Photo by Aliaksei Lepik on Unsplash
You’ve got two tabs open. One is a therapist’s profile, soft lighting and a row of letters after the name. The other is a life coach promising you’ll finally get unstuck in twelve weeks.
Part of you thinks you’re not “bad enough” for therapy. Another part suspects a coach would hand you a vision board for something that’s older than you’d like to admit. So you close both tabs and carry on.
I’ve stood on both sides of this question, and I didn’t get it right the first time either. Before I ever sat with a client, I spent years in the somatic and dance world as a participant. At Esalen, one of the first things I learned was nonviolent communication. I learned it so well that I shot up through the ceiling and made myself into an arsehole. I was better at it than everybody else. A tool without ground under it just becomes another protector.
Years later I sat the exam that decides whether you can practise as a licensed psychotherapist in California. Four hours, at the end of years of training and thousands of supervised hours. I was so sure I’d walk through it that I’d barely studied. I failed. Six more months before I could sit it again, six more months where I couldn’t legally exist as my own person in my own profession. I had three couples on my calendar that afternoon. So I wiped my tears and went and sat with them, carrying the shame in my body the whole time.
I’m telling you this because the word “licensed” isn’t decoration, and because I know how badly a person can want a shortcut around the part that hurts.
Before I explain any of it, try something. Read the next sentence slowly, let the out-breath go, and notice what happens in your body as you read it. You don’t have to know what kind of help you need before you’re allowed to ask for it. Don’t argue with it and don’t agree with it. Just notice where it lands, chest, belly, the back of the neck, and whether something in you rushes in with a “yes, but which one?” Stay with that one more breath. That’s the place we’ll work from.
What’s really going on
If something in you jumped in with “but which one?”, that’s the part we’re looking for. The coach-or-therapist question is rarely about the two professions. It’s usually a protector deciding how much of you is allowed to be seen.
“Coach” can sound like “I’m grand, I just need a plan.” “Therapist” can sound like “something’s wrong with me.” Picture two coins in your pocket. One has abandonment on one side and rejection on the other. The second has “too much” on one side and “not enough” on the other. For a lot of people, booking a therapist feels like turning the second coin over in public. So the choice gets made by shame, not by need.
The plain difference, in my words: coaching is how we go from where you are now to where you want to go. We only address the past when it emerges in the present. In psychotherapy, we more freely mine the past. A licensed therapist is trained, and accountable where they practise, to assess and treat what’s underneath, including the things that are too much to carry on your own.
Your body keeps a record of everything that’s happened to you. Some of those entries got completed: someone held you, named it, helped the feeling move through. Others never did. They stay open, and they keep broadcasting into your present, which is what anxiety often is. The question isn’t “how bad is it?” It’s “how loud is the past right now?”
If you’ve got some ground under you and the old stuff speaks in a voice you can hear and work with, coaching can do a great deal. We don’t have to change the past to heal. A present moment can reach back and change what the past means. But if the broadcast is so loud you can’t stand on anything, you need ground first. In psychotherapy we ground people first and resource them first. A problem in the open ocean is unmanageable. Put the exact same problem in a teacup and you’re not going to drown.
Order matters. I learned that the hard way too. When I started as a couples therapist I thought I was exceptional. Then I noticed about 40% of my couples weren’t coming back after the first session. I asked a friend how many of his came back for a second. He looked at me, confused. Everyone comes back for a second session. That humbled me enough to learn. I’d been starting in the wrong place.
So if you’ve been stuck on this choice for months, you make sense. A protector part has been making the call, trying to keep the vulnerable one out of sight. It just isn’t the best judge of what you need.
Need to talk this through right now? Figlet is an AI coach that’s there at 2 in the morning, or right now. It runs this loop with you on the Self ground.
The loop, on your situation
I use a practice I learned from my teacher Aftab Omer, reflexive participation. In its simplest form it’s three questions: what am I noticing now, how am I affected, and what creative action is being called for? Here’s how it runs on not knowing what kind of help you need.
Get ground in your body first
Feet on the floor. Let one out-breath run longer than the in-breath. Let your eyes land on something steady in the room. You won’t make a good decision about help from a body that’s braced.
