Narrative coaching is representative of the new wave – or third generation – of coaching practice . The theory and practice of narrative coaching takes into account the social and cultural conditions of late modern society, and must be seen as intertwined with them. Some initial conceptualizations of narrative coaching were developed by David Drake (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009) in the USA and Australia, by Ho Law in the UK (Law, 2007a + b; Law & Stelter, 2009) and by Reinhard Stelter (2007, 2009, 2012, in preparation; Stelter & Law, 2010) in Denmark. In the following chapter the aim is to present coaching as a narrative-collaborative practice, an approach that is based on phenomenology, social constructionism and narrative theory. Seeing narrative coaching as a collaborative practice also leads to reflecting on the relationship between coach and coachee(s) in a new way, where both parts contribute to the dialogue equally and sometimes even symmetrically.
The practice of narrative coaching will be examined in relation to the concrete experiences gained in a related field of practice, i.e. narrative therapy (White, 1997, 2007). Narrative coaching is to be understood as a reflective space, either of an individual or of a group or team, where the main focus is on values and on providing opportunities for meaning-making. Problematic experiences or events are reframed by the unfolding of alternative narratives; these are based on re-experiencing and re-collection, as well as on the process of co-creation between coach and coachee. The conceptual framework will be tested by presenting central results of a research project. The ideas discussed in this chapter expand upon earlier concepts of the narrative approach (mainly formulated by White in 2007) by integrating ideas from phenomenology and experiential approaches with collaborative and social constructionist thinking.