Why there is no universally best coaching

The coaching world is colorful and diverse – business coaching, life coaching, systemic coaching, integral coaching, and many more. The question quickly arises: Which coaching is the best?

The honest answer: there is no universally best coaching. What matters is what you need right now – whether it’s career orientation, personal development, or deeper transformation.

The diversity of coaching approaches

Coaching offers a wide range of methods, each with its own focus. Some of the best-known include:

  • Cognitive-behavioral coaching: builds on psychological models of thought and behavior. Helps identify limiting beliefs and replace them with more helpful patterns.
  • Solution-focused coaching: consistently directs attention to solutions and resources rather than problems.
  • Positive psychology coaching: strengthens resilience, meaning, and well-being.
  • Mindfulness-based coaching: uses practices such as meditation and breathing to foster presence, clarity, and stress reduction.
  • Somatic coaching: works with body awareness, posture, and movement. Body and mind are understood as one.
  • Narrative coaching: invites you to retell your life story in ways that expand your possibilities for action.
  • Executive and team coaching: aimed specifically at leaders and teams, supporting collaboration, strategy, and leadership.
  • Health coaching: focused on lifestyle, nutrition, exercise, and stress management.

All of these approaches can be highly effective in the right situation.

A focus on deeper transformation

Beyond this variety, there are methods that go deeper – addressing not only external goals, but also inner patterns and blockages.

Systemic coaching

Looks at you within the context of your relationships and systems. It makes visible the dynamics and patterns that limit your options – and offers ways to change them.

Gestalt-oriented coaching

Fosters awareness in the here and now. By perceiving and integrating feelings and inner parts, change becomes directly experiential.

Shadow work

Explores unconscious or suppressed aspects of the personality. Integrating them leads to greater self-acceptance, freedom, and authenticity.

Integral Coaching & Therapy (Academy for Integral Coaching and Therapy)

Here, “integral” means the combination of Western psychology, Eastern wisdom, and systemic constellations. This triad provides the foundation for genuine transformation.

Integral coaching is not primarily about analysis or quick solutions, but about working on the level of identification. Normally, you are closely tied to your thoughts, feelings, or roles – often so much so that you take them to be who you are. This is where integral coaching begins.

  • Healing happens when old patterns are recognized, emotions are truly felt, and beliefs are integrated or transformed.
  • Liberation happens when you realize you are not forced to identify with every form – whether thought, feeling, or role. This makes letting go, lightness, and transcendence possible.

Healing and liberation run in parallel: as identification loosens, space opens for lightness; as healing deepens, inner stability grows. Each reinforces the other. The result is an experience of authenticity, presence, and aliveness that is not just “understood” but truly lived.

Logosynthesis (Logosynthesis® Institute Switzerland)

Logosynthesis is an integrative approach that helps release life energy bound in painful memories, limiting beliefs, or worries about the future. By freeing this energy, it becomes easier to be present in the here and now. Many people report that the method helps reduce the emotional intensity of distressing memories and supports the transformation of limiting beliefs – often even immediately.

What coaching success depends on

Regardless of the method, research and practice consistently highlight three key factors:

  • The quality of the relationship
    Trust, empathy, and shared goals are the strongest success factors. Without a genuine connection between coach and coachee, sustainable change is unlikely.
  • Your engagement
    Coaching is not a repair service. Change happens if you are willing to look honestly, take responsibility, and try new ways of being.
  • Integration into everyday life
    Real success comes when new insights and experiences are translated into daily thought, feeling, and action.

Backed by science: What ultimately matters

Psychotherapy research, which is widely applied to coaching, paints a clear picture:

  • about 40% of success depends on the client – motivation, resources, and context.
  • about 30–50% is due to the quality of the relationship – trust, empathy, and alliance.
  • about 10–15% is directly linked to methods and techniques.
  • about 15% comes from hope and expectancy (the “placebo effect”).

This means coaching is most effective when you actively engage, when the chemistry with your coach is right – and when methods are applied in ways that you can directly experience.

Conclusion: You make the difference

There is no single “best coaching.” Cognitive-behavioral, solution-focused, or mindfulness-based approaches can be valuable, depending on your goals and context.

But research also makes it clear: the biggest success factor is you – your willingness to engage, take responsibility, and try something new. Equally important is the quality of the relationship with your coach. Methods play a supportive role, but they only unfold their power in the dynamic interplay of engagement and relationship.

If what you seek is deeper transformation – healing old patterns and freeing yourself from limiting identifications – then integral coaching is a particularly powerful choice. It combines Western psychology, Eastern wisdom, and systemic constellations with experiential methods. Additional approaches such as Logosynthesis can further support this process.

This way, you gain clarity, energy, and the ability to live your life fresh, free, and authentic.