Mental health coaching is a type of life coaching that specializes in non-clinical mental health issues. It ventures deeper than typical life coaching but stops short of diagnosing or treating mental illness.

Coaching and counseling have more in common than not. Both coaches and counselors:

• Are paid as professionals
• Require training rooted in psychology
• Act as accountability partners
• Meet with clients regularly, usually for an hour at a time, with homework suggestions in between sessions
• Talk to people about goals, problems, and solutions
• Focus the effort exclusively on the client
• Ask probing questions and offer feedback
• Reference the past, present, and future

A difference between counselors (or therapists/clinicians) and coaches is the legally granted permission to diagnose and treat mental illness. It is illegal for non-licensed professionals to declare that anyone is mentally ill or knowingly attempt to treat a mental illness.