Coaching and Therapy:

Similarities and divergences*

Ernesto Spinelli

This paper considers critically the major similarities and differences between
coaching and therapy as presented by previous authors. In particular,
it considers Jopling’s contribution of the idea of a ‘fuzzy space’ between the
professions and argues that coaching psychology is particularly well placed to inhabit this ‘fuzzy space’.
Finally, the paper considers three major issues that provide pathways to both convergence and divergence
between the professions: contracting; the quality and type of relationship being engendered; and the inter-
relational stance.

Keywords: ‘fuzzy space’; contracting; relationship; inter-relational perspective.

HEN I FIRST BEGAN to explore many different conceptualisations of the

W the topic of the similarities and

differences between coaching and
therapy I did so almost entirely naive to the
great deal of work that had already been
undertaken on this subject. So, in particular,
I would like to acknowledge the writings of
Peter Bluckert (2006); Tatiana Bachkirova
and Elaine Cox (Bachkirova & Cox, 2005;
Bachkirova, 2007); and Patrick Williams and
Deborah Davis (2007). I also want to
acknowledge the innovative research rele-
vant to the debate that has been carried out
by Angela Jopling, for her MSc dissertation
at the New School of Psychotherapy and
Counselling, London (Jopling, 2007). When
considering all the points that these, and
numerous other, authors have already raised
regarding the title topic it should be evident
to one and all that my own contributions to
the debate will, at best, serve as extensions
and elaborations of their work.
As many authors and practitioners have
noted, although coaching is booming it
remains unclear as to what kind of activities
the term refers (Van Kessel, 2006). No agree-
ment on its definition has, as yet, been
arrived at. Indeed, there currently exist
term (Grant, 2006; Jackson, 2005; Lee, 2003;
Palmer & Whybrow, 2006; Peltier, 2001;
Vaughan-Smith, 2007). This situation reveals
a set of circumstances all too similar to those
with which therapy (a term which I will
employ somewhat generically throughout
this paper so as to include the related profes-
sions of psychotherapy, counselling and
counselling psychology) currently finds itself
(Spinelli, 2001, 2006).
Relevant to this point, it is of value to
note that, according to Evered and Selman,
the originally Hungarian ‘root meaning of
verb ‘to coach’: [is] to convey a valued
person from where (s)he is to where (s)he
wanted to be’ (Evered & Selman, 1989, p.16
as quoted in Van Kessel, 2006, p.393). This,
too, is not so different from the root
meaning of therapy – therapeia – which refers
to the attempt to stand beside, or to be with
another, in his or her endeavour (Evans,
1981).
Faced with such difficulties, various
authors have avoided defining coaching in
terms of what it is, and instead have focused
upon its overall aims (Downey, 1999; Grant,
2006; Jackson, 2005) For example, Timothy

* This paper is based on a keynote address given at the BPS Special Group in Coaching Psychology Annual
Conference on the 17th December 2007.

International Coaching Psychology Review ● Vol. 3 No. 3 November 2008 241

© The British Psychological Society – ISSN: 1750-2764
Ernesto Spinelli
Gallwey has argued that coaching can best
be defined as a way of working that contains
within it ‘the art of creating an environment,
through conversation and a way of being,
that facilitates the process by which a person
can move toward desired goals in a fulfilling
manner’ (Gallwey, 2002, p.177). Once again,
this is not so far from a decent definition of
what therapy might be attempting to foster.
In spite of such definition-based points
which suggest at least some partial conver-
gence – however uneasy – between the two
professional arenas, all manner of distinc-
tions have been made by various authors and
thinkers from both coaching and therapy
regarding the differences between the two
professions (Parsloe & Wray, 2000; Vaughan-
Smith, 2007). These include a variety of
views which have been neatly summarised by
Tatiana Bachkirova and Elaine Cox. They
write that these broad distinctions have
emphasised therapy’s focus as:
‘a remedial activity, working on problems
in the client’s personal and working life
(Carroll, 2003). Parsloe and Wray, for
example, distinguish the purpose of
therapy as ‘problem or crisis-centred with
the emphasis on diagnosis, analysis and
healing’ and which ‘might include
testing, prescribed drugs, a focus on early
life experience, involvement with other
family members.’ (2000, p.12). They
claim that therapy is theory driven.
