Do you provide mentorship or professional coaching?

Hello and nice to meet you! I understand that you are looking for someone that can be a mentor or a coach to you. 

Therapy focuses on healing the past while coaching helps clients to build a future.

Imagine you are getting ready to climb a huge mountain. You could either hire an expert guide (coach) for your expedition or a doctor (therapist). Which would you choose? If you are in fragile health and would be in physical danger if you attempted the climb, a guide wouldn’t make the situation better. But a doctor would help you get back into shape before attempting the challenging feat. However, if you are already healthy and just need someone to help you with climbing strategy, carrying the load of supplies and finding the best path, the guide would be the better choice for you.

A therapist supports someone to get into excellent mental and emotional health before they attempt to achieve ambitious goals, while a coach leads them over the mountain. It is very common for people wanting to make changes in their lives to invest in therapy first to work through past trauma, and then hire a business or life coach.

A therapist is a licensed healthcare professional trained to diagnose and resolve destructive beliefs, behaviours, relationship issues and responses. They focus on helping their client:

• Recover from past setbacks and become aware of behavioural patterns.
• Explore why past relationships (business or personal) have been destructive
• Work through depression or anxiety
• Move forward after grief or loss
• etc.

A coach, on the other hand, offers dynamic guidance for the client on:

• Clarifying personal and professional desires and goals
• Creating business plans or starting a business
• Designing systems to support performance, productivity and wellbeing
• Working to improve communication or marketing skills
• Increasing financial stability

Depending on the depth of the trauma and pain to overcome, therapy is often conducted until the client feels they do not need it anymore, which could be anything from a matter of months to many years.

Whether in groups or in one on one settings, coaching usually takes place over a shorter period (1 month to 1 year) and is a lot more goal-oriented, often with specific results in mind to reach during the coaching program.

While I am a licensed clinical social worker, I have worked with clients in the past to coach them and motivate them to be the best versions of themselves. I am very solutions based and utilizing that approach is all I do. Let me know if you are interested in working together!

Best, Hannah