Coaching for depression offers a distinctive approach to supporting individuals experiencing low mood and related challenges. While traditional therapies often focus on understanding and resolving underlying issues and reducing negative affect, coaching tends to adopt a solution-focused and future-oriented perspective, aiming to increase positive affect and help clients build a better life. This report will explore the advantages and benefits of coaching for depression, discuss how coaches can integrate unique tools like the Havening Technique, and provide a comparison with the traditional Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) approach by examining how each addresses common difficulties associated with depression.
Advantages and Benefits of Coaching for Depression
Coaching for depression can offer several key advantages:
- Focus on Strengths and Resources: Unlike traditional approaches that may extensively explore negative emotions and pathology, coaching, particularly solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT), actively seeks to identify and amplify clients’ existing strengths, resources, and past successes. By asking questions such as “How did you manage to do that?” or “What’s right with you?”, coaches help individuals recognise their competence and build confidence.
- Goal-Oriented Approach: Coaching is inherently goal-directed, assisting clients in developing a vision of a better future and working towards specific, positive outcomes. This can be particularly beneficial for individuals with depression who may feel a lack of direction or purpose. Coaches help clients define well-defined goals, often phrased positively and in the present tense, focusing on what they want to achieve rather than what they want to avoid. Questions like “How will you feel when your best hopes are met?” and “What would you like to have instead of the problem?” encourage this forward-thinking.
- Empowerment and Agency: Coaching emphasises the client’s autonomy and their ability to create change. The coach acts as a facilitator, asking questions to elicit the client’s expertise and knowledge rather than providing direct advice. This collaborative approach can counter feelings of helplessness often associated with depression.
- Increasing Positive Affect: SFBT, a common coaching framework, prioritises increasing positive emotions as a pathway to improvement. By focusing on future possibilities, past successes, and small steps forward, coaching aims to create an atmosphere where positive emotions can flourish. This contrasts with traditional therapies that often focus initially on negative emotions.
- Practical and Actionable Steps: Coaching often involves identifying small, manageable steps that clients can take immediately to move towards their goals. This focus on action can help break the cycle of inertia and lack of motivation that can accompany depression. Homework suggestions in coaching are often intended to direct clients’ attention to useful aspects for reaching their goals.
- Shorter Duration and Lower Cost: Research suggests that SFBT can produce results in substantially less time and at less cost compared to traditional approaches. This accessibility can be a significant benefit for individuals seeking support for depression.
Integrating Unique Tools: The Havening Technique
A coach working with individuals experiencing depression may integrate tools and strategies that are not typically part of traditional therapy. The Havening Technique, is one such example.
- Managing Stress and Emotions: Havening is presented as a powerful tool for relieving suffering by managing stress and emotions, and for getting over past events.
- Wellbeing and Performance: Coaches like Tam Johnston utilise Havening to enhance clients’ wellbeing and their capacity to perform. By addressing underlying emotional distress, the Havening Technique might enable individuals with depression to feel more resourced and capable of engaging in positive activities and pursuing their goals.
- Integration into Coaching Practice: This suggests that it can be seamlessly integrated into a coaching framework that already focuses on solutions and forward movement.
It is important to note that while the Havening Technique is mentioned as a tool a coach might use. Independent research and verification would be necessary to fully understand its efficacy.
Comparing Coaching for Depression with Traditional CBT
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a widely recognised and evidence-based therapy for depression. It focuses on identifying and changing negative or unhelpful thought patterns and behaviours that contribute to and maintain depression. Here is a comparison of coaching and CBT in addressing various issues faced by someone with depression:
| Issue Faced by Individuals with Depression | Coaching Approach | Traditional CBT Approach |
|---|---|---|
| Negative Thinking | Focuses on shifting towards positive expectations and future possibilities. Questions encourage envisioning positive outcomes and solutions. | Identifies and challenges negative automatic thoughts and core beliefs. Techniques like thought records help clients become aware of and evaluate their thoughts. Aims to replace negative thoughts with more balanced and realistic ones. |
| Lack of Motivation and Inertia | Emphasises setting small, achievable goals and taking immediate action towards a preferred future. Focuses on identifying what the client wants to do rather than dwelling on what they can’t. | Behavioural activation is a key component, encouraging clients to re-engage in activities that provide pleasure or a sense of accomplishment. Focuses on breaking down overwhelming tasks into smaller, manageable steps. |
| Hopelessness and Pessimism | Builds hope by focusing on past successes, identifying exceptions to the problem, and envisioning a positive future. Scaling questions can track progress towards desired outcomes. | Aims to challenge and modify negative beliefs about the future. Explores evidence for and against pessimistic predictions. May focus on cognitive restructuring to develop more hopeful perspectives. |
| Low Self-Esteem and Negative Self-Talk | Highlights the client’s strengths, competencies, and past achievements. Compliments and competence questions aim to elicit positive self-perception. May encourage externalising negative self-talk. | Identifies and challenges negative self-critical thoughts. Explores the origins of negative self-beliefs and works towards developing a more compassionate and realistic self-image. May use techniques to change the “inner voice”. |
| Social Withdrawal and Isolation | May explore desired changes in relationships and encourage steps towards connection based on the client’s goals. SF questions can focus on what others will notice when things improve. | CBT for social anxiety (often co-occurs with depression) includes social skills training and exposure to social situations. Aims to reduce fear and avoidance of social interactions. |
| Emotional Processing | Focuses on increasing positive emotions rather than directly addressing and exploring negative feelings. May use positive visualisation and future-oriented techniques to evoke positive affect. | Encourages the identification, understanding, and expression of emotions. Explores the link between thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. May use techniques like mindfulness to increase awareness and acceptance of emotions. |
| Defining and Achieving Goals | Central to the coaching process. Emphasises well-defined, positive, and achievable goals, often within the client’s control. Uses questioning to clarify the client’s preferred future. | Goal setting is also part of CBT, but the focus may be more on behavioural changes that alleviate depressive symptoms. Cognitive goals might involve changing thought patterns. Goals are often specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). |
Summary: Coaching for depression
Coaching for depression offers a valuable alternative or complementary approach to traditional therapies like CBT. By focusing on strengths, resources, and future goals, coaching empowers individuals to take action and build a more positive life. The integration of unique tools like the Havening Technique by coaches may offer additional avenues for managing emotional distress. While CBT traditionally delves into negative thoughts and past experiences to facilitate change, coaching prioritises increasing positive affect and creating a vision for the future. Both approaches aim to alleviate the suffering associated with depression, but they utilise different methodologies and emphases. The most suitable approach will often depend on the individual’s preferences, the specific nature of their difficulties, and their desired outcomes.