Between coaching and social counselling

Abstract

Coaching appears to be another modern counselling approach, practiced initially in the business world. It can to be analyzed through a comparison with social counselling. The roots of coaching go back to Ancient Greece.. Plato used to propagate the art of aksing questions by recording the Socratic dialogue. Today coaching is in substance related to mentoring, tutoring and coaching in sport. The core of the activity - according to different coaching definitions - is discovering the hidden potential of an individual or organization.. The basic difference between coaching and social counselling lies in a different interpretation of the client' starting situation. Social counselling understands the client' starting situation as problematic and attempts to normalize it, while coaching understands it as normal and attempts to develop it. The key similarity of the two approaches is encour- agement of the clients' own initiative. Coaching needs to be investigated within the field of developmental conceptions, since its focus on results supports, unintentionally, the dominant developmental paradigm. Focusing on solutions in coaching is questionable also within an organization, where its interests may channel the course of clients' search for their own solutions. The counselling doctrine of coaching can gain valuable insights by a reassessment of the concepts of development and normality, a domain in which it is likely to encounter social counselling.