Clients in Canada Are Coming to Therapy But They Want Coaching

Exploring Solutions: Bridging the Gap Between Client Expectations and Therapy with Coaching.

Before you throw this idea completely out the window think about it for a moment. The consults or the intakes you have where potential clients are coming in with things like:

“I have an interview in 2 days so I need help to get my anxiety under control.”

“I’m noticing my boyfriend is going out all the time without me. I want to bring it up to him, what should I say?”

“My daughter is going to university this year and I’m worried about how she’s going to handle her anxiety. How can I help her?”

“I’m stressed at work and my boss is a nightmare. Do you think I should go on stress leave or look for another job? Can you help me figure that out?

Can therapists help with these issues?

Ultimately, yes.

Do these clients want to address the deep underlying wounding stopping them from moving forward which is what therapeutic healing is all about? It doesn’t sound like it.

Even more importantly, is that when therapists attempt to address the underlying root causes that are connected to these topics with clients, clients become annoyed. They check out of the process after maybe 1, 2, or 3 sessions. They therapist hop (if they’re issue isn’t perceived to be time sensitive), or they go to AI tools to give them advice or guidance. Because they actually want coaching, advice, and guidance about what to DO in the situation.

A woman in a cozy, sunlit lounge gazes thoughtfully out of large windows while holding an open book, embracing a moment of peaceful reflection.

As therapists we are trained, not to give advice. For good reason. We don’t ever get to know clients well enough to know everything about them making any advice we could offer a hybrid of our filtered knowledge, and the little we think we know about our client. Not to mention the threat of liability inherent in those limitations, or the lack of personal responsibility it frees clients from, “my therapist told me to do that.”

But often that’s exactly the criticism of why therapy isn’t helpful for certain types of clients.

“I’ve had 4 different therapists and all they wanted to do was talk about the problem, they didn’t ever give me ideas of what to do.” Or “I took this to therapy before, but the therapist just wanted me to read their book and fill out these worksheets all the time.”

Clients are not seeing the rationale behind therapeutic approaches because they want practical applicable solutions to their challenges. They are after guidance for how to live their lives, not deep healing for their emotional wounds.

In Canada, our healthcare, often the source of significant debate and malcontent in our country, while envied and also criticized by other countries, can be part of the solution as much as it is a contributor to the problem.

People want guidance, they want someone to coach them on how to navigate their lives, but coaching, for the most part, is not considered a health need, and therefore, not covered by healthcare benefits, but therapy is.

Therapy in Canada can be easily accessed as part of by most health benefit providers, but not coaching. And there are many avenues outside of workplace benefits where people can access therapy in Canada to support them. There are low fee or no fee therapy search engines, organizations or programs, hospital therapy programs that can be accessed through doctor referrals, health benefits provided by companies who offer Employee Assistance Programs which covers a certain number of sessions with a therapist from a specific therapy practice, or they have a healthcare plan that covers a certain dollar amount that the client can to put towards therapy with a therapist of their choice.

Yes, this system is still flawed. For example, the system doesn’t support what actual therapy is supposed to do, psychological healing. Instead, the system supports the idea of accessing coaching or guidance, due to it’s financial limitations. Therapists know that healing can’t be reached in 5-10 sessions, but that’s usually how far the financial support will take a client in a year. So, clients will go to a therapist with challenges that they need more immediate help with, knowing their time with the therapist is limited. Why would they even begin to open up to healing, when their time runs out right about when they begin to get somewhere more vulnerable?

A thoughtful conversation unfolds as two individuals engage in a meaningful discussion, their body language reflecting openness and attentiveness.

The point is this. Clients are frustrated that they try so hard to get the help that they want but end up feeling like it’s too much work to find the right person through “therapy”. Therapists are frustrated because clients are coming to them wanting solutions or to vent, but don’t want to do the interventions that could provide deep healing that clients could benefit from. And no one is talking about the disconnect between these dichotomous expectations which are causing significant identity crises for therapists in our field, because no one else seems to realize what therapists are actually doing, including therapists.

Working with new therapists, is an eye opener as a long term experienced therapist. What it has opened my eyes to is that new therapy grads, have no idea how to do therapy. They do however, have some great coaching tools. New therapists tend to feel unprepared to help clients, because they are looking to “fix” the client’s problem in a specific amount of time, and they are hearing clients share the same expectation of the therapy process. This leads the new therapists to focus on seeking more training, more skills to address their sense of inadequacy.

Now as supervisors, we encourage therapists to research the various approaches before jumping into trainings. We guide them to become competent and comfortable with their foundational skills, because that is the way to begin a therapy process. Therapy processes are designed to help a client heal their psyche, their heart, and their spirit, so that they experience a greater quality of life, become the best version of themselves.

However, when the clients they initially work with are not coming for healing, but instead coming for solution, the confusion for the therapist about what they are supposed to do starts to become confusing.

Their supervisor says one thing, they’ve heard what therapy is supposed to be, but there’s a human in front of them who is asking for help, so the new therapist finds a way to give the help inevitably trying to give advice, guidance, or coaching, but without having been trained how to do any of those things, other than reflecting, validating, holding space, mixed with some CBT reframing, exploration of thoughts, with a bit of mindfulness for emotion regulation thrown in. The client leaves the session unsatisfied by the solutions offered, the therapist leaves feeling like they didn’t do enough, and didn’t know how to do more to help the client.

What would happen if we taught therapists to really listen to what a client is stating they want from their experience? I mean really listen, the way we teach them to listen for the problems, or the risks during intake. Teach them to assess where a client is at with respect to their therapeutic journey so the therapist knows exactly what to do to provide options for the client to choose how to get what they believe they want.

What would happen if we taught therapists the ways that people interact with their process of accessing help through readiness the way that coaches do? What would happen if we included coaching frameworks as natural parts of the therapeutic journey? How much more heard, and seen would clients be? How much more effective, competent, and confident would therapists become? And how much more proactive could mental health be, rather than remedial?

We have an opportunity to significantly improve the experience of therapy in Canada and the the field of mental health overall, by exploring the way we are integrating our frameworks of care. We are already integrating modalities & tech, but there is more integration that’s already taken place that we haven’t even acknowledged. Now it’s time for our field to acknowledge that change. To truly meet clients where they are at.

As therapists we get to evolve what it means to facilitate the therapeutic journey. We now need to apply intentional awareness to our role as guides, as leaders, helping people find their way on their path.

My contribution to this evolution is through the Coaching Integrated Therapy Framework. How will you make your contribution?

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Therapy, Supervision, Mentorship & Training for those who want to bridge inner wisdom with modern psychotherapy.