Coaching and Expanding the Reach of Your Counseling Practice

Coaching is distinctly different from Counseling, though the two share some skills and strategies. If you’ve contemplated offering coaching in addition to your Counseling practice, it is essential to understand the legal and ethical implications and to complete coach-specific training and gain experience in the field first.

Before offering both services, a professional must be properly trained to assess an individual’s needs and keep coaching services separate from their counseling work to protect clients, themselves, and their licensure. Lisa Marie Bobby, PhD, BCC, LMFT, is a Counselor, supervisor, coach, and coaching trainer who has taught Counselors and others to become coaches for more than a decade. She recently shared her thoughts with us about the benefits of coaching, the importance of dedicated training, and what Counselors need to know before adding these services to their scope of practice.

Dr. Bobby realized early in her Counseling career that many of her clients weren’t seeking mental health treatment, she says.

“They were coming to me for support with relationships, life transitions, career decisions, or simply wanting better outcomes in different areas of their lives,” she recalls. “They wanted to be a better parent, a better partner, or to improve their communication skills. I was using a typical counselor approach for asymptomatic clients—insight-oriented talk therapy blended with experiential interventions to help them grow, gain awareness, and inspire change.” Often, after several sessions, “they seemed frustrated, and I started to feel frustrated, too—because despite our good work, they weren’t getting what they really needed.”

She had other ethical concerns as well.

“Some clients wanted to use their insurance benefits, but I knew they weren’t experiencing clinical symptoms,” Dr. Bobby says. “This wasn’t treatment. It wasn’t medically necessary care. They were asking me to help them grow. And I realized that what I had been trained to do as a Counselor just wasn’t the right fit for these clients. What they needed—and what I wanted to provide—was something much more focused, strategic, and actionable. It was crystal clear to me: We weren’t doing health care. We were pursuing goals.”

She began to explore coach training programs and learned about the Board Certified Coach (BCC) credential offered by the Center for Credentialing & Education (CCE), an NBCC affiliate. Dr. Bobby explained that coaching training opens a world of structured methods and research-based modalities for helping clients to set goals for specific situations in their lives and chart actionable plans for achieving those goals. High-quality training to become a credentialed coach is rigorous, ethical, and grounded.

Dr. Bobby obtained the BCC in 2012, and in addition to working with coaching clients and continuing her work as a Counselor, she trained her team at Growing Self Counseling & Coaching. She then began to realize that there was a need for coach training programs geared toward Counselors and decided to develop one to meet that need.

“Counselors do need to do coaching differently,” she says. “We have different ethical responsibilities, different skills, and different questions to answer when we practice coaching. It became clear that it was time to make this kind of training available to all clinicians, not just those working at Growing Self.”

She soon created her Coaching Certification for Therapists program in partnership with CCE and became a BCC Registered Credential Training Provider.

“The stance of a coach is meaningfully different from that of a Counselor,” Dr. Bobby explains. “In my experience, many licensed clinicians need real support in making this shift. It [being a Counselor] affects how they relate to clients, how they conceptualize the work, how they assess for goodness of fit, and even how they communicate and plan sessions.”

For Counselors who decide to coach, it’s imperative to keep these services separate for several reasons.

Coaching is not licensed at a state level or regulated in the same way that Counseling is licensed and regulated. For this reason, Dr. Bobby explains that “Even when acting in the role of a coach, we are still bound by our professional responsibilities. That includes being mandated reporters, upholding our duty to warn, and honoring the limits of confidentiality—including making required disclosures when necessary.

“We must also continue to abide by our professional codes of ethics, including guidelines around dual relationships, boundaries, marketing, business practices, staying within our professional scope, and other core ethical standards,” she adds. “Being a Counselor who coaches means understanding and honoring the responsibilities of both roles—and knowing when to make the distinction clear for the protection of our clients and ourselves.” 

