Do You Need Therapy or Career Coaching When You Want to Leave Law

When you start thinking about leaving the law, it is really common to realize that some of what you are trying to figure out is about your career and some of it goes much deeper than that. You may need help understanding what kind of work would actually be a good fit for you while also untangling why quitting feels so unsafe or why disappointing other people feels almost impossible. That is part of why therapy and career coaching can work so well together. They might both help you get to the same place, but they are not doing the same work, and one is not a substitute for the other. What comes up in coaching can be useful to take into therapy, and the insight you get in therapy can make it much easier to see what you actually want career-wise. In this episode of The Former Lawyer Podcast, Sarah Cottrell talks about the difference between therapy and career coaching, why she strongly recommends therapy if someone only has the bandwidth for one, and how the two can support each other as you work through what comes next. 0:29 - Coaching versus therapy when you’re trying to figure out what comes next 2:06 - Why Sarah recommends therapy when you only have bandwidth for one 2:51 - Therapy and career coaching are not substitutes for each other 4:10 - How therapy and career coaching can work together 5:13 - Using therapy to understand what shapes your ideas about work and career 7:49 - Why quitting can feel unsafe and other people’s disapproval can feel intolerable 8:23 - Learning to tolerate disappointing people without assuming you’ve done something wrong Mentioned In Do You Need Therapy or Career Coaching When You Want to Leave Law First Steps to Leaving the Law