‘Holistic exploration’ in coaching: practitioner accounts of how an integrative workplace coaching programme was enacted and understood

Workplace coaching is increasingly called upon not only to support performance and development, but also to engage with employee wellbeing and mental health needs. Yet practitioner-focused research has offered limited insight into how current, psychologically informed, integrative forms of workplace coaching are understood and enacted in practice. This study addresses that gap through a qualitative case study of the Stronger Minds, Stronger Business programme a UK coaching initiative, described locally as therapeutic coaching, for business owners. Semi-structured interviews with 13 coaches participating in the programme were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. The findings identified Holistic Exploration as the central shared orientation through which this practice was understood. Rather than being defined by a fixed model or set of techniques, this orientation was characterised by four interrelated features: exploration across life domains and time; relational permission to engage psychologically salient material in depth; anchoring to workplace relevance and forward movement; and responsive, integrative use of methods. Together, these features describe a form of workplace coaching that engages the client as a whole person while remaining grounded in a developmental workplace frame. The study offers a practice-based empirical account of integrative workplace coaching and suggests its value lies in linking wider psychological and contextual experience with professional action, development, and functioning.