What's the difference?? 🤔

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Clinical Counselling:

• According to the British Columbia College of Social Workers' (BCCSW) Code of Ethics, counselling/therapy includes exploring a client's personal issues and helping clients "resolve difficulties and change behaviour" while building a strong counsellor-client relationship and assuring that confidentiality (privacy) is maintained.

• Counselling establishes a safe space that invites the client to be as vulnerable as they are willing to be. This provides the client the option to talk about and explore past traumas in detail, if desired. No topic is really off-limits as long as it is providing the client therapeutic benefit.

• While counselling can simulate coaching in many ways, it does not include intimate accountability and ongoing encouragement to achieve your identified goals in between appointments. There may be a follow-up email provided to the client upon request; however, text or call check-ins are not available as part of the counselling services offered at Together We Thrive Coaching & Counselling.

• At Together We Thrive Coaching & Counselling, counselling sessions are up to 60 minutes in length unlike coaching sessions which are typically 90 minutes.

• Sessions are led by the client, not the counsellor. This means that sessions are based on what the client identifies as the most important thing to discuss during each session. This might differ from coaching sessions as the coach might be more directive about each session's topic/objectives to ensure that progress is made toward the client's initial coaching goals.

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Coaching:

• According to International Coaching Community (ICC), "Coaching has been defined in many ways. The essence of coaching is:

  • To help a person change in the way they wish and helping them go in the direction they want to go.

  • Coaching supports a person at every level in becoming who they want to be.

  • Coaching builds awareness empowers choice and leads to change."

• Primarily focused on the present and future, NOT on past traumas.

• Exploring / identifying strategies to improve your current circumstances by empowering you to step up into your preferred/ideal version of yourself, your best self.

• Provides structure of how to achieve your desired outcomes / desired transformation, including intimate accountability and ongoing encouragement in between sessions.

• Flexibility in the length of sessions, allowing us to create detailed plans with established accountability processes for up to two weeks after each session. Typical coaching sessions at Together We Thrive Coaching & Counselling are 90 minutes in length in addition to follow-up texts or phone call within two weeks of each session.

• Coach leads each session to ensure time is spent progressing you toward your identified goals (AKA this is not an opportunity to spend a significant amount of time venting about recent or past life circumstances).

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*Note that both counselling and coaching sessions can be submitted to your benefits provider so long as you are a BC resident whose insurance covers Registered Social Workers. 😊