In Russia, psychological counselling as a field of activity was intensively developed in the early 1980s, with the emergence of the first social and psychological assistance services and psychological assistance telephone helplines. Prior to that, university psychology graduates were mainly engaged in client testing and research activities. Officially, they could not engage in psychotherapy (as, indeed, they cannot now), since according to the laws of the Russian Federation, only a specialist with a higher medical education can be a psychotherapist.
In Russia, the term “counselling psychology” appeared in the early 1990s, and in those same years the profession of a consultant psychologist was actively developing. In the 1990s a number of journal publications and books appeared that shaped the face of modern Russian counselling psychology. The experience of the development of this branch of practical psychology in our country and the great interest in it was reflected in the appearance in the 2000s a number of special books and teaching aids. Currently, psychological counselling and psychotherapy are being actively created.
In recent years, the popularity of a new consulting area – coaching – has been actively growing in Russia, which is gaining, first of all, the market of business services, and is also becoming in demand as personal assistance in solving life problems of clients (Life Coaching).
Various practice-oriented coaching schools are being opened, working both according to the standards of the International Association of Coaches ICF (International Academy of Coaching, International Ericksonian University of Coaching), and according to the author's programs (Institute of Coaching A.D.Savkin, School of System-Integrative Coaching I.V. Rybkin, etc.).
Coaching as a separate type of consulting was formed in the 80s of the last century at the intersection of psychology, philosophy, management and sports. At first, it was focused exclusively on the business environment, but gradually the coach's services became in demand in other areas.
Currently, there are about 500 types of coaching, which can be divided into two categories: coaching in business (coaching management, executive coaching, corporate, strategic, situational, project, innovative, career, motivational) and life coaching (coaching for adolescents , family coaching, leisure coaching, emotion management, etc.) (cf. Vinogradova 2010: 200ff.).