What Coaching Is
A coach walks beside a person while they change their life. The coach doesn’t carry them, doesn’t fix them, and doesn’t tell them who to be. The coach listens deeply, asks questions that help the person see clearly, helps them decide what they want and plan how to get there, and stays with them while they do it.
The word coach first meant a carriage: something that carries a person from where they are to where they want to go. In a coaching relationship, the client is the one who travels. The coach makes the journey possible.
Part II of this book taught the five levels of the soul. Part IV teaches how to walk with another person through all five. This is holistic life coaching: coaching that sees the whole person, body, heart, mind, purpose and spirit, and helps them heal and grow at every level.
Dr. Michael Arloski and Wellness Coaching
Much of what follows draws on the work of Dr. Michael Arloski, who is often called the father of wellness coaching. He is a licensed psychologist who has worked in the wellness field since 1979. He founded Real Balance Global Wellness Services, which has trained thousands of health and wellness coaches. He helped shape the field’s professional standards and holds both the International Coaching Federation’s PCC credential and the National Board certification for health and wellness coaches. His books Wellness Coaching for Lasting Lifestyle Change and Masterful Health & Wellness Coaching are among the most widely used texts in the field.
Dr. Arloski noticed a simple, painful fact. Almost everyone already knows what they “should” do for their health: eat better, move more, sleep, stop smoking, manage stress. Most people don’t do it, and of those who start, most fall back within months. Information is not the problem. Telling people what to do, the “expert” approach, rarely leads to lasting change. What helps is a relationship in which the person discovers their own reasons to change, chooses their own goals, builds their own plan, and has someone to be accountable to while new habits take root.
His key teachings are:
- The client is the expert on their own life. The coach is an expert in the process of change, not in what the client should want.
- Coaching is a partnership of equals, built on trust, respect and confidentiality within agreed limits.
- Start with a vision, not a problem: what does the client want their life and health to look like, and why does it matter?
- Turn the vision into a plan: a few goals, and small, specific action steps the client chooses.
- Accountability turns intentions into habits: the client reports back on what they did and what they learned.
- Lasting change happens in stages and takes time. Relapse is part of learning, not failure.
- Whole-person wellness: health includes body, mind, emotions, relationships, work, environment and spirit.
Coaching Is Not Therapy
Coaching and therapy both involve two people talking about a person’s life, so people confuse them. They are different professions with different purposes and different laws.
| Coaching | Psychotherapy or counseling | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it’s for | People who are functioning in daily life and want to grow, change or reach goals | People whose mental health or emotional pain is making it hard to function, or who have a mental health condition |
| Focus | The present and the future: what do you want, and how will you get there? | Often the past and present: healing wounds, treating symptoms and disorders |
| Method | Questions, reflection, planning, accountability, education | Assessment and diagnosis, treatment plans, clinical therapies |
| Who leads | The client sets the agenda | The clinician assesses and treats |
| Law | Unlicensed in the United States; anyone may call themselves a coach | Licensed by each state; using the title or practicing without a license is a crime |
Dr. Arloski is clear that emotions are welcome in coaching. People cry in coaching sessions. They talk about anger, fear, grief and disappointment, because change touches all of those. A coach who backs away the moment a client’s voice cracks, he says, undermines the very change the client came for. The line is not emotion. The line is impairment and treatment: when a person’s emotional state keeps them from functioning, or when they need a mental health condition diagnosed or treated, or when they want to work through past trauma, they need a licensed professional. Coaching can continue alongside that care, focused on the present and the future, if the client and their clinician both want it.
The Titles You Don’t Use
Every state protects certain professional titles by law. In every state, only a licensed psychologist may use the title “psychologist.” Most states also protect titles such as “licensed professional counselor,” “mental health counselor,” “marriage and family therapist,” “clinical social worker” and “psychotherapist,” and many protect “therapist” and “counselor” on their own. Using them without a license can bring fines or criminal charges, even if no harm is done.
So a holistic life coach never uses these words to describe themselves or their work:
- therapist, psychotherapist, therapy
- counselor, counseling
- psychologist, psychological treatment
- social worker
- treatment, diagnosis, patient (in mental and emotional matters)
Instead you are a coach, you offer coaching sessions, and you work with clients. You talk about goals, growth, stress, wellness, habits, support and accountability. This is not a matter of clever wording. It is an honest description of what a coach does. Introduction to Arukah teaches the full set of words and conduct for one-on-one work, drawn from Dr. Lawrence Wilson’s Legal Guidelines.
