How is Coaching different from Counseling and Therapy?

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"Coaching isn't therapy. It's product development, with you as the product." -- Fast Company

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In brief, it can be said that coaching focuses practically on valued goal attainment, intentional living, and moving forward in a collaborative, success focused, client driven way, while counseling and therapy focuses on healing and the treatment of diagnosable conditions, often looking backward in a problem oriented, clinical, and therapist or symptom driven way.  Another way to put this is that coaching emphasizes strengths, learning, and strategic action toward what one wants, while counseling and therapy place more emphasis on processing feelings, alleviating problematic functioning, and overcoming what one does not want.  Coaching moves toward living in aligned integrity, effectiveness in life, and thriving;  counseling and therapy tend to move toward diagnosis/symptom oriented remediation, healing, recovery, and restoration.  Coaching focuses on applying the principles of positive psychology, neuroscience, coaching, and behavior change to move relatively healthy people forward in life toward meaningful goals and mindful, fulfilling, values consistent living by building on what's right with the person drawing on their strengths, resources, and potentials.  It is NOT, as with counseling and therapy (generally), applied to diagnose, treat, cure, heal or otherwise directly deal with trauma, grief, disorders, emotional pain and suffering, attachment or substance use issues, mental and developmental problems, psychological ailments, medical diagnoses or treatment, or anything otherwise "wrong" and unhealthy about a person.  The coaching process and outcomes, can, indeed, support treatment goals and be experienced and viewed as healing, preventative, and therapeutic, and the coaching process is structured to promote health, wellbeing, desired behavior change, and positive transformation, but its focus is not on healing and therapy;  the coaching focus is centered on desired futures, building capacities and skills (e.g. mindfulness, resilience, organization, health and wellness), leveraging strengths and resources toward valued goals and lifestyle, maximizing resourcefulness and personal / professional potential, and more empowered, mindful,  intentional, meaningful, aligned, joyful, and effective living overall.  Coaching is a practical, positive, and forward looking professional relationship to advance purposeful alignment, growth and development, performance, effectiveness, fulfillment, and success.