Kristina Gyllensten, Stephen Palmer, Eva-Karin Nilsson, Agneta Meland Regnér & Ann Frodi

Objectives: Cognitive coaching and cognitive behavioural coaching are approaches practiced by many coaching psychologists (Palmer & Whybrow, 2007). However, there is a lack of qualitative studies evaluating these approaches. The main objective of/with the present study was to investigate a number of participants’ experiences of cognitive coaching.

Design: As the study aimed to explore individuals’ experiences of cognitive coaching, a qualitative design was used. In particular, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith & Osborn, 2003) was used to analyse the data.

Methods: The study took place in Sweden and 10 individuals, who had participated in cognitive coaching in the workplace, were interviewed. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data.

Results: Four main themes emerged from the analysis, and one of these ‘new cognitive and emotional knowledge’ will be discussed in this article. This main theme had two sub-themes, ‘working with thoughts’ and ‘regulate emotions’.

Conclusions: The study found that cognitive coaching helped participants to change unhelpful thinking and regulate difficult emotions, and these findings support the continuing development of cognitive/cognitive behavioural coaching.

Keywords: Cognitive coaching; cognitive behavioural coaching; new cognitive and emotional knowledge; qualitative research; IPA.

Full article: Volume 5, Issue 2 pages 98 - 108