Comparing Counselling And Mentoring

Counselling, coaching and mentoring are all ways to help people achieve success and as a result, they have many similarities; however, there are subtle difference distinguishing them from one another. Counselling does not have one singular definition, as it is prevalent in many different areas of psychology. Nonetheless, Feltham (2012) defines counselling as a way of focusing on a range of psychological and subconscious issues, to help people reach their potential. Counselling emphasises the enhancement of the clients’ psychological health through discussion of personal issues, helping clients understand the underlying cause of long-established problems. The counsellor uses constrained time to allow clients to examine their own challenges and

Both counselling and coaching are structured, time limited and tend to be short term; however, they both can last for longer if a client has multiple issues to discuss, or identifies multiple goals. Furthermore, they both cause observable changes in clients and they share key skills, such as active listening and a good therapeutic relationship between practitioner and client (Bluckert, 2005). This may be because coaching partly evolved from counselling (West and Milan, 2001). Both counselling and coaching focus on the client, the client decides what issues to discuss or what goals to set, the practitioner just helps illuminate ideas. Despite having similarities, there are some key differences, which separate the two disciplines. The main difference between the two is their intentions. Counselling works with much more personal issues in much greater depth; whereas, coaching does not seek to resolve the deeper underlying issues causing the problems. If someone has persistent psychological issues, then counselling not coaching is appropriate (Schwartz and Rogers, 2004). As a result, coaching is more present orientated, whereas, counselling tends looks at the past and present and how that is impacting the individual Bluckert (2005). Coaches are also more concerned with practical issues of setting goals to be completed during the time span. (Price, 2009). Overall,

Both counselling and mentoring utilise a lot of the same skills (Clutterbuck and Megginson, 1999), confusing people about which one they need. They are both based on the needs of the client, with an agenda set by the client and share the key aim of attempting to enable clients to help themselves. However, mentoring’s structure is much more informal, sessions can be spontaneous, mainly only when the mentee needs support or advice, unlike counselling where sessions are predetermined and more regular. Additionally, mentoring does not attempt to resolve deep underlying issues, instead it is the acquisition of wisdom to help the mentee progress. Another major difference between the two is that a dual relationship between a mentor and mentee is more accepted and beneficial than between a therapist and client (Bluckert, 2005). As the relationship is slightly different, a mentor is able to provide direction or advice, unlike a counsellor, who enables not advises. Overall, the two may share similar skills, but have very different