Coaching may appear, at first glance, to be a modern practice — a contemporary response to the challenges of a fast-changing world. Yet beneath its conversational simplicity lies a deep psychological heritage.
Transformative coaching, in particular, stands at the crossroads of multiple schools of thought. It draws from psychology, philosophy, and adult learning theory, integrating these perspectives into a practice that honours both the human spirit and the pragmatic realities of change.
This integrative foundation gives coaching its unique richness: part art, part science, part philosophy.
Below, we explore the major psychological and theoretical influences that underpin coaching today — especially within the transformative tradition.
1. Humanistic Psychology: The Core of a Growth-Centred Practice
At the heart of coaching lies a humanistic ethos — a belief in people’s inherent worth, autonomy, and capacity for growth.
Influenced by figures such as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, humanistic psychology emphasises empathy, unconditional positive regard, and the client’s innate potential for self-actualisation.
In transformative coaching, this translates to deep respect for the client’s inner resources. The coach is not an expert dispensing answers but a facilitator of awareness, creating the conditions in which growth naturally unfolds.
Humanistic psychology gives coaching its tone of compassion, curiosity, and trust in human potential — qualities that make coaching as much a way of being as a set of techniques.
2. Phenomenology: Working with the Lived Experience
Transformative coaching begins not with abstract goals, but with the client’s lived experience — their subjective reality in this moment.
Rooted in phenomenology, this stance asks the coach to bracket assumptions and encounter the client’s world as it is experienced, not as it is theorised.
The coach becomes deeply attuned to what is happening now: the felt sense, the emotional texture, the unspoken tension beneath the words.
This approach makes coaching more than cognitive analysis — it becomes a space of presence and witnessing, where insight arises from being seen and understood as one truly is.
3. Dialogic and Relational Theories: Transformation Through Encounter
Drawing on existential philosophy and relational theories, transformative coaching understands change as something that happens between people, not to them.
In this dialogic space, meaning is co-created through conversation. Both coach and client bring their full selves to the encounter — curious, responsive, authentic.
Thinkers such as Martin Buber and David Bohm describe dialogue as an unfolding of truth through mutual presence. In coaching, this becomes a living process: a shared inquiry that reshapes understanding for both participants.
The relational stance also recognises that the quality of the coaching relationship — its trust, respect, and openness — is itself transformative.
4. Constructivist and Narrative Psychology: Making and Remaking Meaning
Humans make sense of their lives through stories — narratives that define who we are, what we believe, and what we think is possible.
Constructivist and narrative psychology reveal that these stories are not fixed. They are interpretations, and interpretations can change.
In transformative coaching, the client explores their personal narrative:
- What stories am I living by?
- Who do I become through these stories?
- What alternative narratives might be available to me?
By examining and reshaping these internal scripts, clients move from being constrained by their story to becoming the author of it.
5. Cognitive and Behavioural Psychology: Linking Awareness to Action
While transformative coaching values depth, it also values movement.
This is where cognitive and behavioural psychology contribute practical tools for change.
Cognitive Behavioural Coaching (CBC) helps clients identify and reframe limiting beliefs, distortions, or self-defeating thought patterns. Behavioural techniques encourage experimentation — testing new actions and observing results.
Used within a transformative frame, these approaches ensure that insight translates into integration. Awareness is embodied through behaviour, creating tangible change in the client’s life.
6. Systemic Thinking: Seeing the Whole Picture
No one exists in isolation. Every client is part of multiple systems — family, workplace, culture, society — each shaping their experience.
Systemic thinking allows coaches to zoom out, recognising how patterns of relating, power, and expectation influence an individual’s challenges and choices.
A client’s difficulty at work, for instance, may reveal wider organisational or relational dynamics. By seeing the whole system, the coach helps the client locate themselves within it — and begin to shift their position in ways that reverberate beyond the individual level.
This perspective makes coaching not only personally transformative but socially aware.
7. Existential and Transformative Learning Theories: Meaning, Freedom, and Change
Coaching often leads clients to profound existential questions:
- Who am I becoming?
- What matters most?
- How do I live authentically in a complex world?
Drawing from existential psychology, transformative coaching explores these questions not as abstract philosophy but as lived reality. Clients examine their freedom, responsibility, and search for meaning.
Meanwhile, Transformative Learning Theory (Jack Mezirow) explains how deep change happens: through shifts in the paradigms and assumptions that frame our worldview. When these structures transform, behaviour follows naturally.
This marriage of existential inquiry and transformative learning gives coaching its depth — change that begins at the level of being, not merely doing.
8. Integrative Approaches: Weaving the Threads Together
Finally, coaching today is deeply integrative. It draws from multiple schools — psychodynamic, somatic, behavioural, systemic, narrative — and combines them in service of the client’s unique needs.
Animas’ approach reflects this spirit of integration. Rather than adhering to one tradition, transformative coaching becomes a flexible, creative synthesis — guided by principles such as curiosity, relational presence, and systemic awareness.
The result is a practice that honours complexity: psychological, philosophical, and practical dimensions woven into a single, cohesive whole.
Conclusion: Coaching as a Living Dialogue Between Disciplines
The psychological roots of coaching are both diverse and harmonious. From Rogers’ humanism to Mezirow’s transformative learning, from systemic theory to narrative reconstruction, each offers a piece of the puzzle.
Transformative coaching stands out not by choosing one school, but by holding them all in conversation — just as it invites coach and client to do.
It is this dialogue — between reflection and action, between insight and embodiment, between psychology and lived experience — that makes coaching not only effective, but profoundly human.