Conversely, they describe coaching as
typically result or performance oriented
with the emphasis on taking action and as
sustaining changes over time and that it is
used to improve performance in a
specific area, is more practice driven and
relies strongly on interpersonal skills.’
(Bachkirova & Cox, 2005, p.2)
In keeping with such stances, I recently
asked a group of coaching supervisees from
the i-coach Academy for their perspective on
this issue. As well as rephrase a number of
points summarised above, they added the
following: Therapy is currently more regu-
lated than coaching; therapy’s ethical
boundaries are more specific; coaching is
242 International Coaching Psychology Review
predominantly, if not exclusively, focused on
positive aspects of personal growth and
development as opposed to therapy, whose
predominant, if not exclusive, focus rests on
the disturbances and arrests in growth and
development; therapy is usually cheaper (far
cheaper!) than coaching; coaching, unlike
therapy, is not about fixing things but,
rather, is concerned with enhancing what
already works reasonably well; coaching
concentrates its attention upon that part of
the population that would be categorised as
‘normal’ as opposed to therapy’s focus upon
issues and questions related to ‘abnormal,
deviant or pathological’ populations;
coaching addresses and serves that part of
society which might not make use of therapy
or which would regard the use of such
services as a stigma; therapy concentrates on
the client’s past whereas coaching is focused
on his or her future.
While any or, indeed, all of these diverse
views might at first seem attractive and useful
foci for distinguishing the two professions
from one another, on reflection it becomes
evident that all are problematic and open to
any number of counter-examples and argu-
ment. For instance, let us consider the last
point made above regarding the view that
therapy’s focus is primarily on the past,
whereas coaching’s focus is principally upon
the future. My personal view, which I suspect
would be shared by many therapists regard-
less of the model or approach they espouse,
is that it is a huge error to view therapy as
being predominantly past-oriented. More
correctly, I believe, therapy is concerned
with the living or presenting past – and, as
such, is much more present attuned than
coaches usually understand it to be (Cohn,
2002; Spinelli, 2007, Stern, 2004). And, in
addition, it seems to me that for coaches,
too, a future-focus without any sufficient
present-attunement is likely to deeply
diminish both the value and the impact of
their enterprise.
In a general response to these attempts at
clear-cut distinctions between the profes-
sions, Bachkirova and Cox have highlighted
● Vol. 3 No. 3 November 2008
 Coaching and Therapy: Similarities and divergences
that one critical weakness in such an
approach arises precisely because the diver-
gences being proposed rest on the implicit
assumption of a unified, if imaginary, type of
coaching as well as a unified, if imaginary, type
of therapy. In doing so, each profession is
attributed with some assumed general and
uniformly acknowledged set of features
which can, with relative ease, be contrasted
with the competing profession’s uniformly
acknowledged features (Bachkirova & Cox,
2005). The weaknesses in this dubious
strategy are, I think, best summarised as
expressions of what the existential philo-
sopher, Paul Tillich, referred to as unreal ‘as
if’ assumptions that will always lead to false,
and experientially-limiting choices (Tillich,
1980). Put simply, if we accept that, rather
than uniformity, it is the themes of range and
diversity that currently dominate both thera-
peutic and coaching models and approaches,
then it becomes particularly difficult to talk
in terms of a single arena or to propose
unified set of similarities and differences.
