Choosing between coaching or therapy can be daunting. They have different focuses, strategies and outcomes.
We guide you through the differences, so that you have the confidence to make a decision when looking for support in your life after cancer.
What is coaching?
Coaching is a form of learning, where a coach supports an individual to make progress in some way. Progress might include reaching a goal, solving a problem, generating awareness or creating change.
Coaching is often a conversation, or a number of conversations that a coach has with the individual. The coach works to create a conversation that will benefit the other person, in a way that relates to their objectives. There is no need to leave the house as coaching conversations are delivered virtually over Zoom.
"Our coaching partnership will help you create a life that is in line with who you are after cancer."
In one-to-one sessions, we gently question, listen, encourage, challenge, observe and support you - this helps create conversations rich in insight, learnings and will help you create clarity and move you into action.
You will take responsibility for taking steps to produce the outcomes that you desire (the coach won’t be telling you what you need to do, we believe you have the answers).
Actions and exercises are set at the end of each session supporting you to move forward between sessions.
Coaching is not therapy, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, structured training or a way of someone else solving your problems for you.
What is the difference between coaching and therapy?
Both therapy and coaching provide solutions to get you closer to the life you want to be living. Below we compare some of the difference between coaching and therapy.
| Coaching | Therapy |
The problem | Often focuses on the "how" to move forward from the problem | Often work on the “why” of the problem |
Topics | Help you achieve personal goals - focusing on support, motivation, and strategies to reach these goals, and in a cancer space, may spend time clarifying who you are post cancer and what is next | Focuses on mental health and in a cancer space, may spend time unpicking your cancer experience |
Tense | Focuses on the present and future | Therapy is rooted in the past and present |
Duration | Often long term | Often short term |
How can coaching help post cancer treatment?
Our Life after Cancer coaching sessions support you to live a life that is inline with who you are after cancer.
The support individuals receive increases mental wellbeing, reduces the risk of serious mental distress and helps to build a positive life after your cancer experience.
Benefits of coaching (in no particular order) include :
Taking better care of self
More optimistic about life
Prepared for a return to work
Improved sense of direction and focus
Clarifying and applying personal values
A better understanding of self post cancer
Creating a more fulfilling and purposeful life
Increased knowledge of self and self-awareness
Increased resilience and ability to handling change
Identify the gaps between where they are and where they'd like to be
Clarifying what’s important to them and how they’d like to spend their life post cancer
Increasing mental wellbeing, including decreased levels of anxiety, depression and stress
What you can expect from your coach?
A safe non judgemental space
Questioning, listening, observation and feedback
Confidentiality: I will never disclose information - unless individuals are at harm to themselves or others
What will your coach expect from you?
Contributing to conversations honestly and openly
Commitment: Keeping any agreements or completing actions you make during sessions
Interested in working with a Life after Cancer coach for one to one coaching?
Life after Cancer coach
Steph, our founder facilitates our coaching sessions. Since training as an ICF Coach and NLP Practitioner, Steph has completed 1,500+ hours of one-to-one coaching with adults post cancer treatment. Working with NHS England, UCLH, Macmillan, Teenage Cancer Trust, Trekstock and YouCan.
After her own experience with cancer, she quickly realised that the impact of cancer didn't suddenly stop once treatment was over. Cancer shaped her life so she created a supportive, confidential, non-judgemental space to support others in shaping theirs.
Schedule your free call
We offer a free 15 minute call to understand how we can support you and to answer any of your questions. Coaching sessions are priced on a sliding scale (based on individuals income).
Coaching Testimonials -
"Steph has helped me confront my feelings and rebuild my life after cancer. With her support, I am now better at looking after myself, challenging my anxieties and finding that all important balance in life. Steph is an incredible coach. She is compassionate and supportive, but also challenging when necessary. Coaching has changed the way I live my life for the better and I will be forever grateful for Steph's help."
"Looking back, I really do have to attribute the work we did in our sessions, to the transformative difference I have noticed in my approach to my work, and more importantly as I came to discover, myself. Steph's sheer practicality, combined with her own personal experience and understanding of the situations discussed was a very comforting and yet productive combination - that has, I can genuinely say, made a marked difference in my approach to life."
"Steph brought kindness, patience and a deep understanding to help me navigate my life after cancer. I left each session feeling slightly more aware of who I was and had become post-cancer, where I wanted to be and what blockages I was putting in place. Subsequently I became more empowered not just about what I was experiencing as I moved towards my ‘new normal, but about what I was going to do to work towards it. I am so grateful Steph for enabling me to get to a place, where the colour and sense of direction has come back into my life for the first time since my diagnosis."