What happened
What made you open those tabs? Say it in the present tense. “I’m lying awake again, replaying the meeting.” “I’ve snapped at my partner three times this week.” Just the moment. Not the verdict on yourself.
Where it lands in the body
Notice whether it arrives as a nudge or a flood. A tug in the chest that passes is one kind of signal. Something that takes you over for days, that you can’t come back from, is another. The body is the first ledger. It knows how open the entry is before your mind does.
Who’s driving
Listen for the voice. “You’re not bad enough for therapy, people have real problems.” Or the opposite: “Just get a coach and fix it fast.” Omer called this kind of voice the Gatekeeper. I call these protector parts. Ask which one is answering the question for you, and what it’s afraid will happen if you pick the other door.
Trace it
As a child I was sent away to a farmhouse in East Galway so my mother could rest. Nobody asked how I was. When anyone asked anything, it was a presumptive close: “Aren’t you glad to be here, Fig?” There was no room for my truth. A child learns his real feelings are inconvenient. Decades later, that child is often the one deciding whether you’re “bad enough” to deserve real help. What did your family teach you about needing someone?
Feel it and tell someone
Feel it one breath longer than you’d like. Then say it to one person: “I think I need some help and I don’t know what kind.” You don’t need the answer to say that sentence. Being met by another steady nervous system is part of how you find the answer.
One creative action
Book one first conversation this week. Most licensed therapists offer a short consult. Ask them straight: “Is this something you’d treat, or would coaching fit better?” A good therapist will tell you honestly. A good coach will tell you when something is beyond them.
One thing to do tonight
Write two sentences. “What I want is…” and “What keeps happening is…” Then read the second one slowly and notice your body. If it’s mostly about where you’re going, that’s coaching shaped. If it’s old, loud and familiar, that’s worth a therapist. If it’s both, start with the therapist and add coaching later.
Would therapy help with this?
If you’re asking, it’s worth a conversation. And some things should go to a therapist first, not a coach, including the coaching I’ve built. If you’re having panic attacks, if old memories are flooding you, if you’re drinking to get through the day, if you can’t sleep or work, or if part of you has started thinking you’d be better off not here, please talk to a licensed therapist where you live. That isn’t failing at coaching. It’s putting the ground in first.
If you’re thinking about hurting yourself, call or text 988.
The path
What I’ve just walked you through is the Empathi Method. For an individual, it’s built on my Proof of Work of Being Human protocol: building sovereign ground inside yourself. It’s coaching, not therapy. It works in the present and lets the past in only when it shows up.
There are two ways to keep going. You can start Figlet Life Coaching tonight, on the Self ground, and it’ll run this loop with you on whatever has you stuck, and tell you plainly if it sounds like more than coaching can hold. Or you can get on the list for the book and the live program with me, where we do this work together over several weeks.
Figs O’SullivanFiglet Life Coaching
Get help now
Figlet is an AI coach, there at 2 in the morning or right now. It runs this loop with you on your actual situation, as often as you need. It’s coaching, not therapy. The list hears first about the book and the next live program with me.
Proof of Work, Greenleaf Book Group Press, February 2027. Not sure which ground is hurting? Take the two-minute Ground Check.
I go deeper into this in my book, Proof of Work (Greenleaf Book Group Press, February 2027).
Common questions
Is a life coach a therapist?
No. A life coach isn’t licensed to diagnose or treat, and in most places anyone can call themselves a coach. Some therapists also coach, but when they’re coaching they’re not treating you. Ask which hat they’re wearing.
What can a therapist do that a life coach can’t?
A licensed therapist can assess and treat mental health conditions, work with trauma, go further into the past, and respond when someone is in crisis. They’re accountable to a licensing board. A coach works forward, from where you are to where you want to go.
Can a therapist be a life coach?
Yes, and many are. The training helps them notice when something is bigger than coaching. Just be clear which one you’re getting.
Reflexive participation and the Gatekeeper come from the teaching of Aftab Omer at the Institute of Imaginal Studies, where I trained.
