Drs. McCann have been on the forefront of the new model of working with both individuals and couples, which has been given credibility under the name “Coaching.” Clients frequently ask the question: What is the difference between counseling and coaching?

The distinction between the two is often gray, rather than black and white. Counseling--or therapy-- is often seen as problem focused, while coaching is seen as future oriented and visionary. While counseling deals with diagnosable conditions, with emotional and psychological disorders, coaching moves people away from problems or “pathology” toward solutions and a visionary future. However, coaching, like counseling, can be very “therapeutic and healing,” just as therapy, when the therapist is focusing the client on the future and aiding in the formation of a vision, can be future oriented and visionary (Dr. Frederic Hudson).

Our current world and society are undergoing staggering changes, and people are confused and conflicted about their future. How do I, how do we, navigate waters in our lives and our culture, that have become “permanently white.” Since there seems to be no safe waters, no safe harbors especially after 9-11—we need all the skills we can muster to transition ourselves into this new future. That is where coaching comes into play. Coaching is about guiding people to look inside themselves, deeply—the connection here to therapy is poignant—and once they have explored fearlessly their own strengths and limitations to the best of their ability, then to consider how they can best use their distinctive and particular talents to do something with those talents in the world; that is to say, when I have come to know myself deeply, then my next question is: What can I do in the world that will make a difference?

In the particular example of working with both individuals and couples, we like to look upon ourselves, not so much in the old way as the “all-knowing doctors” who “diagnose” the problem and “assist” the “patient” in the alleviation of the “problem”, as we do to see ourselves as participants in a process, as facilitators, who are highly skilled in asking the right questions, steering the client(s) toward their own answers and solutions, which often lie right under their noses, but which they are not used to seeing—or smelling—because of cultural conditioning, or messages from old scripts and tapes swallowed along with their mothers’ milk.

In brief, coaching is for people who are not only hungry for change, but are willing to take responsibility for their own changes; people who believe in their own natural wholeness and resourcefulness; and who are looking for a mentor with experience and wisdom to to-partner, support and guide them on their path to change.

If you believe you are such a person: