by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
Why Choose Coaching Over Therapy? The Case for REALNESS
When you’ve already sat on the proverbial therapy couch for months or years and done all the talk-talk-talk, you may quite naturally find yourself asking: “What now?”.
Therapy has its place for sure – no doubt, it’s a time-tested intervention that helps people to find a sense of stability in their lives after a period of emotional turbulence and turmoil but if you’re reading this, you might feel that the slow crawl forward through endless talking isn’t real enough for you.
This is where coaching enters because it can help you to start moving in a REAL way – and yes, I’m going to argue that for many, choosing coaching may be the better option.
If you’re curious how this might apply to you and your own situation then this article will help you to understand the difference between these two modalities and to make a choice one way or the other.
Let’s dig a little deeper:
Coaching versus Therapy: What We’ll Cover in this Article
- Why Choose Coaching Over Therapy? The Case for REALNESS
- Therapy: The Old Map that Gets You ‘Somewhere’ but Never All the Way Home
- Coaching: Getting You Off the Couch and Into Your REAL Life
- Coaching vs Therapy: Which One is For You? A Guide
- Why Coaching Can Help You Tap into Your REALNESS
- Practical Steps: If you’re curious about coaching — what to do next
- Coaching vs Therapy: The Final Word
Therapy: The Old Map that Gets You ‘Somewhere’ but Never All the Way Home
Let’s begin with what therapy can do well because acknowledging its value is absolutely essential:
The truth of the matter is that many people have benefitted massively from therapy over the years and that it’s helped many to finally feel ‘seen’, ‘heard’ and capable of finally beginning to understand their patterns and develop a better relationship with themselves. There’s no question that this work can be valid and helpful.
However – and this is a pretty big however – therapy can also be outdated for certain goals:
If your aim is to get on with your life rather than stay in the examining room of your life, you may find therapy frustratingly slow, repetitive, and sometimes even circular as you explore the same things over and over again expecting different results (which – as we all know – is the definition of insanity).
Consider a few of the drawbacks of the therapeutic model:
- Duration & drift: Research shows that many therapeutic interventions require 15-20 sessions or more before any measurable improvement is seen. Another analysis found that length of-treatment and number of sessions had little association with better outcomes which basically means that you could stay in therapy for a long time without seeing incremental gains. This is all backed up by the fact that many people may engage in therapy for years – literally decades or lifetimes in some cases.
- Problem-focus versus solution-focus: Traditional therapy often does deep dives into the past – for example looking mainly at trauma, childhood, emotions, and old patterns as an end in themselves (instead of exploring them as barriers to be removed which is what coaching does). That’s needed but many clients I’ve spoken to say: “Yes, I got to understand my patterns but now what?” The trouble is, focusing on the problem means you keep feeding the problem because there’s a law of life that states what you focus on grows (and so if you focus on the problem, you just get more problems).
- Rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic whilst it sinks: The core problem for everybody is always a disconnection from their REALNESS and how this causes them to live a life in the Void. If you don’t deal with this core issue, then you’re just rearranging the furniture on the Titanic whilst it keeps sinking. Therapy sometimes helps you rearrange the deckchairs (beliefs, feelings, stories) but doesn’t always stop the water coming in and so you’re still on the sinking ship, albeit with a slightly nicer arrangement of chairs.
- Victim mindset can linger: Therapy often frames someone as “traumatised”, “hurt”, “in pain” and deserves compassion – rightly so, of course, but the long-term risk is remaining stuck in the role of victim rather than shifting into creator and actually doing something REAL with your life. In other words, lingering in that safe zone of “I’m damaged, help me” rather than stepping into “I’m alive so let’s build”.
- Limited action/out-of-session flow: Because many therapeutic models end at the session door, the emphasis is on talking, reflecting, exploring. Action sometimes happens, but less so than you might want – especially if you’re yearning for growth rather than just recovery. With coaching there is usually an accountability structure to keep the RELATIONSHIP going in between sessions (for my coaching this is checking in with clients daily to ensure they’re taking the action they said they’d take and staying focused on what’s real from day-to-day).
In short: therapy can stabilise you and help you survive but may not always help you reach that real place where you thrive. Therapy might help you heal dysfunction but coaching will help you to unlock your POTENTIAL.
Coaching: Getting You Off the Couch and Into Your REAL Life
Now let’s talk about coaching – specifically the kind of coaching I offer, guided by REALNESS and focused on helping you to become the real version of yourself away from all of that unresolved shame, guilt, and/or trauma (the Unholy Trinity).
