Let's Talk about Life Coaches

Y’all I know so many therapists who are concerned about life coaches taking up all of the existing clients of the world. The funny thing is, most of these therapists don’t actually have much experience with life coaches.

I don’t share this concern. As a profession, life coaching addresses different issues in different ways, and they often work with different clients. Life coaches shouldn’t be the primary provider for someone with a mental health diagnosis, but they can be great for addressing auxiliary behaviors or personal development.

We spend our work days with people who are struggling that can lead us to falsely assume that everyone needs the level of care we trained for. CAN we effectively help someone whose primary struggle is low motivation? Of course we can! But so can a trained life coach.

There are times that I’ve collaborated with coaches for clients who needed different levels of support than I can provide, like a client with an eating disorder who progressed so much faster with a recovery coach that she could check in with every day. I knew some of what that coach helped her with, but we were working through the stuff we needed to be working through.

The only time I get frustrated with specific coaches - not the profession, mind you - is when they don’t know their lane and they’re trying to work through an issue that requires more specialized training. But to be honest with you, I feel that same exact frustration when therapists without specialized training try to work with people with EDs.

Another concern I hear is that coaches don’t have a regulatory body. That can be dangerous for sure, but sometimes our regulatory bodies don’t do what I think they should do with therapists. And just like therapists, there are great coaches, coaches that are ineffective, and coaches that are problematic. Every profession has this

What we can do as a profession is get curious, make space, develop relationships, and collaborate.

If you worry that coaches are taking clients, then it’s likely that they’re marketing better than you are. If you need help getting clients, check out how we can help you at abundancepracticebuilding.com/work-with-us