Coaching vs Mentor vs Therapist

TLDR;

Mentor: here are my hard-won experiences, advice and skills you can apply

Mental Health Providers: takes you from mentally/emotionally dysfunctional to functional

Coaching: takes you from mentally functional to optimal

There are many types here - counselor, therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist - they are the healthcare providers for the mind. Just like you'd visit a doctor for a broken leg, you'd seek a mental health provider when facing significant challenges mentally or relationally. Their field is highly regulated, and their knowledge of the biology and theory of mental health is extensive. Beyond counselors, many of these professionals use their knowledge to diagnose and treat dysfunction. Unprocessed trauma, disorders, deep-seated behavioral issues - they are trained to address all of these problems, and they are often the first step towards healing. Some therapists have also opened a coaching wing of their practice, but due to the regulated nature of the clinical world they tend to keep a very clean separation between the two. Special mention here for the incredible counselors of the world, who tend to specialize in areas like substance abuse or relationships. While their focus is less on “diagnosis,” their goal of getting someone back on their feet is the same. I heard someone say once, “A great therapist got me out of the fetal position and on my feet. A great coach got me running.”

The primary distinction that sets mentorship apart from coaching: advice and the benefit of tapping into someone’s personal experience. I’ve spent quite a bit of my professional life as a mentor, whether it was guiding a new junior developer or consulting as a CTO, and the heart of what people seek from you is they want your perspective and opinion. Career advice, why is this code breaking, what to do about my jackass coworker, etc. Now admittedly, the great mentors have a wisdom that reaches beyond advice, and they know when someone needs to find their own answer. Nonetheless, people seek a mentor to learn from their experience and get advice.

Coaching is challenging to generalize, so I’ll restrict my comments to my wing of mindset, causal coaching. In this world, the emphasis is far more on exploring your current thinking and your future, rather than delving into your past. We are trained on the questions that help unlock the mind and give you access to the answers you already have within you. So many times we have the wisdom to make the right decisions for ourselves, but it’s buried under layers of expectations, fears, overwhelm, etc. A great coach will help you dig all that out. You might think, “I really need direction here. I’m completely stumped.” Are you? I won’t say this is never true, but saying “I don’t know” is a favorite trick of the brain to escape an uncomfortable feeling, so I will just leave it at this: it is rarely true that you don’t know what to do next. A great thought-work coach is also able to show you the other thousand ways we self-sabotage on a regular basis. All of this releases a world of unnecessary stress and reorients you towards a better view of your problem, a necessary first step before asking your brain to learn a new skill.

My focus and passion is in coaching. While I don't lead my sessions with mentorship, it occasionally comes up for those clients who want to start businesses or interact with technology. While I don't lead with this side of my skillset, I'm happy to incorporate that into our work when it's relevant.

As to trauma and dysfunction - yes, sometimes in coaching work we come across thoughts and habits that stem from something deeply damaging in your past. This is not unusual, so it’s important to understand how that works in our sessions. I will keep our focus tightly on the thoughts you are having right now, and how they affect your life right now. I am likely to recommend you to a therapist if you haven't already done the work to process your past. I will not ask you to share any past traumatic story with me, and I will gently redirect those who want to go into the story. This is not because it's unimportant or uncomfortable for me. It is because no one should go exploring serious mental injury unless they are qualified professionals that know how to not cause even more damage. Our focus on the thoughts you are having right now and where that road will lead can still give enormous value to how you run your life, and I'm here for it.