Related to this last point, it can be argued
that the dilemma being presented by this
debate reveals difficulties that are not
entirely dissimilar to those which arise when
attempts are made to distinguish categories
such as, for example, ‘works of art’ from
‘non-art’ (or ‘rubbish’). The philosopher,
Nelson Goodman, addressing this very issue,
proposed that, given the limitations of all
previous attempts to arrive at a clear-cut
distinction, it might be more constructive
and revealing to ask the question ‘When is
art?’ as opposed to the more common ‘What
is art?’ (Goodman, 1977). I will discuss below
why there may be some value in a similar
refocusing of the question with regard to the
topic of our concern. However, it is critical to
understand that in restating the issue from
this alternate point of focus, it becomes
increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to
provide those who might wish for such with
fixed and secure definitional lines of demar-
cation between the contrasting categories.
Does this then imply that there is nothing
at all that can be said about clearly-definable
International Coaching Psychology Review ● Vol. 3 No. 3 November 2008
differences between coaching and therapy?
Possibly. But let us bracket such a conclusion
for the moment.
Addressing this very dilemma in their
paper entitled ‘A bridge over troubled water:
Bringing together coaching and coun-
selling’, Bachkirova and Cox (2005) focus on
what lies beyond or beneath the more super-
ficial, unresolved, or imaginary differences
between coaching and therapy. Instead, they
focus initially on that which might unite
coaching and therapy rather than upon
those aspects which would substantially
distinguish each profession. Paradoxically,
this line of enquiry succeeds in extracting a
number of significant and far less superficial
potential points of diversion.
Primary among these, they argue, is the
predominantly organisational context and
focus of coaching which typically brings with
it a double accountability required of
coaches – to the particular client and to the
organisation with which the client is associ-
ated and which, as well, is likely to be
funding the coaching enterprise. This dual
accountability is likely to create ethical
complications for coaches and coaching,
with which therapists are unlikely to contend
since therapy’s accountability, being more
typically individualistically focused, is
commonly to the client alone. This is,
I think, a relevant argument and I will return
to it below, albeit from a different stand-
point. Nonetheless, as a brief point of
caution, it seems important to acknowledge
that the great many – and growing – number
of therapists who work in public services
such as NHS must also deal with all too
similar organisationally-derived complica-
tions arising from dual accountability.
A second argument raised by Bachkirova
and Cox reminds us that therapy is built on
various comprehensive, if competing, theo-
ries regarding the mental, behavioural and
emotional life of human beings. Coaching,
as a new profession, does not at present hold
any elaborate theories about its practises and
the assumptions underlying them. Moreover,
there is an argument made by some
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Ernesto Spinelli
coaching authors that exactly because of its
practical focus, coaching does not require
theories. Such views serve to remind us that
‘[w]hilst there has been an exponential
growth in practical coaching, the conceptual
ground that coaching is built upon could be
viewed as, at best, multi-disciplinary, and at
worst as atheoretical or even anti-theoretical’
(Bachkirova & Cox, 2005, p.6).
At the same time, it needs to be acknow-
ledged that all current attempts at coaching
theories are substantially indebted to a wide
range of therapeutic models and discourse
such that it is not too unlikely that whatever
theories of coaching eventually evolve they
will at the very least be partially founded
upon existing models of therapy. Along
similar lines to this last point, my own
personal experience leads me to accept the
view that even within the currently all too
evident paucity of theory in coaching, what
theories there are seem mainly derived from
an (albeit all too often somewhat superficial)
allegiance to, and understanding of, thera-
peutic or broader personality theories.
In like fashion, although coaches may
not currently be able (or remain unwilling)
to call forth fully developed theories, they do
maintain many assumptions regarding all
manner of concepts such as growth, change,
development, and so forth which are signifi-
cantly beholden to therapeutic discourse. In
this, as with therapy, coaching may have
inherited a predisposition toward what
Jerome Kagan has labelled as ‘seductive
ideas’ that rest upon insufficiently examined
and often evidentially dubious but nonethe-
less professionally pleasing biases (Kagan,
2000). More recently, the work of Alvin
Mahrer examining the many questionable
biases, assumptions and ‘pleasing’ notions
maintained by therapists both with regard to
their profession as a whole and to the
specific issues regarding their research
strategies has highlighted various critical
concerns to which coaches, and coaching-
focused research, is also all too likely to fall
prey (Mahrer, 2000, 2004, 2006). Indeed,
mention of research exposes another likely,
244 International Coaching Psychology Review
if undesirable, convergence between thera-
pists and coaches in general: namely, their
shared tendency to be disinterested in both
the doing of and the reading about research.
