The development of coaching as a change approach and a method of support has become sufficiently important in recent years to make the border between coaching and therapy clear. It is also necessary that the meaning of these two terms be explicit both at the level of the process and the posture because, let's admit it, the tools are mainly identical.

Therapy is based on an in-depth work, a search for the "why" of a symptom, a mode of functioning via awareness of certain events or constructions of the past to go towards a reconstruction and a well-being, another way of living with his story.
To do this, the "therapist's posture" is a posture aiming the overcoming of suffering, rebuilding self-esteem and maturing the personality.

Coaching is defined as a relationship in a determined period that allows the client to obtain concrete and measurable results in his professional and personal life. Through the coaching process, the client deepens her/his knowledge and improves her/his performance. (ICF definition)
The "coach's posture" will be directly focused on coaching and putting into practice. The coach aims to strengthen the autonomy and the deployment of the potential of the client he accompanies. Her/His starting point is that anyone (or team) has the talents, the resources they need to flourish and express themselves fully. The role of the coach is then to enable him/her to put into action and deploy all his/her resources.

Coaching is therefore neither psychology nor psychoanalysis since the psychologist, the analyst or the psychiatrist is looking for "why" while the coach is looking for "how" to achieve his goal. Unlike psychotherapy, which opens access to an explanation of the nature of the problem the person is experiencing, coaching does not respond to psychological suffering but to the need to understand, to apprehend a new situation and to restore a balance. The coach will work on the “here” and “now”, and not on the past, to create a space to help the coachee to establish his solution.

**The coach will not be interested in your past history but help you better analyze the present to prepare the future and put all the assets on your side.
**

Séverine LIEVIN-TARTAUD,
Psychologist of Eutelmed Network