One of the questions I often think about is what developmental thread, what intellectual lineage, if any, lies at the root of coaching, particularly in approaches like transformative coaching. Or is the emergence of coaching simply the result of converging influences in a modern, individualistic culture?
In this article I offer my sense-making around this question as a student of the history of ideas. Of course, I don’t assert this as fact or even as the best description – merely my own thinking.
Vikki Brock, with the “Sourcebook of Coaching History”, and Leni Wildflower, with “The Hidden History of Coaching”, both added immeasurably to our understanding of the influences that shaped coaching and my musings here ride the waves they created whilst adding my own attempt to weave together threads in the shifts in epistemology, axiology, ontology and psychology.
Unsurprisingly, for a process that took over 2000 years, this is not a single, tidy story, but rather a rich and meandering journey of ideas that has shaped how we understand change, agency, and human development.
The Seeds of Inquiry: Ancient Philosophy as a Starting Point
Many commentators trace the spirit of coaching back to Socrates and the early Greek philosophers, whose emphasis on questioning, self-inquiry, and ethical reflection echoes deeply in coaching’s dialogic foundations. Socratic questioning, after all, prioritises curiosity over certainty and positions the “not-knowing” stance as a virtue—a principle mirrored in transformative coaching today.
The Roman Stoics, such as Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Seneca, further shaped ideas around self-mastery, reflection, and the pursuit of a virtuous life. Their writings, practical and introspective, often read like early coaching dialogues concerned with how one lives wisely in the face of uncertainty.
Yet we should be cautious not to overly romanticise these roots. Philosophy in this context was limited to a privileged class, embedded in a particular worldview. Still, the notion that insight arises through dialogue, introspection, and disciplined self-examination forms a striking throughline to coaching as we know it today.
Inner Life and Moral Formation: From Monastic Reflection to Protestant Introspection
While less frequently cited in coaching histories, the medieval period and Reformation era carried forward key ideas about the inner life. In monasteries and religious communities, contemplative practices, confession, and spiritual direction cultivated deep introspection and moral development. Though shaped by theological frameworks, these were early explorations of inner dialogue and transformation.
Later, the Protestant Reformation, especially through Calvinist and Puritan strands, brought about a radical shift in personal responsibility and self-scrutiny. With their challenge to the idea of hierarchical intercession, individuals were encouraged to form a direct, introspective relationship with God, fuelling habits of reflection, journaling, and moral accountability. These practices arguably laid groundwork for the modern emphasis on self-examination, agency, and purpose, qualities central to coaching today, even in secular form.
Modernity and the Rise of the Individual
The Enlightenment period brought with it a decisive shift in epistemology – from wisdom as revelation and communal dialogue to truth as something discovered through reason and empiricism.
With Descartes’ famous dictum, “I think, therefore I am,” came a profound emphasis on the self as a rational, autonomous subject. The Scientific Revolution reinforced this, advancing the idea that the world, including the human mind, could be understood, predicted, and improved through observation and logic.
Thinkers like Rousseau introduced ideas of the self as innately good but shaped by society, elevating personal development and education as tools for liberation. Voltaire championed critical thinking and intellectual freedom, while Kant posited that enlightenment was the individual’s emergence from self-imposed immaturity, through the courage to use one’s own reason.
These ideas redefined human nature and agency, laying the groundwork for later coaching models that focused on clarity, intentionality, and progress. What we might now recognise as performance coaching – goal-oriented, linear, and measurable – found fertile soil in this rationalist and individualist worldview. Coaching, in this sense, was not yet born, but its conceptual DNA was taking form.
Existence, Choice, and the Weight of Freedom: The Existential Turn
The late 19th century and early the 20th century brought the profound influence of existentialist philosophy. Thinkers like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Heidegger wrestled with the fundamental conditions of human life: our freedom to choose, our anxiety in the face of uncertainty, and our search for meaning in a world without inherent structure.
Rather than offering solutions, existentialism invites us into the discomfort of ambiguity and responsibility. It asserts that we are not just products of our past or our environment—we are the authors of our own becoming, responsible for creating meaning through our choices.
Transformative coaching draws heavily on this lineage. When coaches ask clients, “What do you truly want?” or “Who do you choose to be in this moment?”, they are engaging in existential work. They are inviting clients to step into their agency—not with a map, but with a willingness to navigate the unknown.
Coaching informed by existential ideas recognises that authenticity is not a state to be reached, but a continual practice of aligning one’s actions with one’s values in the face of life’s complexity. It’s this kind of inner movement – not merely outer action – that defines much of transformative coaching today.