As has been noted by many before me, the
attitude adopted toward research by both
counselling psychology and coaching
psychology may be a crucial identifying
feature of both professions in relation to
their more broadly-termed counterparts.
But, what is for me perhaps the most
significant argument initially raised by
Bachkirova and Cox and subsequently
further elaborated by Bachkirova in a later
paper (Bachkirova, 2007), stresses the need
to be clear about what type of coaching it is
that is being contrasted to therapy. ‘Develop-
mental coaching, for instance, in contrast to
performance coaching, is less focused on the
specific performance-related behaviours. It is
more open to long-term and emerging needs
and aspirations of the client and so may
justify interventions that in performance
coaching would be considered too open-
ended and/or unnecessarily psychologically-
deep’ (Bachkirova, 2007, pp.359–360).
The implications of this argument are
clear: the more coaching moves toward the
developmental or transformational direction
of its professional continuum, the less it can
be distinguished from therapy. Likewise, the
more a coach works developmentally or
transformationally, the more knowledgeable
he or she ought to be of therapeutic
discourse and practice – including the
holding of sufficient understanding related
to areas of psychological disorder and
disruption.
Such arguments remind us of
Goodman’s proposal regarding the re-
framing of these questions away from a focus
on ‘what’ and toward an understanding of
‘when’. But, in doing so, it would seem to me
that this re-orientation forces us to enter
what might best be termed as a ‘fuzzy space’
between coaching and therapy.
The notion of ‘fuzzy space’ has been put
forward by Angela Jopling, a trained existen-
tial therapist and an executive coach whose
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 Coaching and Therapy: Similarities and divergences
work is mainly with middle- to senior-level
managers presenting a wide range of issues
and concerns that fall into the develop-
mental or transformational sub-categories of
executive coaching.
The idea of ‘fuzzy space’ being advocated
by Jopling alludes to the notion of ‘fuzzy
logic’ which is concerned with the develop-
ment of a way of reasoning that emphasises
approximations of distinction rather than
fixed and precise differences between
comparative sets of categories or criteria.
From a linguistic standpoint, ‘fuzzy logic’
concerns itself with imprecise terms and
concepts and so addresses points of category
resemblance and proximity. Perhaps most
significantly for this discussion, ‘fuzzy logic’
addresses the uncertainties inherent in many
aspects of comparison and verification
(Kosko, 1994). From the standpoint of the
similarities and differences between
coaching and therapy, ‘fuzzy logic’ high-
lights those demarcations that while impre-
cise, incomplete, unfixed or uncertain,
nonetheless serve as the best means with
which to compare and contrast the two
professions.
In her MSc Dissertation, entitled ‘The
fuzzy space between psychotherapy and
executive coaching’ (Jopling, 2007), Jopling
analysed a series of structured interviews
carried out within a phenomenological
research paradigm. Her co-researchers were
12 executive coaches, six of whom also prac-
tised as therapists. The focus of her investi-
gation rested upon the clarification of her
co-researchers’ experience and under-
standing of instances of ‘fuzziness’ or ‘a fuzzy
space’ between therapy and coaching while
engaged in the coaching process. The
analysis of Jopling’s interviews highlighted
various significant themes of distinction and
divergence between the professions among
which I want to emphasise two in particular
since these seem to me to be the most imme-
diately relevant to this discussion.
The first theme for our consideration
falls under the broad category of contracting.
Jopling’s co-researchers argued that
International Coaching Psychology Review ● Vol. 3 No. 3 November 2008
coaching contracts are open and clear and
much more explicit than those typically
presented in therapeutic arrangements.
