How Coaching Can Help — And When It’s the Right Tool

Coaching is a word you run into everywhere — online, in job ads, on social media. Everyone today seems to either have a coach or be one. But what actually stands behind the term? What can coaching realistically deliver, and what can’t it? And in a completely unregulated market, how do you find the right coach?

The Salzburger Nachrichten put exactly these questions to Christina Mühlberger, who researches coaching at the University of Salzburg. Her answers are clear, nuanced, and genuinely useful for anyone weighing whether coaching might be the right step for them.

What Is Coaching, Exactly?

The term shows up across so many areas of life, and that’s no accident: coaching is not a legally protected title. In practice, that means anyone can call themselves a coach — there are no formal restrictions.

Understood as a professional format, though, coaching describes an interaction between coach and client in which goals are defined together and then worked on over an extended process. The coach supports the client in reaching those goals while developing and growing along the way.

Mühlberger highlights one point in particular: coaching centers on clearly defined goals — and crucially, the goal has to come from the client, not the coach. The coach doesn’t set the direction of travel; that’s one of the format’s most fundamental principles.

Coaching can be applied to almost any area of life, professional or private — from reducing stress to navigating a career path or a major life transition such as a job change, a separation, or retirement.

How Is Coaching Different From Psychotherapy?

It’s one of the first questions anyone seriously considering coaching asks — and a fair one, since the two formats genuinely overlap. Both work with change, both rely on a trusting relationship, and both are ultimately about helping someone move through life more effectively.

The decisive difference lies in the target group. Therapy is aimed at a clinical population — people working through issues that fall into the clinical, pathological range. Coaching, by contrast, is not designed for a clinical population.

A professional coach needs to be able to communicate that distinction clearly, and be willing to refer a client onward when their needs go beyond what coaching can offer. If a coach also holds relevant therapeutic training, they may be able to draw on additional methods — but that’s then a meaningfully different offering.

How Do You Find the Right Coach?

Because coaching isn’t a protected term and the internet is saturated with offers, orientation is often difficult. Mühlberger recommends starting by getting clear on your own topic. From there, personal recommendations from people who’ve had good experiences with coaching are a solid starting point.

Beyond that, it’s worth looking closely: Is there a website? What training does the coach have? Which topics do they actually work with — and can they genuinely address yours?

On training specifically: look for something scientifically grounded. The University of Salzburg, for instance, offers a dedicated program. Many institutes run trainings in close collaboration with researchers. Professional associations are also worth checking — not just for individual coaches, but for accredited training institutes.

What Does a Coaching Process Look Like?

Coaching is a goal-oriented, forward-looking process tailored to the individual client’s concerns — not a rigid program, but one with a clear structure. The first session is mostly about getting to know each other and clarifying the main topic and the goals. Larger goals are typically broken down into manageable intermediate steps to keep the process tangible.

Subsequent sessions work through those steps with targeted exercises that surface and strengthen the client’s own resources. The coach accompanies the process continuously but within firm limits: a typical session runs 50 to 60 minutes, which keeps the work focused.

How effective this process turns out to be depends heavily on who is guiding it — see “How Do You Find the Right Coach?” above.

Does Coaching Actually Work? And How?

This is exactly what the University of Salzburg researches. Mühlberger and her team run a large number of coaching sessions, partly because the training is offered to master’s students. Alongside that, they also run coaching for non-students — most recently on the topic of stress.

The research shows: coaching works, provided the conditions are right. Particularly effective are so-called self-leadership coachings — formats that specifically strengthen a person’s sense of agency and inner self-regulation. These are typically considered especially high-value, and priced accordingly.

The University of Salzburg is currently still looking for participants for a new study. Participants receive five free self-leadership coaching sessions — a format that can cost up to €2,500 on the open market. Anyone can take part; the only requirement is bringing a concrete topic to actively work on, whether professional or personal. A questionnaire is completed before the coaching begins, and again after some of the sessions (with a €25 compensation for the time). Interested readers can reach out at selbstfuehrungscoaching.sbg@gmail.com.

Why Demand for Coaching Keeps Growing

Coaching demand keeps rising, and Mühlberger points to a clear reason: people are carrying all kinds of concerns, and that demand keeps growing — especially in a world where change is constant and outside pressures and uncertainty keep intensifying.

I see exactly this in my own daily work as a coach in Vienna. The topics people bring me are rarely trivial — real forks in the road, persistent inner unrest, the feeling of no longer knowing which direction to take. And that is precisely where coaching, done professionally, can offer real support.

My Own Perspective as a Coach

As a certified life and social counselor, mediator, and coach in Vienna, I meet people every day standing at exactly this crossroads: do I need coaching? Therapy? Or would a good conversation be enough?

What strikes me most about this interview in the Salzburger Nachrichten is its honesty about what coaching can and cannot do. That clarity is often missing from the market. Too many offers promise the world without being transparent about the training behind them — or whether the client’s actual concern even falls within coaching’s scope.

For me, a good first conversation starts with an honest assessment of whether coaching is the right format at all. Sometimes the answer is: yes, absolutely. Sometimes it’s: this calls for therapy instead. And sometimes it’s both. I owe my clients that clarity — and that, to me, is exactly how coaching can help, when it’s guided honestly and professionally.

If you’re curious whether coaching could be the right fit for what you’re facing, I’d be glad to talk it through in a first conversation — get in touch here.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between coaching and psychotherapy?

Both formats work with change and rely on a trusting relationship. The key difference is the target group: therapy addresses people with clinical, pathological concerns, while coaching is designed for a non-clinical population. A professional coach must be able to recognize when an issue goes beyond coaching and refer the client onward.

How do you find a reputable coach in an unregulated market?

Look for training that is scientifically grounded — for example through a university or an institute that works closely with researchers. Professional associations can also point you toward recognized training institutes, not just individual coaches.

What does a coaching process actually look like?

Coaching is a goal-oriented process tailored to the individual, with a clear structure. The first session focuses on getting to know each other and clarifying the main topic and goals; larger goals are then broken into concrete steps.

Does coaching actually work, and is there evidence for it?

Yes — research from the University of Salzburg shows that coaching works when the conditions are right. Self-leadership coaching in particular, which strengthens a person’s agency and inner self-regulation, has shown strong effects and can help people regain clarity during difficult phases of life.