Coaching Among the Helping Roles
Other helping roles overlap with coaching. A good coach knows the difference and moves between them openly.
- Teaching gives information: here is how stress affects the thyroid. A holistic coach teaches often, but asks permission first (“Would it help if I shared what I know about that?”) and then hands the conversation back.
- Consulting gives expert answers: here is what you should do. Coaches rarely do this.
- Mentoring shares the mentor’s own path: here is what worked for me. Useful in small doses, but a coach’s path is not the client’s.
- Coaching draws out the client’s own answers, choices and commitment.
Ancient wisdom said it well: “The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out” (Proverbs 20:5). The coach draws out; the client decides.
What a Holistic Life Coach Does
A holistic life coach:
- listens deeply and asks powerful questions (Chapter 12);
- helps clients form a wellness vision, set goals and take action, and holds them accountable (Chapter 13);
- teaches what they know about the body, nutrition, detoxification, herbs and stress when the client wants to learn, and points clients to good resources, including Arukah’s free books;
- helps clients notice stress, emotions, beliefs and habits, and practice new ones (Chapters 5 and 6);
- helps clients discover their purpose and their sources of connection and meaning (Chapters 7 and 8);
- works in a trauma-informed way, responds to a crisis, and refers clients to licensed professionals when they need them (Chapter 14);
- sees the whole person and coaches across all five levels of the soul (Chapter 15).
A holistic coach does not diagnose physical or mental illness, prescribe medication, tell a client to stop a drug, treat trauma, or order and interpret lab tests. A coach can teach clients how to order their own lab tests from a consumer lab and how to read their own results, and help them prepare questions for their doctor.
The Coaching Agreement
Every coaching relationship begins with a written agreement. It protects the client and the coach, and it sets the relationship on honest ground. A good agreement covers:
- What coaching is and is not: coaching is education and support for the client’s own goals; it is not medical care, psychotherapy or counseling, and it is not a substitute for them.
- Who decides: the client makes all decisions about their own health and life.
- Logistics: number, length and frequency of sessions; fees; how to reschedule.
- Confidentiality and its limits: the coach keeps the client’s information private, except when there is a risk of serious harm to the client or someone else, when the law requires a report (for example suspected abuse of a child, or of an elderly or disabled person), or when a court orders records. Coaching conversations are not legally privileged the way conversations with a lawyer or a licensed therapist are. The coach never promises absolute confidentiality.
- Referral: if the coach believes the client needs medical or mental health care, the coach will say so and help the client find it.
- Ending: either person may end the coaching relationship at any time.
Introduction to Arukah teaches the full intake and disclosure forms.
The Shape of a Session
Most coaching sessions last 45 to 60 minutes and follow a simple shape:
- Arrive and connect. A warm greeting; a moment to settle.
- Review. “What happened with the steps you chose last time? What did you learn?” Celebrate every success, however small.
- Set the focus. “What would you like to work on today? What would make this session worth your time?”
- Explore. Listen, reflect and ask questions until the client sees the situation more clearly.
- Choose actions. “What will you do this week? How sure are you, from 1 to 10, that you’ll do it?”
- Plan accountability. “How will I know? How will you track it?”
- Close. “What are you taking away from today?”
The client talks most of the time. A good rule is that the coach speaks less than a third of the session.
Credentials and Growth
Coaching is not licensed by any state in the United States. Several respected bodies offer voluntary credentials: the International Coaching Federation (ICF) awards the ACC, PCC and MCC credentials, and the National Board for Health & Wellness Coaching (NBHWC) offers the National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC) credential to graduates of approved programs who pass its exam. The Arukah certification is Arukah’s own private credential. Describe it in full, “Arukah Certified Holistic Life Coach,” so no one mistakes it for a state license.
Above all, a coach keeps growing: by being coached, by practicing, and by reading. Dr. Arloski’s two books, Dr. Maté’s When the Body Says No, Dr. van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score and Dr. Dispenza’s books are a good start.