ABSTRACT
Following huge growth in coaching over recent decades signs have increasingly emerged that it is reaching maturity as a profession. Greater emphasis is being placed on structured training and accreditation, the relevance of working from an ‘evidence-base’ of approaches that are effective, and the importance of supervision, for example.
Alongside this growth we have also witnessed an increasing diversity of choice in training routes and ‘models’ of coaching. In the broader context we have witnessed societal and technological changes that have influenced at a fundamental level how we and our clients work and communicate, how we relate to diversity and how we express our identities, both professional and personal.
This chapter suggests that a pluralistic approach to coaching offers a framework that embraces the wealth of possibilities that diversity brings while also helping to organise our own development, thinking and practice as coaches (‘finding our place in the coaching space’). I explore the growth in coaching from both demand (client) and supply (coach) perspectives and draw from my own experience in working as coach and therapist in illustrating how a pluralistic approach informs my own practice.
