Therapy can be conducted by licensed therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists. The distinction between the titles entails what they studied, the degree they earned (master versus a doctorate), and the ability to prescribe medication or not (only psychiatrists can do this). All three of these can help to diagnose mental health disorders, mood disorders, and work with patients who suffer from addiction, trauma, and abuse.

While therapists help people to uncover beliefs, behaviors, emotions, and thought patterns, the main objective is to help patients overcome past experiences. Life coaching on the other hand is more future-thinking. Life coaches cannot diagnose mental health or mood disorders. Life coaches typically earn an online certificate and not a university master’s or doctorate. They cannot prescribe medications and are not trained to help uncover past trauma.

Since life coaches are not health care professionals, their scope is broader. They help people to uncover what they really want in life and set up a plan to go and get it. Rather than digging into the past, life coaches start with the person right where they are and create an action-based agenda to get the client from their current place in life to one they most desire.

Life coaches are incredibly helpful when it comes to figuring out:

• Personal and professional goals
• Career path
• Financial goals
• Family and relationship goals

Therapists are better suited for:

• Healing from past trauma
• Working through destructive thought patterns and behaviors
• Healing personal relationships and communication
• Working through mental health issues

Life coaches will work with you to create goals. They will help you reach these goals through motivation, conversations that help uncover what you really want, and accountability. Many therapists go on to become life coaches because the work is meaningful and less heavy than therapy counseling.

According to clinical psychologist Michael Bader: “The biggest difference between coaching and therapy, in my view, is that the theory that guides my work as a therapist can explain how coaching does or does not work, while theories that guide coaches can’t do the same about therapy. This difference, while true, seems inconsequential to me. What matters is that people get help in their efforts to grow, master their problems, and become more effective in their lives.”

As Bader says, what matters most is what you get out of it. If you are ready to take your career to the next level, start a business, set out to better your financial future, change your thought pattern through affirmations and manifestation, and overall set out to be a happier, healthier person – life coaching is a great option for you.