How are coaching, mentoring and therapy different?

Coaching is 'unlocking a person's potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them' (Sir John Whitmore). It is 'a collaborative solution-focused, results-orientated and systematic process in which the coach facilitates the enhancement of work performance, life experience, self-directed learning and personal growth of the coachee'(Grant & the Association for Coaching). The techniques of listening, skilled questioning (knowing which question to ask and when), clarifying and giving feedback are essential for effective coaching. Coaching clients may not have a particular pressing issue; they either have an outcome in mind or are just feeling a bit stuck and want to explore this.

Mentoring is more likely to be a relationship where the mentor has direct experience of the client's own situation to give. A mentor is more likely to provide advice, their perspective and suggestions than a coach. In reality, coaching and mentoring often overlap; utilising similar skills and expertise.

Therapy is when a client comes with a particular issue they want to overcome or a particular problem. In therapy we are often working at a deeper level of change. A therapist is trained to remain objective, to gently guide, to ask the right questions in order to help the client make sense of it all and to achieve the change they wish to ecologically.