Understanding the difference

At Salt & Hollow, coaching is about walking beside you as you navigate change, loss, and growth — not diagnosing or treating what’s wrong. It’s a collaborative process that helps you reconnect to your inner wisdom, understand your emotions, and create small, meaningful shifts that support your healing.

Therapy and coaching both offer safe, supportive environments, but their focus and approach are different.

Therapy

Therapy often explores the why — it looks to the past to understand patterns, process trauma, and address mental health conditions. A therapist or counselor is trained to diagnose and treat emotional or psychological disorders and may work with clients experiencing depression, anxiety, PTSD, or other clinical concerns.
Therapy can be deeply healing for those who need structured mental health treatment or support after significant trauma.

Coaching

Coaching focuses on the how — how to move forward, make sense of where you are, and feel more connected and empowered in your life.
As a grief and somatic coach, my role is to help you:

• Reconnect with yourself after loss or change

• Explore what feels heavy or stuck in a safe, compassionate space

• Cultivate awareness of your emotions and body’s responses

• Build new rhythms, rituals, and gentle action steps that bring relief and meaning

Coaching is forward-moving and collaborative — it’s about presence and growth, not diagnosis or treatment.

How I Integrate the Two

While coaching is not therapy, I work in a trauma-informed and grief-sensitive way — meaning I understand how loss and past pain can shape your nervous system, emotions, and daily life. My work complements therapy beautifully; many clients choose to work with both a therapist and a coach for different layers of their healing.

If, during our work together, I feel therapy or another professional would offer additional support, I’ll always recommend it with care and respect.

In Short

• Therapy helps you heal the past and understand the “why.”

• Coaching helps you integrate, move forward, and live with new awareness.

Both can be powerful — and sometimes, they’re most powerful when they work together.

At Salt & Hollow, coaching is a partnership built on compassion, safety, and presence — a space where grief, growth, and humanity are met with light and understanding.