Coaching is a new profession, with its own standards and processes. While coaching shares some broad goals with psychotherapy — notably, the welfare and well-being of the client — the distinctions are many. In fact, many therapists have specifically trained as coaches to provide these services in addition to their principle practice.

Perhaps the greatest difference between coaching and therapy is the focus: the coach focuses on the client's goals for enhancing the quality of performance, learning, or life — rather than on emotional healing, relief from psychological pain, or resolving cognitive or emotional disorders.

Another distinct difference is the timeframe. Coaching works in the present and the imagined future, rather than the remembered past. While occasions may arise during a coaching session when the client must look into the past to discover the source of a blockage, this is not the primary or consistent emphasis of the work.

Here are a few other distinctions:

• The coach mostly delivers coaching over the phone, rather than in face-to-face sessions.
• The coach assigns homework and has phone and email contact.
• The coach holds the client accountable for taking action.
• The coach is free to offer advice, opinions, and mentoring and is not bound to an ethic of professional distance.
• The coach relates to the client as a partner, rather than as a healer.