Coaching? Counseling? Debriefing? Which Is The Best Fit for Me?
Photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash
I’m starting to be confused. There are so many different services out there that I can’t figure out what I really want or need.
Counseling, Debriefing, Coaching, Personalized Care . . .
How do I begin to sort through them? Sometimes, it even seems like they overlap.
Isn’t debriefing a part of counseling? Isn’t coaching a part of Personalized Care?
I know I want to grow and develop, but I don’t know what kind of help I need.
Help!
Is this you? You’re not alone. Let’s see if we can sort this out.
Types of Services
Let’s look at the different types of services and try to understand what each entails, as well as some of their similarities and differences.
1. Counseling
Counseling is a professional relationship designed to help you address the challenges and wounds of life. It’s about providing a safe, non-judgmental space with someone who is not only understanding and empathetic, but also able to assess what is going on and help you navigate it.
Counselors are uniquely suited to help clients whose struggles are connected to distressing thoughts and behaviors, anxiety, depression, trauma, behavioral addictions, and longer-term or deeply emotional marriage concerns.
Counseling often involves looking back in order to gain hope and freedom to move forward.
Counseling can be done as an individual, a couple, or a family.
Our counselors are trained, licensed professionals.
Counseling often takes place on a weekly or biweekly basis over the course of two or more months. See Beyond offers counseling on site as we travel North Africa, online, and in personalized retreat formats, where you can join us in a location and meet twice a day.
Meknes, Morocco
2. Debriefing
Debriefing is often about untangling our messy stories and trying to make sense of them. Sometimes the stories of our lives get knotted, and we need someone to help us untie and process them. Sometimes we simply need someone to listen—someone to listen to our story, someone to listen to our heart. Or perhaps we want someone to hear about something exciting that happened to us and celebrate with us!
Some types of debriefing include trauma, event, personal, or transitional. These are places on life’s journey where our threads can easily get messy and tangled. Other types of debriefing include helping Third-Culture Kids (TCKs) understand their unique stories. Some people like to do annual surveys of their entire year. This helps them to discover where they have been, where they are, and where they are going.
Debriefing involves looking back in order to process one’s story and be in a healthier place. It helps us to better understand the state of our soul today. In turn, this can help us to move forward well.
“Wait a minute,” you might be thinking, “doesn’t that sound a bit like counseling? Looking back in order to gain hope to move forward? So, what’s the difference?”
The difference with counseling is that debriefing involves a lot of storytelling and a lot of listening. Yes, counselors listen too, but they are also able to assess what is going on, provide counsel, advice, and tools needed to bring healing or growth.
On the other hand, the debriefer is not in a role to advise and counsel. Rather, they are there to listen and to help the person tell and process their story well—to help them get untangled.
The person who is being debriefed tells their story, while the trained and certified debriefer listens. Sometimes, that’s all they do . . . listen. Other times, they ask questions to help the person gain new awareness as to what happened, to bring some clarity and sense to the confusion and messiness of the story. Debriefing also brings people to a place in their story where they can find lessons learned, areas of growth, healing, and closure to better move forward.
Debriefing can be done as an individual, a couple, a family, or a team.
Our See Beyond debriefers are trained and certified in debriefing. They are not licensed professional counselors, although counselors may also conduct debriefings.
Debriefing usually takes place over a short period of time, with a minimum of 1.5 hours. It can also take place over the course of a week or two, with short sessions of a few hours each, depending on the topic and length of time to be debriefed.
3. Coaching
Coaching is all about helping us get unstuck.
Wait a minute, you might be thinking, “Isn’t debriefing about helping us get unstuck and untangled?”
Yes, that’s right. However, debriefing is about looking back on our past life story so that we can get unstuck and better understand the state of our soul today. This helps to position us to move forward in a healthier way. Coaching is all about getting unstuck where we are today in order to move forward in goals and other areas of growth.
Different types of coaching include transitional, cross-cultural adjustment, parenting, marriage, leadership, life, or work.
Whether you want to grow as a leader, become a better parent, wrestle with educational issues for your children, adapt to cross-cultural life, get along better with your team, or hundreds of other options, coaching can help you move forward in your thinking, plans, and next steps.
Our coaches are certified in coaching with the International Coach Federation. Coaches may have some counseling or debriefing training and experience. However, this is not required.
Coaching can be done with individuals, couples, families, or teams.
Coaching can take place in one session, but ideally it takes place over the course of several months in biweekly sessions.
To better under what coaching looks like, here is a short coaching session you can watch.
“Coaching is all about getting unstuck where we are today in order to move forward in goals and other areas of growth.”
4. Personalized Care
Personalized Care is an ongoing, intentional relationship that is designed to help you stay healthy and “Do Better, Stay Longer.” Life is hard, especially in some of the places we call “home” in North Africa.
Personalized Care is like having someone walk with you through the desert of life, holding a cup of water for you to drink. It’s like having a friend hold a candle in the dark, lonely night.
Personalized Care is “personal,” so it is designed for each individual, depending on what season of life in which they might find themselves. Personalized Care may include debriefing, coaching, spiritual direction, mentoring, or a blend of all of these. Once again, it’s “personal,” so you get to choose what you want and need when you want it.
Personalized Care is usually done on an individual basis, but it can also be done as a couple or as a team.
Personalized Care Providers are trained in debriefing and one other skill (for example, coaching or spiritual direction).
Personalized Care is a long-term commitment of at least one year, with connections biweekly, monthly, or spread out every few months.
Let’s Go!
I hope these different services are clearer to you now. Understanding the uniqueness, the similarities, and the differences of each of See Beyond’s services helps you to better know your next steps.
Based on this new awareness, an evaluation of your current needs, and where you are in this season of life . . .
Do you need . . . .
We are now offering all of these services for Third Culture Kids (TCKs) too.