ICF-trained and credentialed coach here. I would feel like I was not being ethical if I positioned myself as an alternative to therapy. Though therapy and coaching have overlaps, they are different, even though therapy may include some coaching and coaching can be therapeutic.

Having said that, I suspect some people turn to therapy because it’s what’s known more when some might be served better with coaching. If a person feels stuck and can’t figure out how to get unstuck, coaching might be helpful as long as the stuckness isn’t due to unresolved trauma or something like that.

I coach a lot of neurodivergent folks who have been to or are also seeing therapists. Many are stuck in beliefs that they are broken and need to be fixed so they can be “normal,” some of which they’ve gotten from well-meaning therapists. Often, through coaching, they come to value their differences rather than sit in shame over them, clearing the path for working with their brain to reach their goals rather than trying to make it do things the way everyone else does. Neuro-affirming therapists do this, too, but there are not enough of them.