviewed scientific research to support its benefit to healing.)

These are the concepts that tipped the scales for me in my decision. It’s all about energy for me. One feels open and the other feels closed.

Much Love,

Kristy

P.S. ~ I primarily focus on Highly Sensitive People in my Transformational Coaching practice. Want to know more? Hop over here!