From Depth Psychology to Human Potential
Alongside the existential turn, there was a turn inward. The advent of psychological theories, from Freud and Jung through to humanistic psychology (Rogers, Maslow), brought a renewed appreciation for subjective experience, emotional depth, and the innate drive toward self-actualisation.
These ideas radically shifted the focus from what people do to how they experience being. The inner world became a site of insight and change. Coaching, especially in its transformative form, absorbed this ethos: respecting the client as whole, resourceful, and capable, and seeing the relationship not as hierarchical but as collaborative and co-creative.
Running in parallel was another seismic shift: the emergence of structuralist and post-structuralist thought, particularly through figures like Ferdinand de Saussure, who argued that meaning arises not from things themselves but from the relational systems of language that describe them. Later thinkers like Foucault and Derrida further destabilised fixed meanings, showing how language, power, and identity are deeply intertwined.
For coaching, these insights invite a more nuanced, narrative, and interpretive approach. They remind us that transformation is not necessarily about discovering a pre-existing self, but often about re-authoring the stories we live by – stories shaped through language, culture, and context. In this light, the coaching conversation becomes not just a space for insight, but a site where new meaning can be made.
Questioning the Ground: Postmodern and Constructivist Influences
Constructivist and postmodern philosophies challenge the notion of fixed truths. Thinkers like George Kelly and the rise of narrative and systemic thinking have prompted coaches to explore how meaning is constructed through context, culture, and relationship.
This has led to coaching approaches that are more phenomenological, more dialogic, and more relational, recognising that each client brings a world of assumptions, stories, and paradigms that shape how they live. Transformative coaching in particular asks: not just how do you change, but how do you see, and from where do you see?
The Science of Flourishing: Positive Psychology’s Contribution
That brings us to the late 20th century where positive psychology emerged as a scientifically grounded response to the pathology-focused lens of traditional psychology. Spearheaded by thinkers like Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, it asked a fundamental question: what makes life worth living and how do we flourish?
Coaching resonated deeply with this shift. With its emphasis on strengths, values, optimism, and growth, positive psychology offered both language and legitimacy to the coaching profession. It gave coaches a framework to explore flourishing – not just fixing – and helped embed practices like gratitude, goal orientation, and resilience into client work.
An Acknowledgement: A Distinctly Western Storyline
It’s important to recognise that this narrative, while compelling, is not universal. Coaching as a profession emerged in a Western cultural context—heavily shaped by individualism, capitalism, and therapeutic discourse. The dominant models, including transformative coaching, reflect this lineage.
As coaching becomes increasingly global, we are beginning to see the incorporation of non-Western philosophies, collectivist perspectives, and indigenous wisdom traditions. These challenge some of the assumptions we’ve taken for granted and invite a more pluralistic future for coaching—one that honours relationality, interdependence, and ecological thinking in ways that Western frameworks often overlook.
Looking Ahead: Coaching as an Evolving Practice
So is there a coherent narrative from philosophy to coaching?
Perhaps. There is certainly a story we can tell – of evolving ideas about knowledge, being, and change that flow into the river of coaching as we know it.
But it’s not a single story, and it’s not complete. Coaching is still in its infancy as a profession. What it becomes next will depend on how deeply we are willing to listen – not just to our past, but to the cultures, systems, and voices that have not historically been part of its formation.
As coaches, that means staying in the space of inquiry. Remaining curious. And recognising, always, that our work is part of a much wider, unfolding human story.
A Thread Through Time: What Holds It All Together?
If there is a thread that weaves through this sprawling intellectual history, it is perhaps the enduring human desire to understand oneself, to make meaning, and to change with purpose.
Across centuries, we have asked:
- What does it mean to live well?
- How do we come to know what we know?
- Who are we, really, beneath our roles and identities?
- How might we grow—not just outwardly, but inwardly?
From Socratic questioning to Stoic discipline, from monastic reflection to Enlightenment rationality, from existential angst to postmodern pluralism, and from the science of flourishing to today’s integrative coaching practices, each era has offered a different lens through which to view the human experience. Coaching, especially transformative coaching, acts as a vessel that gathers these insights, translating them into conversations that help people meet themselves anew.
At its best, coaching doesn’t impose a worldview but instead holds a space in which many worldviews can be explored, reframed, and chosen anew. It is this act – of sitting with another in reflective partnership – that ties us to both our philosophical past and our evolving future.
And so, while the road to coaching has not been straight, it has been purposeful. It has brought us to a practice that is at once ancient in spirit and uniquely modern in form. Where it goes next is not only a matter of theory, but of how we choose to listen, adapt, and act as practitioners of transformation in a changing world.
