Two main theories in psychology that helped frame and develop today’s life coaching include those from Carl Rogers and Victor Frankl. Carl Rogers developed what he first called a “nondirective therapy”. Instead of taking the former approach as doctor/patient, this allowed Rogers to be more of a participant in the therapy. It later was known as client-centered therapy (very much like what coaching is today). (Cherry, 2017). Victor Frankl also established theories that can be tied to life coaching. His life’s purpose came from just that, the great pursuit of meaning in one’s life. This speaks incredibly to coaching clients. A coach cannot find meaning in their client’s life, but they can facilitate the client in finding their own. Frankl has stressed “the importance of intention as well as the necessity of finding meaning in work and life.” (Willams & Menendez, 2015, p. xxiv).
Positive Psychology was addressed by Martin Seligman in the late 1990’s and gives roots to life coaching. If psychology and life coaching can be compared at all, it will be with positive psychology and not through fixing mental illness. Similarities abound when you are talking about the outcome of the clients. Both are looking to take clients to a higher level personally and professionally, as well as give their lives new or better meaning. Both do this by emphasizing the clients strengths and looking at their (already in-place) positive aspects. Differences however, exist much like they did in licensed counseling vs. life coaching. Positive psychology is still looked at from the standpoint that the doctor knows what’s right in the client and that they can “fix” them with what they know. In coaching, perhaps they should be called “accountability coaches” most of all. This is because clients are expected to know what is best for them, to know their own answers. The job of the coach is to literally “coach” it out of them and help them see (and follow through on) what they already know. In other words, according to Menendez and Williams (2015), “the coach is the expert on the coaching process only.” (p. xxx).
References
Cherry, Kendra, (2017). Carl Rogers Biography (1902-1987). Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/carl-rogers-biography-1902-1987-2795542
Williams, Patrick & Menendez, Diane S., (2015). Becoming a Professional Life Coach. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company
