Difference Between Mentoring and Counselling: How to Identify the Right Approach for Your Challenges

Sometimes, we feel lost or confused and need someone to listen to and advise us. If not advice, a shoulder to lean on seems like a blessing. In times like these, we look for a mentor or a counsellor who can help us when everything else seems bleak.

However, we need to choose what is best for us. The difference between mentoring and counselling is that while mentoring is an informal meeting with a peer, counselling is a formal appointment with a licensed practitioner. While both methods provide assistance to people, helping them overcome challenges and achieve success, their frameworks often tend to overlap.

What is Mentoring?

World Education Services defines mentorship as “a relationship between two people where the individual with more experience, knowledge, and connections is able to pass along what they have learned to a more junior individual within a certain field.” The role can often be labelled as “adviser,” as mentors act as role models to provide guidance to others and help them reach specific goals. The mentee can benefit from the relationship by choosing to follow the mentor’s path toward development.

It is an informal, generally long-term development-driven relationship in which a mentor can help you learn new skills, develop more confidence, and make better decisions. Mentoring can be done in any phase of life, whether in school to decide what you want to pursue in your higher studies, in college when deciding your career path, or in jobs where mentors can help you by giving advice on how to climb the success ladder.

What is Counselling?

The difference between mentoring and counselling is that while mentoring is informal, counselling is strictly formal. It is a theory-driven helping profession which may involve medication and collaborative care with a medical team.

While a mentor can just be a peer or senior, a counsellor needs to have a license and a master’s degree. Counselling psychologists also provide assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of more severe psychological symptoms.

The main purpose of counselling is to provide emotional support to people to help them overcome mental health challenges like stress, depression, anxiety, and grief. Recovering from past traumas is not an easy task, so it is the job of the counsellor to ask questions, listen and help people explore their past to discover the causes of their feelings.

What are the Benefits of Mentoring and Counselling?

Knowing the benefits of the two can help you recognize the difference between mentoring and counselling and, therefore, make an informed choice on which approach you would like to pursue.

Benefits of Counselling

Creates a safe and trusted space for healing
Licensed counsellors are skilled at dealing with difficult emotions and situations. They also know how to stay calm in every circumstance.
Counselling follows the medical model and, thus, is scientifically validated, presuming validity for practitioners.
Offers a wide range of therapeutic approaches
Provides support in various domains such as school counselling and family counselling

Benefits of Mentoring

Mentoring enhances work effectiveness. Success in work is typically measured by financial wellness and career advancement, both areas where mentoring can play a significant role.
Organizational success is another benefit. When a sense of belonging is formed between colleagues who desire to advance their careers within a company, they take action for that success.
Mentors can give support in the workplace as well as in academic settings.
Job satisfaction greatly enhances, and so do your connections and engagements, which are crucial in the market.
You get shared knowledge from your mentor’s professional and personal experiences.

Difference Between Mentoring and Counselling?

The inherent difference between mentoring and counselling is that while mentoring deals with the present and the future, counselling is concerned with the past and the present. A mentor guides you through the present and paves a path for the future, while a counsellor helps you through your past trauma to heal your present self.

Other points of difference between mentoring and counselling are:

Type of relationship: Mentoring is an informal relationship, with meetings in various settings, such as phone calls or during meals. Counselling is a formal relationship made by appointment, and meetings are usually in the counsellor’s office.
Duration: The duration for mentoring is typically long-term, while for counselling, it is not as long as mentoring.
Focus: Mentoring might not always have an agenda; it can also be a meeting of two friends. However, counselling usually consists of a goal to accomplish.
Value of advice: A mentor’s advice is well received on a holistic level because of personal familiarity and professional admiration. A counsellor’s input is respected because of their training and how it helped other patients.
Cost: Counselling has various levels of cost as it is a type of employment. Mentoring is free.
Ease of access: Clients can receive a referral for counselling, but finding a mentor who is a good personal fit can be challenging.
Confidentiality: Conversations during counselling are confidential and protected under the law. This is not the case in mentoring. There could be a perceived level of confidentiality, but it is not guaranteed.

Do I Need Mentorship or Counselling?

This depends on what is going on in your life. If you need some general advice on a career path, you most likely need mentorship. If, on the other hand, you are going through a mental health crisis, you should seek guidance from a trained and licensed mental health counsellor. Understanding the difference between mentoring and counselling is important to know what you really require.

Use a mentor if:

You want to learn from a more experienced professional in your field.
You want to enhance the network of professionals you can learn from.
You have the flexibility to cultivate a mutually beneficial, open-ended relationship with your mentor.

Use a counsellor if:

You feel that events from your past are holding you back.
You’re experiencing symptoms of depression, anxiety, or another mental health challenge.
You’re experiencing continuing emotional distress.

Conclusion

While there are certainly some overlaps between the two, there are essential points of difference between mentoring and counselling. Depending on the challenges the individual faces and how he deals with them, each of these relationships can play a significant role in his career and life journey.

Although there exist challenges, such as counselling being stigmatized and senior mentors not having enough time to build a relationship, both of these relationships are uniquely flexible and powerful for personal and professional growth.