You bet! While both coaching and psychotherapy have a lot to offer, physician coaching is very different from psychotherapy. Psychotherapy looks at the past and the “why” of behavior. Psychological issues and emotions may come up in coaching, but physician coaching is less about the “why” and more about the simple reality of who you are today and about what is getting in the way of you living the full and satisfying work and personal life you deserve. Coaching requires motivation to change; it is often said that psychotherapy is for people who need to change while coaching is for people who want to change.
Coaching also involves a lot of laughter and playfulness, two things most physicians experience a shortage of in their professional and personal lives.
One thing that is the same is 100% confidentiality. In coaching, that is sacred.
In addition, coaching is all about moving forward and achieving results. The pace of change is much faster than in psychotherapy. Everyone has heard about people being in therapy for years and never changing. With coaching, you will find yourself growing and changing within the first few sessions. Both coaching and psychotherapy can be helpful but, if you are ready to make changes in your life, you will get results MUCH more rapidly with coaching. A few months of coaching can jump-start a refreshing new lease on life. That could take years of therapy.