Torie Wiksell: 0:14
Welcome to You're Not Crazy, a podcast for the adult children of parents with borderline and narcissistic personality disorders. I'm your host, Torie Wiksell, a therapist and coach with over a decade of experience in the mental health field. Now let's jump in. Hi guys. Welcome back to the podcast. So this week we're going to talk about the difference between therapy and coaching. So, as many of you out there know, I am both a therapist and a coach, so I've been a therapist for 11 and a half years now, which is so surprising because I still feel so young, but it's true, I have been a therapist for quite a while and I opened up my coaching business in the beginning of 2024. So coaching has been a much newer endeavor for me, and I'll tell you a bit about why that is and what the difference is between coaching and therapy today.
Torie Wiksell: 1:21
I hated the coaching industry, just in full transparency. I have hated the coaching industry for a very, very long time. Since COVID, let's say, the coaching industry has boomed. There have been so many people on social media online just claiming to be coaches and at first I was like, what the heck is that? This is just so weird, and a lot of these people online who call themselves coaches, I think, are super problematic people for so many reasons, one of which being that they do not have the education and training and experience to do therapy, but they are absolutely doing therapy and calling it coaching, and so I have been very anti-coaching for a very long time, and to say that I get triggered when I see people online who are bragging about how they, you know, are making a million dollars and doing coaching, and then to see the misinformation and horrible, harmful advice that they're spreading just makes me cringe. But, alas, how did I become a coach in addition to being a therapist? So I was very, very anti-coaching for a very, very long time. It left a bad taste in my mouth. I really hated it and, at the same time, I was doing therapy. I opened my practice in 2018.
Torie Wiksell: 3:07
And throughout these past several years, probably the last three to five years, I have honed in on my specialty, which is working with adults who grew up with a parent with either borderline and/or narcissistic personality disorder. If you listen to some of my earlier episodes, I talk a bit more about getting into that area as my niche and specialty and my own personal experience growing up with a parent with borderline personality disorder and a lot of narcissistic traits. But, in a nutshell, in the past few years, I've worked primarily with adults who are struggling with a parent that has a personality disorder, and so I have a very unique niche. There are not a ton of us out there. In fact, I very rarely encounter other therapists who have this specialty, and even fewer that, you know, had a similar road to getting to the specialty as I have, and so it's a very, very specific, very, very small niche that I have.
Torie Wiksell: 4:21
And so what would happen is I would get a lot of emails over the past several years into my therapy practice from people who are located internationally or in a state that I'm not licensed in, and they would be reaching out because they had struggled to find a therapist, they had struggled to find someone who really understood the dynamic with their parent, and they wanted either therapy or they wanted advice or consulting or, you know, just to bounce some ideas off of me or to chat with me a little bit more so they could better understand their situation. And unfortunately, for so long, I would email these people back and try to make that email as helpful as possible, but in a nutshell, I would say unfortunately, I'm not licensed to provide therapy in this place. This is how I suggest you go about looking for a therapist that can help you, and so it would like break my heart when I would do that, because I know how hard it is to find a therapist who really gets this family dynamic and who isn't pressuring you to, you know, have a relationship or go no contact or minimizing the abuse that you've experienced, but really just understands the complexities and gets what it's like to try to set boundaries and for them to not be respected and to try to process all of these really confusing and complicated dynamics from growing up. And so it would just kill me every time I had to turn someone away and just say, nope, sorry, can't really help. So I, over the last several years, have been trying to figure out how can I put out information and resources to help people, even if I can't do therapy with them, right? So of course, therapy is therapy.
Torie Wiksell: 6:31
Therapy is different from online courses or workbooks or a podcast. This isn't therapy, but this is still hopefully helpful and through the podcast, I can provide information. Through online courses, I can provide information, and that doesn't have to be limited to people that are located within the states that I'm licensed in, that can just be available out there for anyone who's interested in learning more about this really specific area. And so, you know, I was brainstorming what type of courses can I do? Podcasting, what would be really helpful for me to do there? How would that look? And I thought, what type of like consulting work could I do with people to just help them get this information that they need, get a little bit encouragement, validation that they're not insane, that this is a very confusing and complicated dynamic, and, just, you know, provide some genuine, honest feedback that helps them feel like, okay, I'm not the only one out there who has this experience.
Torie Wiksell: 7:52
And so, begrudgingly, I decided that my best option was to open up a coaching business. So I decided to launch my coaching company, which is called Confident Boundaries. In I think it was February of this year, so February 2024, I launched my coaching business, Confident Boundaries. I launched my coaching business, Confident Boundaries, and that's where I do coaching and that's where I'm currently putting out an online course and I have guides and resources and blogs and that's the company I use to self-produce this podcast as well. So Confident Boundaries is kind of the umbrella company for everything that I do. That's not therapy.
Torie Wiksell: 8:39
So I know that that was a really long story about how I got into coaching, but let's talk now about what the difference is, right, between coaching and therapy, because it's not the same, and my work with my coaching clients is not the same as my work with my therapy clients, and so I really wanted to be mindful, if I was going to open up this coaching business, that I wasn't going to be like these people I saw that were just putting out this blanket advice and calling themselves a coach even though it wasn't coaching. It was kind of like the Tony Robbins of it all. So one thing that separates me from some of these other coaches is that I'm a trained therapist, and so I really do understand what therapy is, right, and what it isn't, and so when I talk to people about coaching, one word that I use that tends to resonate and make a lot more sense to people is consulting, and that's really, in a nutshell, what my coaching business is. So with therapy, I typically work with my therapy clients for like, honestly, years—not all of them. Sometimes I work with people for a shorter term like six months or so, but typically I work with therapy clients for several years and, honestly, like I have some clients that I work with weekly for a few years, then we'll go down and meet every other week or once a month and then, if something happens, we'll meet a little more often. When things are going well, we'll check in every couple months, and so therapy can really ebb and flow in that way. But with coaching, it's typically much shorter term and it's very goal-specific.
