I’m often asked what my consultancy model involves and how it differs from traditional therapy or coaching. It’s a model that evolved organically from years of research, literature, and clinical practice – shaped by seeing the same gaps repeatedly and recognising the need for a more integrated way of working.
Therapy typically sits within a medical or psychiatric framework. It focuses on mental health, emotional exploration, and understanding the past. Coaching, on the other hand, centres on motivation, goals, and behavioural momentum. Both can be hugely valuable – but over time, I realised they were too limited for many of the people I worked with.
As a former accredited psychotherapist, I began noticing a pattern: many clients weren’t struggling because they lacked insight, motivation, or self-awareness. They were struggling because neither therapy nor coaching offered the range of tools needed to bridge the gap between inner understanding and real-world change. I often saw clients make the most progress when we stepped outside these frameworks and began combining other elements – collaborative problem-solving, psychoeducation, strategic thinking, and gentle but honest challenge.
One of the difficulties with traditional therapy is the expectation that people will eventually “figure things out” if the relationship is reflective enough. But there were countless moments when I could see exactly where someone was stuck and knew there were alternative ways forward – yet the model discouraged direct guidance. Watching people struggle longer than necessary made me question whether the framework was serving them as well as it could.
Coaching has its own limitations. Without deeper psychological understanding, internal conflict can be mistaken for a “lack of discipline,” and unresolved patterns are often reframed as mindset issues. When people don’t achieve their goals, they can end up blaming themselves rather than recognising the understandable dynamics beneath the surface.
Through years working across clinical, community, organisational, and leadership roles – as a therapist, supervisor, assessor, director, trainer, and consultant – it became clear that human change is rarely one-dimensional. People don’t arrive as isolated problems or behaviours; they arrive as whole systems, with histories, beliefs, desires, blind spots, strengths, and complexities that interact across every area of their lives. Consultancy emerged as a way of working that honours that complexity.
It removes the unhelpful power dynamics built into the old “therapist as expert” paradigm, yet still allows us to draw on the full depth of psychological knowledge where needed. It also steps beyond the narrow focus of goal-based coaching, making space for nuance, emotional truth, unmet needs, and the deeper patterns that shape both our choices and our limitations.
In this model, the practitioner isn’t a distant neutral observer, and the client isn’t a passive recipient. Instead, we work side by side – analysing, exploring, understanding, and planning in a way that feels collaborative rather than hierarchical. Many clients describe it as similar to working with a colleague on a shared project, with the focus being their own wellbeing, direction, or self-understanding.
At its core, consultancy acknowledges that people are multifaceted. We are psychological, emotional, physical, relational, and meaning-seeking beings. All parts are relevant. All parts inform one another. And all parts need to be welcomed into the room if we truly want lasting change rather than endless self-analysis or surface-level goal setting.
My passion – and the heart of my work – is helping people translate their inner experience into something compassionate, coherent, and usable. Not just insight, and not just action, but a way of understanding themselves that creates clarity and momentum in every area of life.
Consultancy allows us to gather all the strands, lay them out on the table, and work through them together. It is spacious, grounded, flexible, and deeply human – and for many people, it offers the first real sense of movement after years of feeling stuck between approaches that never quite fit.
Steph Jones Consultancy 