Are psychology and coaching two incompatible disciplines?
Throughout our lives we live experiences that make us want, and need, to experience a process of change. Until a few years ago, the expert professional in accompanying you in this process was the psychologist. However, today we live in a whirlwind of names, techniques and tools that confuse us rather than help us.
What is the most appropriate method? Is coaching a valid discipline, or nonsense? Is it compatible or incompatible with psychology?
In this article we are not only going to answer this question but also delve deeper into what is really important to you: your well-being and personal development, overcoming the situation you are experiencing and that you would like to change. We will do it in depth, discovering what psychology and coaching really are, what the differences are, and how you can choose the best option for your personal change process.
My name is Rubén Camacho, and for 11 years I have been accompanying people as a psychologist (and coach) who want to achieve practical, deep and stable personal change over time. You can find my work in Human Empowerment.
Let’s start at the beginning. In some situations in life, human beings need to go through a process of change and personal development. However, the big key is that we cannot change the context… but the solution lies in your own personal change, in develop aspects of yourself that make the problem more intense
This has always been the work of the professional in Psychology. Psychology is a science and discipline with academic value and present in all Universities in the world. That is to say: What psychology applies has been previously contrasted and validated by the scientific method (in short, it works). Psychology has multiple applications: development, education, the social field, pathologies, the study of personality or intelligence… and yes, above all therapy or support to live a process of profound change.
However, we cannot deny that Psychology, by focusing too much on the clinical or academic field, neglected this very basic work over the years. From there, coaching emerged and later other disciplines without empirical value filled that void and became tremendously popular. But does coaching work? What is it? Is it a tool that can really help you or another empty word?
The false differences between psychology and coaching
When coaching emerged (there are also certain discrepancies about when it all emerged) it was offered as a tool to accompany people in processes of change by achieving practical objectives. The coach accompanied you in a clean way (without judgments or guides), helping you discover what was wrong and how you could change it. But… didn’t psychology already do this?
Exact. Everything that coaching offers is something that can be done from psychology Why does coaching arise then? Because psychology ended up being an academic discipline that offered fewer and fewer practical resources to people in consultation.
Therapies were viewed as long and abstract processes. People wanted to achieve changes for their daily difficulties. To try to differentiate itself, coaching was defined according to a series of differences from psychology… let’s see them.
1. Psychology works with the past and coaching with the present and future… but this is flatly false
It is false that psychology only works with the past. Psychology works above all with your current reality with what happens to you, and helps you find solutions from your own personal change (that is, the same as coaching but with greater academic and scientific evidence).
2. In psychology they guide or advise you, the coach helps you discover it for yourself… again, this is totally a lie
In psychology we never guide or advise. The nature of psychology is not directive It is you who must discover it… but the psychologist helps you see the root problem in such a way that we cannot do it alone, hence the change is deeper and more enriching.
3. Psychology works with the problem and coaching with the solution… totally uncertain
Clinical psychology works with pathological problems, but always contributes solutions, which are also fully proven tools of change
Incompatible or not?
So if these 3 common differences are false… what is the real difference between psychology and coaching?
The only difference is that Psychology is a broad science and discipline, with empirical value and that follows the scientific method, and coaching is only a practical tool. However, as we talked about, it is true that psychology has neglected the practical part. That’s why coaching became so effective and popular.
Later, disaster struck: a thousand and one poor quality training courses emerged and from there the word coaching became distorted. Today there are even 2-month courses without any type of value.
So are psychology and coaching compatible? Completely. Psychology and coaching are not enemies, but rather Coaching offers the psychology professional more practical tools so that a process is effective and works from the beginning A process of change must be practical and deep, constant and flexible, and above all, the change you experience must be stable, so that this change is part of you forever.
It is important then that they do not compete, but that psychology absorbs coaching so that it is regularized and this maelstrom of training without quality also ends.
The most important thing is you, the person who needs to live a process. If you would like to do it in a practical way to feel better soon, but also deeply and stable, at Human Empowerment you have an option to schedule an exploratory session with me. I’ll wait for you there, and above all I send you lots of encouragement… and of course, happy 2022!
