Brian JohnsonChairman & Philosopher in Residence at Heroic

When should a coach recommend therapy?

17 Dec 2025 · 1 min

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Brian Johnson discusses when coaches should recommend therapy, expressing skepticism toward Freudian approaches and favoring cognitive/behavioral therapies. He emphasizes fundamental habits — eating, movement, sleep, breathing, and focused attention — as essential "brain hygiene" that must be addressed alongside (or before) long-term therapy; he advises coaches to refer clients to therapists when a topic falls outside the coach's qualifications.

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There's so many different forms of therapy. I'm not a huge fan of Freudian therapy. Just to be direct. We can go back and we can look at our family of origin, learn some really important things from that which are important to bring up. But at some level, we need to move beyond that, and we need to move more into the cognitive, behavioral. Yeah, yeah. But what current thoughts do you have about that? And what behaviors are you engaged in today that may or may not be helping you alchemize those traumatic events into a productive life today? And that's a really nuanced, really long conversation. But I think it's really important. Important to find a therapist who's philosophical. The fundamentals are everything for me. It's eating, it's moving, it's sleeping, it's breathing, it's focusing my mind. We can go to therapy for decades. You don't change that. You don't get your brain hygiene right with your eating, and you're moving and you're sleeping. Good luck. To reframe the question, which is important. At what point does a coach need to recommend a therapist when you are not qualified to talk about something, Say, I'm not qualified to talk about that.