Torie Wiksell: 10:34
So in therapy we're processing, you know, growing up in your family, the trauma that you've experienced, how that impacts your mental health and your relationships now, just all of the complexities of being a human and what that means for you today and how you can use that information to help yourself have more compassion for yourself, better understand why you handle situations the way that you do, and develop healthier ways of handling situations, moving forward and just getting through life and your relationships in the healthiest way possible. So that's all therapy. So again, I'm going to say coaching is very much like consulting, at least how I approach it. So coaching is very in the moment. What is going on right here and right now? I just want a snapshot version of what your relationship has been like in the past with your parent to better understand what's going on right now. But it's very future-focused, very goal-directed, and we're not going into all the trauma and stuff.
Torie Wiksell: 11:49
But what we are talking about is very specific things like how to set a boundary with your parent, how to go no contact with your parent, how to address adequately address concerns around safety with your parent. You know, when you're thinking about going no contact or setting a boundary, if you're concerned that your parent might threaten to harm themselves or they might have this very volatile or threatening response, how you can plan for that so that you can move forward in setting boundaries or going no contact in a way that is safer for you and addresses the concerns that you have around their own safety as well. So, coaching/consulting is very specific to dealing with what is happening right now, in this moment, how can we make a plan to get you where you want to go and how can we be as action-oriented as possible. So with therapy, you don't have to be in this stage, right where you're knowing what you want to do, like you might not even know. Do I want to set a boundary with my parent, do I not? Do I need to go no contact? I don't know. All of that is fine in therapy. Part of therapy can be really talking through and processing all of that.
Torie Wiksell: 13:10
In coaching, it's best if you come to me and have a very clear idea of how I can help you. I am coming to coaching because I have tried to set boundaries. That has not worked in the past. I want to go no contact. I don't know how to do that. I'm really concerned about these issues in the dynamic between myself and my parent and I just really need to talk it through with someone else. Or maybe even I've gone no contact with my parent and I need to talk to someone else who understands why and what that's like and how isolating it could be. So I don't feel as crazy as I sometimes do when I talk to other people. And so coaching is so specific to what's going on here and now.
Torie Wiksell: 14:00
And with coaching, I typically meet with people, you know, very short term. I have coaching clients who I literally meet with one time and we're able to accomplish a very specific thing in that hour. I would say for most coaching clients, I meet with them a handful of times, so maybe over the course of, you know, one to four months. We meet every other week or once a week. It just kind of depends on what's going on. I might meet with someone once a month for like three months, or, you know, weekly for a month or two while we work through some very specific boundary setting or plans to go no contact, and then we might space it out to every other week or once a month, and then typically by like four to six months, we're not meeting anymore because we've accomplished what you came to coaching to accomplish. So that's the difference between coaching and therapy and I hope that that helps answer some of the questions that you may have about what's right for you. I think that it really just depends on where you are and what you're hoping to achieve. It's not necessarily an either/or situation, right? Like I have coaching clients who have a therapist and they come to me for, again, like a consulting thing, one or two times or a handful of times and then they continue with their therapist. So hopefully that helps explain the value in both the differences between therapy and coaching and helps you better understand why at this point in my career, I've decided to branch out and do both coaching and therapy.
Torie Wiksell: 15:50
So, before we wrap up today, I've got a few quick notes for you. On my website, ConfidentBoundaries.com, you can find all the information about my coaching business, about the Boundaries Roadmap online course that I will hopefully be putting out this week. This course is a much more in-depth and expanded upon version of my Complete Guide to Setting Boundaries with a parent with borderline and/or narcissistic personality disorder. So there are video modules, there is an expanded upon workbook, there's just way more information in there and it really is a step-by-step guide for you of how to set boundaries. My goal with this online course is for you to learn the exact skills that you need to use in order to effectively set boundaries with a parent with BPD or narcissistic personality disorder, and in the course I go through and I tell you what you need to do, in which order and why, and I problem-solve through different situations, like when your parents push back, and I also talk about what situations should you start thinking about no contact?
Torie Wiksell: 17:13
Not because I think anyone needs to go no contact, but because I think it's really important for you to understand that you always have a choice, right? Like you. Having a relationship through boundaries is a choice. You, going no contact is a choice. I want you to make the choices for yourself and your life that feel good to you, and the only way that you can do that is if you really have an idea of why you're choosing what you're choosing and if you're being reality-based with whether or not you're trying to have a relationship with your parent that they're actually capable of having with you. Right, your parent is never going to be this emotionally intelligent, supportive person, but that doesn't mean that they're not capable of having any relationship with you, and so check out the online course.
Torie Wiksell: 18:14
Hopefully, it will be up in the next day or so. Actually, hopefully it'll be up when you listen to this podcast. But you can find all that at ConfidentBoundaries.com. Thanks so much for joining me for another week of You're Not Crazy. If you like the podcast, please make sure to rate us five stars and leave a review. It helps so much. Five stars and leave a review, it helps so much. And make sure to check the show notes for discounts and updates of what's going on in my world. Okay, I'll see you next week.
