As I work through the course, Introduction to Counselling, I've been thinking a lot about what actually separates coaching from counselling.

The Canadian Counseling and Psychotherapy Association defines counseling as the skilled and principled use of relationship to facilitate self-knowledge, emotional acceptance and growth, and the optimal development of personal resources.

Before counselling existed as a profession, people turned to one another for guidance, perspective, encouragement and support. We listened to each other's problems, and helped one another make difficult decisions by sharing what we had learned or offering different perspectives, helping the people we cared about find their way through difficult periods of life.

As society evolved, so did the way that help was provided. In the early 1900s, counselling began moving beyond informal advice and information-giving and became increasingly associated with vocational guidance, partly in response to the enormous social and occupational changes brought about by industrialization. The two World Wars accelerated its development as growing social pressures and psychological needs created demand for more organized helping services. Canada followed developments already underway internationally, and in 1965 the Canadian Guidance and Counselling Association—now the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association—was established. By the 1970s, the field was expanding beyond remediation toward preventive and developmental approaches, while human services increasingly extended to girls and women, minority groups, and people with disabilities. From there, counselling continued to broaden dramatically into the diverse profession we know today, encompassing everything from development and personal growth to relationships, career concerns, crisis support and serious psychological difficulties.

Still, even as counselling developed into a distinct profession, many of the fundamental skills at its heart remained just that: human helping skills. My counselling textbook describes how helping and communication skills associated with counselling were initially deliberately taught to both professionals and nonprofessionals. So, while counselling has developed a professional framework around helping, but the fundamental processes of helping are not exclusive to the profession. There is no professional monopoly on listening deeply, asking thoughtful questions, exploring emotions, identifying patterns, clarifying values, setting goals, sharing psychoeducation, solving problems or supporting behaviour change.

These things happen in counselling. They also happen in coaching, education, mentorship, spiritual care, peer support, friendship and countless other human relationships.

Rather than trying to determine what set of behaviors belong to which profession, I ask myself “What am I qualified to offer, how am I representing that qualification, and when does someone's need exceed my competence?”

I currently practice as a coach, not as a counselling therapist or any other licensed mental-health professional. My approach draws from my formal coaching education, approximately two decades of independent study and personal development, previous training in areas such as holistic nutrition, yoga and meditation, and what I am now learning through undergraduate psychology and counselling studies. That education inevitably influences how I work. As my knowledge grows, I grow.

My role as a coach involves listening and reflection, exploring thoughts and emotions, identifying patterns, discussing values and meaning, sharing educational information and resources, practicing skills, setting goals, experimenting with new behaviours, and helping someone think differently about a problem. Once I become a counsellor, I will be doing these same things (with a more deeply developed understanding, skillset, and the benefit of clinical supervision).

So what makes counselling different?

Counselling therapy exists within a professional clinical framework.

A licensed counselling therapist has completed prescribed professional education and clinical training, and practices within ethical and professional standards. In New Brunswick, licensed practitioners are accountable to the College of Licensed Counselling Therapists of New Brunswick, whose role includes establishing standards, licensing practitioners, requiring continuing professional development and responding to complaints.

Coaching doesn't have an equivalent universal regulatory structure. Training and experience can therefore vary enormously between coaches. At the same time, many of the processes used within counselling aren't exclusive to counselling: meaningful emotional conversations, reflective listening, behaviour-change strategies and evidence-informed tools can also have a place in coaching when they fall within the coach's training and competence.

In fact, New Brunswick's own regulatory College makes this clear. The province currently protects counselling-therapy titles, rather than reserving all counselling-like activity exclusively for licensed counselling therapists. The College explicitly states that people may provide counselling-like services without being licensed, provided they don't represent themselves using protected titles, and says clients should be informed when a practitioner is not licensed to practice counselling therapy.

I'm still in the early stages of my formal counselling education. If you are reading this while I am practising as a coach, that is the capacity in which I am working with clients. My website, informed-consent documents and conversations with clients will always reflect my current qualifications and scope of practice.

As my education progresses, so will my knowledge and skills. Eventually, becoming licensed will allow me to practise within the clinical and regulatory framework of counselling therapy. Until then, I will continue learning while remaining clear about the capacity in which I currently practise.

Perhaps the most important lesson I'm carrying with me through both coaching and counselling is that my responsibility is not to have the answer to another person's life. It is to bring presence, curiosity, knowledge and appropriate tools to the conversation, while respecting that their life, and ultimately their choices, remain their own.