Coaching is different to therapy because the whole point is that eventually you won’t need any more coaching and so you can go and get on with your life instead of constantly analysing it and replaying the past.
That’s a big shift.
Here are some of the distinctive elements of coaching that help you to shift gear in a real way:
- Future & action-focus: While therapy sometimes anchors in the past, coaching invites you to create a vision of your real self (unhindered by shame, guilt and/or trauma), break that vision into goals, and then take consistent action so you don’t just feel and talk; you tap into your being and do.
- Responsibility-culture: There’s a powerful mental shift that coaching always leads to: it goes from a stance of “I was harmed, I was a victim, and someone should ‘fix’ me” to “I’m alive, I declare my vision, and I act”. In other words, it takes you from being an EFFECT of what happened to you to becoming a CAUSE of what you want to make happen (within your control – we can’t control everything or be omnipotent, of course). This doesn’t mean you deny your story – it simply means you don’t let the story define you and so coaching helps you step out of the victim narrative into the architect narrative.
- Container + between-sessions momentum: With coaching I emphasise the relationship across the four months I tend to work with people for – not just during sessions. For example, I have accountability structures in place where we check in every weekday, you stay on track, take real action you committed to, regulate your nervous system, and build habits that help you keep getting results consistently over time. It’s not just ‘see you next week and chat’ but ‘we’re on this journey together, this week I’m doing this, and we report back and keep refining’. That dynamic drives flow rather than stuckness and banging your head against brick walls.
- Ending is the goal: Coaching is designed to be finite (not forever) and so the aim is that you grow real, integrate, embody, and then fly to wherever it is that you need to take yourself. You don’t become dependent on the coaching; you become independent and aligned with yourself and what you really want for yourself. This aligns with the REALNESS philosophy of returning to wholeness.
- Time efficiency and orientation: Coaching tends to move more quickly into action than therapy which might meander through exploration for months/years. If you’re already stable and you’re ready for growth rather than rescue then coaching may fit you better and help you to level yourself and your life up at a pace that gets you excited and fires you up.
Coaching vs Therapy: Which One is For You? A Guide
It’s not a case of “therapy bad, coaching good” because each has its place but here’s a quick guide to help you see what might be best for you:
Choose therapy if:
- You’re dealing with deep emotional turmoil, crisis, active mental health diagnosis, or trauma that’s so raw you’re just trying to survive.
- You don’t feel safe enough inside your body or your system to start acting yet (because before you build you need to stabilise).
- You need to feel ‘seen‘/’heard’, get understanding, regulation, or to just unleash a load of emotional ‘stuff’.
Choose coaching if:
- You’re reasonably stable (you have a roof over your head, a basic capacity to function in the world, and you’re not on the edge of a mental health crisis), and you’re ready to overcome old patterns and grow real through action.
- You’re done with endlessly analysing your past and you’re ready to build your future.
- You’re willing to be held accountable, create new habits, regulate your nervous system, and to step into becoming the kind of person you could have been if shame/guilt/trauma hadn’t defined you.
Why Coaching Can Help You Tap into Your REALNESS
My coaching is a holistic system that is about dealing with more than the mind (as therapy does) – instead, we’re dealing with the body, nervous system, ego, shadow self, emotional ‘stuff’ and action.
Coaching for REALNESS means:
- Integration of mind-body system: We don’t just talk; we regulate your nervous system and bring your body on board, not just your mind (because nothing real comes from the mind alone).
- From fragmentation to wholeness: We help you to overcome the inner separation from yourself (the core problem) and to overcome fragmentation (the bodily, emotional, and mental split) so you can put yourself back in alignment with wholeness (your natural, real state).
- Trust as a muscle: Through the process of Awareness → Acceptance → Action, my coaching helps you start trusting yourself and life again so you can start taking real action instead of holding back and hesitating in life.
- Vision-driven action: You create a real vision of yourself and life instead of the fearful, past-defined ‘you’ then map it into boldly consistent action and habits. I keep you accountable to make sure that this vision becomes a reality that replaces all of those old ‘Gremlins‘ and unreal patterns.
- Short-term container, long-term freedom: Coaching is a vehicle to get you to the place where you no longer need the vehicle. We’re not creating dependence; we’re creating independence.
