Chapter published in:
Relationships in Organized Helping: Analyzing interaction in psychotherapy, medical encounters, coaching and in social media
Edited by Claudio Scarvaglieri, Eva-Maria Graf and Thomas Spranz-Fogasy
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 331] 2022
► pp. 171–194

Working alliance and client design as discursive achievements in first sessions of executive coaching

| Klagenfurt University
| Siegen University

While outcome research has convincingly proven that the working alliance is a key success factor in coaching, qualitative process-oriented insights are so far missing. We strive to fill this gap by shifting the focus from ‘the working alliance is crucial’ to ‘how is the working alliance discursively accomplished in authentic coaching interactions?’. The guiding assumption is that the coaching alliance emerges locally as a joint product of coach and clients’ negotiation process. We analyze the first sessions of two different coach-client dyads from the executive coaching protocol Emotional Intelligentes Coaching within an integrative discourse analytic framework. Our analyses demonstrate that the coach displays a specific ‘client design’ in the local discursive management of the working alliance.

Keywords: executive coaching, working alliance, client design, integrative discourse analysis, first sessions
Article outline
  • 1.The relevance of the working alliance in coaching: An introduction
  • 2.The coaching alliance: Relevant theoretical and empirical perspectives
  • 3.The coaching alliance: A linguistic approximation via the Basic Activity Model
  • 4.Methodology and data
  • 5.Working on the working alliance: Analysis and findings
    • 5.1Getting started
      • Summary: Getting started
    • 5.2Voicing expectations regarding coach, coaching and coaching alliance
      • Summary: Voicing expectations regarding coach, coaching and coaching alliance
    • 5.3Negotiating the expectations
      • Summary: Negotiating the expectations
  • 6.The dynamics of the working alliance and client design in coaching: Summary and outlook
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 07 September 2022
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.331.08gra
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