Counselors who offer coaching must conduct a thorough intake process and assessment to ensure they understand a potential client’s needs and that the services the client will receive—counseling or coaching, not both simultaneously from one provider—are clear to the person seeking help. 

“[As a coach] I begin with clear informed consent, which includes transparency about what I offer—coaching—and a clear explanation of how coaching differs from Counseling. If the client’s primary obstacles are related to skills, growth, or development, then coaching is likely appropriate, and we proceed. But if it becomes clear that untreated mental health symptoms are getting in the way, I refer the client to Counseling.”

She offers the following explanation to potential clients—and to Counselors and coaches, for that matter—to help explain the differences in the roles:

“For me, the distinction is clear. Psychotherapy is for the diagnosis and treatment of clinical mental health conditions. It’s a medically necessary, evidence-based intervention provided by a licensed mental health professional. The goal is to alleviate psychological symptoms, diagnose disorders, and restore healthy functioning—within a protected therapeutic relationship.

“Coaching, on the other hand, is not treatment. It’s a future-focused process, centered on growth and development,” she explains. “Coaching helps people identify values-based goals and the outcomes they want to achieve. . . . This work is rooted in self-discovery, skill-building, and intentional action. Coaches help clients understand their developmental needs, build new capabilities, and grow into the kind of person who can create and sustain their desired outcomes.”

Coaching may later be determined appropriate in a counseling client’s future, but again, it should not be given simultaneously by the same provider.

She emphasizes that because coaching is not a regulated profession like Counseling, “Even if a Counselor is serving a client as a coach, they are still a mandated reporter. They still have a duty to warn. There are still limits to confidentiality and required disclosures that Counselors need to make. It’s therefore extremely important that all Counselors who are offering coaching are crystal clear about their boundaries. They should also have practice policies, procedures, and paperwork that they follow and provide to clients. This ensures that any client presenting for coaching understands the limits of coaching. A Counselor who also offers coaching will redirect clients to psychotherapy if they determine that it would better meet their needs.”

Understanding when to make a referral—be it for counseling or coaching—is also crucial.

Because people seek coaching for a variety of reasons—careers, relationships, parenting, and health, to name a few—all coaches aren’t always beneficial to all clients, she says.

“Each area requires specific training and expertise to deliver effectively and ethically,” Dr. Bobby says, adding that “Ultimately, the most client-centered thing a Counselor can do is recognize what their client needs next—and make a thoughtful, well-informed referral to the right professional who can take the baton and support the client through the next chapter of their development.”

She recommends that Counselors interested in coaching consider earning the BCC, within which there are specialty designations available for health and wellness; career coaching; personal/life coaching; and coaching for executives, businesses, and leadership.

“The BCC credential has been a career-changing asset for me, and it’s been a privilege to help other Counselors experience that same transformation. It opens up new possibilities for practice, for impact, and for joy.”

Dr. Bobby explained that for Counselors who are searching for ways to diversify their practice, coaching offers an opportunity to provide additional services that help them “feel more effective, more fulfilled, and your clients will experience more value from your work together.”

Learn more about the BCC including eligibility requirements and how to apply here. More information about becoming a CCE Registered Credential Training Provider can be found here.

Lisa Marie Bobby, PhD, BCC, LMFT, is a Clinical Psychologist, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Board Certified Coach, and founder of Growing Self Counseling & Coaching. An AAMFT Approved Supervisor and host of the Love, Happiness, and Success for Therapists podcast, she is a nationally recognized leader in integrating therapy with evidence-based coaching. Dr. Bobby is the founder of the NBCC-accredited Coaching Certification for Therapists program (ACEP No. 7405), created exclusively for therapists seeking to incorporate coaching ethically and with excellence, and has spent over a decade training clinicians to expand their impact, prevent burnout, and lead meaningful change through evidence-based coaching psychology.

**Opinions and thoughts expressed in NBCC Visions Newsletter articles belong to the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or practices of NBCC and Affiliates.