When exploring self-development, emotional well-being, or seeking solutions for life’s challenges, many people wonder about the differences between coaching and therapy. Over the years, at Big Self School, we’ve observed that while there are important similarities meaningful distinctions do exist, but perhaps the boundaries aren’t as clear-cut as they once were.

1. Expert vs. Peer Relationship

Therapy: Typically structured around a hierarchical medical model, therapists act as clinical experts who diagnose and treat psychological conditions. This medicalized approach links therapy closely to healthcare systems, insurance reimbursement, and formal diagnoses for conditions such as anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder. Influential figures like Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Margaret Mahler, Karen Horney, (and many others too numerous to name) significantly shaped this therapeutic model, emphasizing structured analysis and clinician authority.

Coaching: But these contributions and associated philosophies are no less different for coaching. Generally speaking, the distinction is that coaching offers a more collaborative, peer-to-peer relationship. The ICF (International Coaching Federation) defines this is “co-creating the relationship.” Coaches view clients as fully capable individuals, guiding them toward their own insights and solutions. Influenced by humanistic and existential philosophies, coaching emphasizes self-awareness, personal responsibility, and mutual partnership rather than authority or diagnosis.

This connects to the slightly separate idea that coaching should be “non-directional,” while therapy is not always so. More on that below.

2. Focus on Past vs. Future

Therapy: Primarily explores past traumas and emotional wounds, often drawing heavily from theorists like Murray Bowen and family systems theory. Therapists frequently address childhood experiences, family dynamics, and historical relationships to understand current emotional issues.

Coaching: Thought of a more istinctively future-oriented. Coaches support clients in setting clear goals, defining values, and creating strategic action plans. Instead of focusing extensively on past trauma, coaching helps clients envision and build their desired future — such as career transitions, improving personal relationships, or achieving greater life balance.

Like Adler, coaching may place more emphasis on distinctions like, “How do you move forward from your (traumatic) past?” while therapy may sometimes remain in the past to make sense of it for a period of time before then taking steps forward.

3. Clinical Diagnosis vs. Personal Development

Therapy: Specifically targets clinical issues that are officially diagnosed, using structured, evidence-based treatments (e.g., Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) for psychological disorders. This is perhaps the most fundamental and clear-cut distinction. It also ties it to the health care model, which is both a good and bad thing. Good because it grants therapy expert authority, and because, with the help of insurance, you can often find less expensive therapy options than coaching.Although as we also see, there is still a dearth of available therapists in many geographic areas. And as with any profession, you often get what you pay for.

Coaching: Focuses on personal and professional development without clinical intervention. And they are bound by a strict code of ethics to refer clients who may in need of such services. Clients engage coaching for reasons like enhancing communication, achieving better work-life integration, or developing leadership skills without needing a clinical diagnosis.And that’s probably why you see a lot of coaches who say they work with “high functioning” leaders or workplace professionals.

4. Healing Pathology vs. Fostering Resilience

Therapy: Often aims to identify and treat pathology — addressing dysfunctional behaviors, thought patterns, or emotional disturbances. The therapeutic goal is deep emotional healing or managing ongoing mental health conditions.

Coaching: Centers on building resilience, leveraging personal strengths, and enhancing performance. Often utilizes positive psychology and solution-focused approaches to empower individuals to thrive, not merely survive.Now that I write this, I wonder if it’s really any different than #3. You decide.

5. Regulation and Standards

Therapy: Highly regulated, requiring practitioners to have formal education, licensure, continuous professional supervision, and adherence to strict ethical guidelines. Therapists operate under legally protected confidentiality. Most colleges and universities have programs geared toward professionalization in paths that lead towards becoming a therapist of one kind or another.

Coaching: While the profession is less regulated than therapy, and with diverse certifications and varying standards, the profession has sought to do something about this for about 30 years (since the mid-1990s). Coaching’s philosophical influences range from business management to humanist psychology, and then as now many people hang up a sign and declare that they’re a coach.

The aforementioned, ICF, is the leading certification and governing board for the coaching profession, with three different distinctions among their current certifications (ACC, PCC, and MCC). If one is already a therapist, one can also become a certified coach through the Center for Credentialing and Education (and become a Board Certified Coach, BCC).

Is Coaching Non-Directive?

Therapy is sometimes decidedly “directional,” as implied above with certain therapeutic interventions or modalities, such as CBT, that definitely have an angle and an “agenda” for what the client needs. The coaching profession has stressed that in its partnering with the client, it is non-directive. But aren’t we “directing” when we want the client to reach new awarenesses and ultimately take action and grow on those insights? Isn’t that an agenda?

Robert-Biswas Diener has recently examined the question about whether or not coaching is really as non-directive as most thought leaders and the literature (and the credentialing institutions) espouse. His book, Positive Provocation: 25 Questions to Elevate Your Coaching Practice, asks challenging questions about many of the baked-in assumptions in the current state of the coaching profession.

He emphasizes the importance of coaches questioning their own assumptions and actively engaging with research, suggesting that a more nuanced and potentially directive approach may be appropriate in certain situations.

In essence, Biswas-Diener suggests coaching approaches might be less about a rigid adherence to a non-directive model and more about a dynamic interplay between coach and client, where the coach actively engages with the client’s needs, utilizes research, and encourages self-discovery while being mindful of potential biases and the need for a more tailored approach in some situations.So, even here, the differences are not always as clear cut as they first seem.

How They’re Exactly Alike

Both coaching and therapy:

• Use conversation to explore one’s inner world.

• Provide supportive, confidential spaces to express and understand feelings, thoughts, and experiences.

• Typically address dissatisfaction, aiming to foster personal growth and improved life circumstances.

• A really good coach and a really good therapist have the same basic charge. They want the best for their client. Their “agenda” is that the client attain their personal goals and experience positive, growth-oriented outcomes. They both look at the past, and they both look toward the future.

Why This Matters (and Maybe Why It Doesn’t)

Perhaps the distinctions between coaching and therapy are less significant than we imagine — except in cases requiring clinical diagnosis and intervention. At Big Self School, we’ve noticed that the lines are becoming increasingly blurred, especially as individuals gain more access to sophisticated resources like ChatGPT, AI-driven tools, and extensive online knowledge bases. These extraordinary resources challenge traditional boundaries, enhancing self-awareness and growth practices outside conventional therapeutic or coaching sessions.

Ultimately, what truly matters is cultivating deep awareness about the support you’re seeking and understanding how best to utilize the resources available. Maybe the question isn’t “therapy or coaching,” but rather, “What do I need to grow, heal, and thrive — and who or what can best guide me there?”