Jopling summarises the view that coaches
place more emphasis than do therapists
upon the contract and are more likely to
utilise it as a means of stating their preferred
methods; expectations of both of themselves
and their clients; how the relationship is
structured; the roles and responsibilities that
the coach and client will take on; and their
flexibility and limitations as to when and how
contact between coach and client will take
place. In contrast, therapeutic contracts are
more likely to concern themselves with the
logistical and functional aspects of the thera-
peutic relationship – matters of payment,
arrangements regarding absences and holi-
days, and so forth.
In my view, the issues surrounding
contracting as expressed by Jopling’s co-
researchers raise a critical point of compar-
ison between therapy and coaching. This
comparison rests upon the degree of flexi-
bility within and between particular models
of therapy with regard to the necessary
conditions under which therapy can occur.
This flexibility is concerned with any thera-
peutic model’s openness toward and ability
to address and respond to such matters as
variations in general ‘frame’ issues, amend-
ments to contracts and alterations in
meeting times, venue, and duration of
sessions as well as with issues related to the
degree to which the meeting and alliance
established between therapist and client is
open to non face-to-face discourse such as
telephone or e-mail dialogues and so forth.
In addition, what this idea of flexibility also
addresses is both the therapist’s and the ther-
apeutic model’s openness toward and ability
to face directly, various relational issues such
as the client’s challenges to the therapist’s
(relative) anonymity, the possibility of dual
or even multiple relationships and the
degree to which the therapist will address
matters of personal disclosure.
I would propose that those therapies that
are particularly rigid or inflexible with
245
Ernesto Spinelli
regard to these concerns, in that their
rigidity is itself a pivotal defining feature of
the therapeutic model or approach itself, are
unlikely to translate well within a coaching
context. For instance, if it is a key defining
characteristic of the model that therapy must
take place within the confines of a specified
space and location that is in no way
connected to the client and which is not
interchangeable with any other space or
location, then such demands, no matter how
relevant they may be to the practice of
therapy as understood by that particular
model are not likely to be maintainable
within a coaching context. Likewise, many
therapists (and professional therapeutic
organisations) would baulk at the idea of
engaging in a therapeutic relationship with a
client whom they know personally or with
whom they maintain a working relationship.
In contrast, such instances of dual or
multiple relationships between coaches and
clients are not uncommon nor typically
perceived as being problematic. As far as I
am aware, a therapeutic model’s relative flex-
ibility in translating itself to a coaching
framework – whether with regard to issues
relevant to its framework or in its assump-
tions and restrictions regarding matters of
relationship – raises a potentially significant
difference and divergence that has not been
sufficiently examined by either coaches or
therapists.
Which leads us to the second theme
which concerns itself with broader issues
relevant to distinctions between the
coaching and therapeutic relationship.
Jopling’s co-researchers tended to take the
view that the coaching relationship, as a
whole, is much more balanced and egali-
tarian than is its therapeutic counterpart.
Once again, the question of disclosure of
personal views and experiences by the coach
was raised as one instance of this attempt at
developing a professional relationship of
equals as opposed to the more power-imbal-
anced, and at times infantilising, relation-
ship generated within a therapeutic setting.
246 International Coaching Psychology Review
This may well be so, and may also high-
light significant relationally-derived differ-
ences between the two professions. At the
same time, my experience of working with
coaches leads me to the view that coaches
are less at ease than are the majority of ther-
apists in addressing and working with the
coach-client relationship in its immediacy –
whether in terms of impact upon the client
or with regard to its experiential relevance to
the client’s presenting concerns. While
coaches are usually quite capable in
addressing their client’s relationship to self
and to external others such as members of
the client’s organisation or family, the value
in exploring the impact upon the client of
the coach’s own presence as an ‘other’
(however different and similar he or she may
be to the client’s broader experience of
others) often passes coaches by or is actively
minimised by them. Indeed, for many
coaches this focus provokes deep unease and
is often perceived as being too close to, or
entering into, the terrain of therapy.
