Coaching and Mentoring: A Critical Text is a unique contribution to the field. It traces coaching influences back to pre-modern times showing connections with ‘soul healers’ of the past, taking a journey through modernity to post-modernity and making links that helps us better understand coaching today. Positioning coaching as working between the ''wounded-self'' (of therapeutic culture) and ''celebrated-self'' (of the human potential movement), it reveals four discourses that underpin contemporary coaching practice:
1. The Soul Guide Coach: coaching the ''inner-self'', focusing on values, authenticity and identity.
2. The Psy Coach: coaching the ''outer-self'', using psychological techniques to focus on personal performance and how we relate to others.
3. The Managerial Coach: coaching the ''role-self'', focusing on work, task, output and productivity.
4. The Network Coach: coaching the ''networked-self'', focusing on