Check out my book Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness if you want to know more about the realness philosophy and how to apply it to your life.
Practical Steps: If you’re curious about coaching — what to do next
Here are five steps you can take to explore all this ‘stuff’ – even if you’re still halfway in therapy or wondering whether coaching is for you:
- Clarify your current state
- Ask yourself: Am I in crisis/stabilising or am I ready to build and grow?
- Rate your life stability (on a scale of 1-10): Are you repeatedly stuck in the same patterns without much change or are you ready to move into new territory?
- If you’re at 3-4: perhaps therapy/therapeutic support is still valid. If you’re at 6-8: maybe coaching is now appropriate.
- Ask yourself: Am I in crisis/stabilising or am I ready to build and grow?
- Define the vision of your real self
- Imagine: If shame, guilt, and trauma hadn’t shaped me, who would I be?
Write 3-5 statements in the present tense (e.g., I move through life with ease, I express my truth, I love without fear, etc. etc. etc.). - This is not indulgent. It’s re-discovery of your realness, uncluttered by those old and unreal patterns that you’ve conditioned yourself to identify with.
- Imagine: If shame, guilt, and trauma hadn’t shaped me, who would I be?
- Break that vision into goal(s) + habits
- For each vision statement, pick one goal you’ll commit to over the next 3 months.
- For each goal, pick 1-2 daily or weekly habits. (Example: vision “I speak my truth” → goal “I have courageous conversations weekly” → habit “Every Monday morning write one honest truth I need to share”).
- Habit forms the muscle and action is the engine.
- For each vision statement, pick one goal you’ll commit to over the next 3 months.
- Regulate your nervous system and integrate body + mind
- Coaching isn’t just mind talk – your body will also need to catch up.
- Use breathwork, somatic exercises, meditation, or movement like (yin) yoga to settle into your nervous system.
- Weekly: pick 20-30 minutes where you do a somatic check-in:
Ask yourself “How is my body holding this vision? What resistance is here physically / emotionally /mentally?” then take micro-action to shift it.
- Coaching isn’t just mind talk – your body will also need to catch up.
- Set accountability and review
- Decide how often you’ll review your progress.
- Give yourself a weekly check-in: What habit did I do? What progress to my goal? What obstacle? What’s the next real action?
- At the end of 3 months: Review the vision statements. Which ones feel alive? Which feel stale? Revise and readjust if necessary.
- If you’re working with a coach then commit to being accountable rather than comfortable.
- Decide how often you’ll review your progress.
Coaching vs Therapy: The Final Word
Therapy can be an incredible journey from wound to wisdom, from chaos to calm, but if you’ve already reached a point where calm is familiar, where you’re not just surviving but wondering “What’s next?” then coaching offers the next chapter.
It’s not about dismissing what therapy did for you; it’s about choosing what you now need to live the REAL life you feel called to.
In the language of REALNESS: shed the fragments, step into wholeness, and live aligned with the truth rather than constantly pushing against it.
Coaching is the tool to help you become the realest version of you.
If you’d like to explore this more specifically – whether coaching might be right for you or how it might be structured – then book a free coaching session with me and I’ll help you take real action.
Stay real out there,
P.S. If you’re ready to shift into gear and take real action then book a free coaching call with me today and I’ll help you start focusing on the solution instead of the problem.
Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace is a book about learning to return to your realness by cultivating trust in yourself and trust in life.
It contains practical exercises and dedicated meditations (Transformational Bridges) to take you DEEP in knowing yourself and life.
This book will answer many of the questions you have growing REAL and flowing towards wholeness. It covers everything from shame to addiction to the unconscious mind and synchronicity (and way more).
Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness is a book designed to help you look at your life from the inside-out so that you can stop holding yourself back and go get what you really want.
It contains 166 practical ‘Revolutions’ for awareness and over 8,000 Self-Guidance Questions for you to uncover new insight about yourself, the world, and reality that you can translate into action and start building your real life on the realest possible foundation.
Shadow Life is an exploration of the human shadow and the hidden side of our personalities. It looks at the masks we wear, where these masks come from, and how we can take them off.
The book explores how we can better manage our relationships with shame, guilt, and trauma in order to remove the Mask that the world has asked us to wear (and that we forgot we were wearing) so we can live an authentic life with less drama, chaos, or BS whilst we’re still around.
The Flow Builder Journal has everything you need to make the next 21-weeks of your life a turning point.
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