Nonetheless, such views are beginning to be
challenged by a growing number of coaches
and coaching trainers. For example, in
addressing this point, the coaching theorist,
Peter Bluckert, has written: ‘the very
dynamics occurring in the coaching rela-
tionship may be a mirror image of clients’
experiences in their workplace relationships
and they may be completely unaware of it’
(Bluckert, 2006, p.48).
I would suggest that there is another,
equally pertinent, issue being raised here
that, perhaps surprisingly, was first raised by
the existential philosopher, Martin
Heidegger, in his series of seminars with
psychiatrists and psychotherapists
(Heidegger, 2001). Addressing the issue of
the therapeutic relationship, Heidegger gave
central importance to the question: ‘Where
and what am I when I am with you?’ and
argued that its focus concern and implica-
tions should be examined from the perspec-
tive of both client and therapist. As I
understand it, Heidegger’s query alerts us to
the understanding the ‘I’ who enters the
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 Coaching and Therapy: Similarities and divergences
relationship – whether that ‘I’ refers to the
client or to the therapist, or, indeed, the
coach - is already experientially different to
the ‘I’ who inhabits the wider world.
Heidegger’s challenge proposes that it is
useful to address this shift in one’s experi-
ence of being first, in terms of ‘who am I
being when I am being here?’ and second, in
terms of ‘what is different about the I who is
here rather than there?’
In my own work as an existential thera-
pist, I have proposed that there may be
substantial value in considering the thera-
peutic process as a co-creation by therapist
and client of a unique and distinct ‘world’
(the therapy world) which they co-habit and
within which both the therapist’s and the
client’s way of being and relating to self and
other can be distinguished, compared and
contrasted to their way of being and relating
to self and others in the ‘wider world’.
Further, I have suggested that much of what
emerges as therapeutically beneficial to
persons can be directly related to the explicit
and experientially-focused investigation of
the similarities and contrasts in being and
relating gleaned from the direct experience
of co-creating and co-habiting the ‘therapy
world’ (Spinelli, 2007). I would like to
propose that a parallel process of clarifica-
tion and illumination occurs in coaching
through the co-creation by client and coach
of a co-habited ‘coaching world’. In this way,
I suggest, Heidegger’s challenging question
reveals its experiential pertinence for thera-
pist and coach alike.
Further, through this direct focus upon
the client’s experience of being in the current
relationship with either coach or therapist,
the aspirations or conflicts that have brought
the client to either the coaching or thera-
peutic relationship in the first place are likely
to stand revealed precisely through the
client’s experience of ‘being with’ the coach
or therapist. In this way, while still potentially
egalitarian in emphasis, the coaching rela-
tionship, as with the therapeutic relationship,
itself can become the primary instrument and
focus of enquiry.
International Coaching Psychology Review ● Vol. 3 No. 3 November 2008
Interestingly, while numerous therapists
have grasped this point, and its significance to
the illumination of the client’s worldview in
general and its currently dominant aspirations
and discontents in particular (Cohn, 2002;
Yalom, 1980; Spinelli, 2007; Stern, 2004),
coaches have tended to be somewhat reluc-
tant, if not unwilling, to bring explicitly this
aspect of the coaching relationship into their
discourse and interventions with their clients.
This reluctance in focusing upon those factors
that highlight the immediacy of the coaching
relationship as being in itself as a crucial
means with which to address the client’s
presenting life-issues highlights, for me, a key,
if ultimately unnecessary, difference between
the current practice of coaching and therapy.
More to the point, in avoiding or being naive
to the significance of their own presence in
the coaching relationship, coaches, I believe,
bestow significant weaknesses and limitations
upon their enterprise.
On the other hand, I would also argue
that coaching offers a critical insight upon
the relationship that much of therapy has
failed to grasp. As was discussed above,
coaching is intimately connected to organi-
sational structures, practises and concerns.
