Mindfulness

Q: What are the differences between psychotherapy, counselling, coaching and mindfulness-based personal growth?

A: Briefly, psychotherapy is appropriate when a person is experiencing severe mental or emotional difficulties in their life, which make it extremely problematic to cope with day-to-day living. It seeks to address the underlying causes of the person's difficulties. Psychotherapy is a deeper, longer-term process.

Although counselling can be similar to psychotherapy under some circumstances, counselling can be broadly described as any relationship in which one person helps another to reach a clearer understanding of a problem in order to work towards a solution. It tends to focus on more specific issues in the shorter term.

Coaching and mindfulness-based personal growth use skills involved in counselling - non-judgemental attitude, sensitive, empathic attention and support - and both aim to encourage and support a person in a non-directional manner to work towards growth and development, and to improve their quality of life. There is also a significant educational element in both approaches, involving learning, developing and putting into practice new skills, insights and understanding.

Coaching tends to be more structured, focused specifically on the present and future, strongly goal-oriented.

Mindfulness-based personal growth, on the other hand, is more gentle, rooted in the present while recognising the import of past experiences, open to whatever needs to be addressed, clearing and opening the way for a person to discover their own individual process of healing and growth, explore for themselves their needs and aims, work at their own pace towards self transformation. As the name indicates, the development and practice of mindfulness is fundamental to this approach.

Both approaches are of value in the process of personal development.

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