Before I got into coaching, I didn’t really understand what it was about. And when I first sought out therapy, I had no idea that there were other options I could have chosen (like, coaching). At a high level, I knew there was a difference between a therapist and a psychiatrist, but my understanding was pretty cursory. I want to share some of what I’ve learned here to help you figure out what your best next step is, for whatever you’re seeking.
I worked with my first therapist, who was an LMFT (licensed marriage and family therapist) for about 18 months. Within the first few appointments, they told me that I likely have “major depressive disorder”. I didn’t know what to do with that –– like, where does a person go then after that? The best I could do with that was to google it and try and learn more about it, and this was my first foray into learning about the DSM, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
“The handbook used by healthcare professionals in the United States and much of the world as the authoritative guide to the diagnosis of mental disorders.”
And then about 6 months into working with this therapist, they gave me another diagnosis: ADHD. Based on what they had gotten to know about me, things I’d told them during our sessions, this was their hunch. This time they recommended that I get on meds, which for ADHD, means a stimulant like adderall. So then I found a psychiatrist, and I ended up taking adderall for about a year.
The reason why I’m sharing these details is that oftentimes, one of the go-to methods for many therapists (and probably all psychiatrists) is to diagnose. And diagnoses can mean a lot of different things for different people, but for me, I’ve come to learn that symptoms like depression, anxiety, inability to focus, addictive behaviors, minimizing and avoidance behaviors, and even what is called being a “highly sensitive person” – are all symptoms and aftereffects of trauma. (Also of note, most autoimmune diseases and other physiological symptoms are as well.)
As Trauma Recovery Coaches we do not pathologize (i.e. diagnose) the trauma responses our clients have. We don’t label what they are experiencing as a disorder. Instead, we recognize that they are having normal reactions to trauma –– which are abnormal experiences.
The goal of both therapy and coaching is to help clients address behavior patterns, beliefs and coping mechanisms. Often called “unpacking”, both therapists and coaches listen to a client’s life events and support them as they grow. A session with a Trauma Recovery Coach can feel like a session with a therapist. A significant difference to note is that while it’s important for the client to share their history and experiences, in a coaching relationship it’s not about processing those traumatic experiences specifically. We will dip into the past to draw context, but our focus is on the present and the future.
When I first started to learn more about trauma it was so validating, everything started to click for me – it is an umbrella under which all of my symptoms and patterns of behavior started to make sense. I did end up quitting the adderall for a few different reasons, but a big one being –– if I needed to take a stimulant to be able to function in the job that I was miserable in, maybe I needed to make a career change instead of medicating myself. And if “career change” had been a stated goal for me at the time, then it would follow that perhaps working with a coach could have been what I needed.
A few more notes on this…
- Diagnoses and medications have had an incredibly beneficial effect for so, so many people in the past 30 years and I believe there continues to be a lot of value there when the aftereffects of trauma are also considered – there’s no black and white way to look at mental health.
- It’s very common for clients to work with both therapists and coaches, and may address different areas of their lives with each.
- Rarely does one form of treatment resolve trauma. Clients often need a collaboration of methods such as talk therapy, EMDR, and somatic therapy, for example.
- Trauma Recovery Coaching is a complementary, peer-support model in which clients can focus on post-traumatic growth.
Also important to call out, not all therapists agree with relying on the DSM. There are a few incredibly powerful forms of therapy that seek to address clients holistically outside of diagnoses:
- Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS)
- Narrative Therapy