Just about every form and expression of
coaching requires some degree of under-
standing of organisational discourse and
‘culture’. This, in itself, is likely to be pretty
alien terrain to a lot of therapists. Similarly,
as was also raised above, this alignment to an
organisational arena provokes questions of
dual accountability which for many thera-
pists is also foreign territory.
Without wishing to dismiss or diminish
such points, I would like to propose that
their critical significance rests upon a
broader implication raised by them. For, in
placing coaching within a predominantly
organisational context, coaching is also
adopting an inter-relational perspective that lies
at the heart of its primary discourse. In like
fashion, coaches and coaching trainers such
as Alan Sieler have sought to demonstrate
that it is this very same inter-relational
perspective that provides a baseline
247
Ernesto Spinelli
grounding in the clarification, challenge and
attempted resolution of the issues being
brought by the client (Sieler, 2003). At the
same time, it is important to note that this
very relational foundation may prove to be
problematic for a great many therapists
whose competing foundational assumptions
rest upon views of the individual as a
coherent, singular being understandable
from a set of intrapsychic processes and
functions (Spinelli, 2001, 2006).
It is, I believe, this difference in emphasis
between the inter-relational and the intrapsy-
chic that reveals what may be the most signif-
icant general divergences between coaching
and therapy. Of course, there is a ‘fuzziness’
here, too. Some therapists, and some models
or approaches within therapy, have clearly
aligned themselves to inter-relational
perspectives. At the same time, many
coaches do not, as yet, seem to have grasped
the potentially revolutionary implications of
this relational foundation within their
approaches. This lack of understanding is
revealed by coaches in many different ways,
not least by the still prevailing tendency on
their part to place a lot more significance
and worth upon their skills and interven-
tions rather than upon the quality and explo-
ration of the relationship being fostered.
Peter Bluckert alludes to this concern when
he states: ‘many of our trainee coaches begin
with a strong tendency to look for the solu-
tion to the client’s problem in the external
reality - the outer game. They eagerly race
towards a practical set of actions before fully
understanding the complexities of the issue
in the first place’ (Bluckert, 2006, p.48).
Viewed in this light, coaching can
perhaps be best distinguished from therapy
in that it offers the potential for a significant
shift from the therapeutic (and broadly
cultural) tendency toward ‘the tyranny of the
individual’. For me, personally, it is precisely
248 International Coaching Psychology Review
this foundational assumption of relatedness
that makes coaching so interesting and
which perhaps highlights a key divergence
with not all, but certainly the majority, of
therapeutic assumptions and practices.
So… what to make of this somewhat
circuitous journey? Acknowledging its ‘fuzzy’
qualities, let me nonetheless offer something
of what emerges for me: As Angela Jopling’s
phenomenological study reveals, at least
some coaches and therapists both experience
and are able to identify a ‘fuzzy space’ which
is neither pure coaching nor pure therapy. As
this paper has proposed, closer examination
of the various suggested differences between
therapy and coaching reveals that such differ-
ences also largely inhabit a ‘fuzzy’ space
rather than reveal clear-cut points of lasting
contrast and comparison. Indeed, my
personal view is that, if anything, further
developments in both professions will exac-
erbate or intensify that ‘fuzziness’ rather than
provide much clearer lines of demarcation.
My sense is that something that bridges
therapy and coaching will evolve, indeed, has
already begun to evolve. Whether it will still
be labelled as coaching or whether some new
term emerges, I don’t know, though I suspect
the latter in the long run.
My concluding proposal for you is that
coaching psychology both inhabits and
expresses this ‘fuzzy space’. Indeed, this
fuzzy space and its exploration may perhaps
be the distinguishing feature of coaching
psychology. If so, it may place coaching
psychology at the forefront of what is to
come.
Correspondence
Professor Ernesto Spinelli
ES Associates,
69 Oglander Road,
London SE15 4DD.
E-mail: esa@plexworld.com
● Vol. 3 No. 3 November 2008
 Coaching and Therapy: Similarities and divergences
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