In this series, we take a closer look at each of the 12 Principles of Transformative Coaching that are the foundation of the Animas approach.
The humanistic principle is one of the core elements of transformative coaching because it speaks to something that comes before any particular coaching skill, technique or intervention: how we see the person we are coaching.
At its heart is a belief in the inherent worth of the individual, alongside a trust in their capacity for growth and change. This has deep roots in humanistic psychology and particularly in the work of Carl Rogers, whose ideas around empathy, authenticity and unconditional positive regard have had an enduring influence on coaching.
For transformative coaches, though, the significance of the humanistic principle isn’t simply theoretical. The assumptions we hold about people inevitably influence how we work with them. If we see the client primarily as someone with a problem that needs solving, it is remarkably easy for coaching to become an exercise in diagnosis and correction. We listen for what’s wrong, search for the obstacle and begin looking for the intervention that might fix it.
A humanistic stance starts from somewhere different. The client may well be struggling with something. They might feel stuck, uncertain or frustrated by patterns they seem unable to change. But this isn’t a problem to be fixed. They’re a complex human being trying to make sense of their experience, and our starting point is a fundamental trust in their ability to reflect on that experience, make choices and continue to evolve.
This is what we mean when we talk about clients being resourceful. It’s a phrase that’s used so frequently in coaching that it’s often understood simply as the client’s ability to come up with the answer for themselves. Within transformative coaching, we mean something broader. We are placing our trust in a person’s capacity to inquire, to develop awareness, to reconsider what they have previously taken for granted and, ultimately, to choose how they want to respond to what they discover.
That distinction matters because transformative coaching isn’t concerned with finding the most efficient route towards an existing goal. Sometimes the exploration changes the client’s relationship with the goal itself. They may discover that something they have been striving towards is rooted in an assumption they no longer believe. They may recognise competing needs or values that make their situation more complex than they initially thought. They may simply come to understand themselves differently.
If we are too quick to help, advise or move the client towards resolution, we can inadvertently close down precisely the exploration that makes those discoveries possible.
What unconditional positive regard really asks of us
One of the central ideas within the humanistic tradition is unconditional positive regard. It can be misunderstood as requiring the coach to approve of whatever a client thinks, says or does, but this isn’t what Rogers was pointing towards and it isn’t what we mean by it in transformative coaching.
We can disagree with someone’s choices. We may hear them describe behaviour that has been unhelpful or damaging. We can challenge inconsistencies and invite them to look at things they would perhaps rather avoid. What remains unconditional is our regard for the person.
Their worth is not dependent upon behaving in ways we approve of, making choices we understand or presenting a version of themselves that is easy to like. We continue to encounter them as a person deserving of respect and capable of reflection and change.
This has very practical consequences for the coaching relationship because people quickly sense when they are being judged. If a client feels that there’s a correct answer to find, or a version of themselves that will win the coach’s approval, the conversation can easily become performative. They begin editing themselves, sometimes without realising they’re doing it.
When that pressure is absent, people are more able to explore the parts of their experience that don’t fit neatly together. They can admit to wanting two contradictory things, acknowledge thoughts they’re uncomfortable with, question the stories they have told themselves or simply say, “I don’t know.” That kind of honesty is often where the most meaningful coaching begins.
Listening to the person, not simply the problem
The humanistic principle also asks something particular of us as listeners. In coaching, there can be a temptation to listen primarily for useful information: the problem, the pattern, the limiting belief, the thing that needs to change.
When we categorise too quickly, we risk replacing curiosity about someone’s actual experience with our own ideas about what that experience means.
A humanistic stance therefore requires a certain spaciousness. We listen without rushing to decide what is happening. We try to understand how the world looks and feels from within the client’s experience, and we allow their meaning to emerge rather than assuming that we already understand it.
This is one of the places where the humanistic principle naturally connects with the phenomenological and unknowing principles of transformative coaching. If we genuinely trust the client’s capacity and respect the validity of their lived experience, we have less need to impose our own sense-making upon it.
An equality of humanity
There is another aspect of the humanistic principle that’s particularly important to the way we think about coaching at Animas: the relationship is grounded in an equality of humanity.
The coach is not positioned above the client as the expert. Equally, they aren’t simply a passive presence who follows wherever the client happens to lead. Coaching is a partnership in which two people bring different things to a shared process of inquiry.
For the coach, that requires humility. We may notice patterns, offer observations, challenge assumptions and ask questions that open up new territory, but we do so without assuming that we know what the client’s answer ought to be. Our expertise is in coaching, not in being the final authority on somebody else’s experience.
A strong humanistic relationship can make meaningful challenge more possible because the challenge takes place within a wider experience of acceptance. The client can encounter a difficult question without experiencing it as a judgement on who they are.
Creating the conditions in which people can change
The humanistic principle doesn’t suggest that people will inevitably flourish if we simply believe in them enough. People repeat patterns even when we know they don’t serve us. We avoid difficult truths and sometimes remain attached to ways of seeing ourselves and the world that constrain us.
Transformative coaching is concerned with what becomes possible when someone has the space to look beneath the familiar explanations and encounter their experience with greater honesty and awareness. For that to happen, the coaching relationship needs to offer enough safety for the client to explore.
This is where the humanistic principle becomes inseparable from the wider practice of transformative coaching. It supports the relational principle because a genuine relationship depends upon genuine regard. It makes an unknowing stance possible because trusting the client reduces our need to provide answers. It supports phenomenological exploration because we take seriously the client’s experience of their world. And it creates space for emergence because we don’t need to force the conversation towards a predetermined outcome.
The twelve principles of transformative coaching aren’t a collection of techniques, and the humanistic principle is a particularly clear example of why. There’s no humanistic tool to pull out at the appropriate moment in a session. Instead it’s a stance that informs how we enter the relationship in the first place.
