Transformative change to ‘a new me’: a qualitative study of clients’ lived experience with integrative health coaching^*

* Note: This study was conducted while Karen Goble, MA was completing her MA at East Carolina University and Ruth Q. Wolever, PhD was at Duke University School of Medicine.

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to describe the lived experiences of adult clients who sought Integrative Health Coaching (IHC) to address a chronic health condition. Moustakas’ phenomenological approach was applied to engage nine participants in recorded in-depth interviews and photo-elicitation interviews. Analysis revealed the essence of participants’ IHC experience as engagement in transformative change. Participants described the integrative medicine framework and most notably mindfulness as supporting their engagement in the coaching process. They noted that mindfulness contributed to the coaching relationship as well as promoted their engagement, competence, and autonomy in self-determined goal attainment. Specifically, mindfulness helped participants cultivate self-awareness, insight, and self-acceptance and apply it to goal-directed action. The conceptualization of participants’ lived experiences with IHC described the phenomenon of IHC as whole-person engagement in a mindfulness-based coaching practice established in integrative medicine that resulted in transformative change characterised by health and well-being. Participants described a journey in which they sought IHC to address a health concern and surprisingly discovered a ‘new me.’

KEYWORDS:

• Mindfulness
• integrative health coaching
• integrative medicine
• self-determination
• chronic health condition
• health behaviour change
• patient engagement

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the study participants who courageously shared their coaching experiences, the Integrative Health Coaches whose generous support invited the clients’ voices, and the programmes that provided the coaching: the Duke Integrative Medicine clinic and eMindful’s Weight Loss in Small Bytes™ program.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Conflict of interest notification

Notes on contributors

Karen L. Goble, MA, is a health educator and integrative health coach certified through Duke Integrative Medicine. She earned her Masters of Arts in Health Education and Promotion from East Carolina University in 2012 and currently serves as an Assistant Director of Continuing Medical, Pharmacy, and Dental Education at the Brody School of Medicine and Eastern AHEC. Karen partners with organizations to develop and deliver continuing education that explores wellness and mindfulness. Karen is a certified teacher of Cognitively Based Compassion Training through the Emory-Tibet Partnership.

Sharon Knight is a Professor in the Department of Health Education and Promotion at East Carolina University in North Carolina, USA where she teaches graduate level qualitative research and research methods courses and an undergraduate course on health problems. Her research focus is applying qualitative inquiry in the exploration of lived experience and program evaluation. For over a decade prior to entering academe, she was a registered nurse in various specialties and settings, including Public Health and the U.S. Army Nurse Corps.

Sloane Burke holds a Ph.D. in Health Studies from Texas Woman’s University, is a Certified Health Education Specialist, and a Public Health Fellow from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Dr Burke’s publications focus on women’s health, health disparities, and instructional technology. Dr Burke was awarded a 2 million dollar grant focusing on retention and success of Latino graduate students.

Dr Lena Williams-Carawan received her BSW from East Carolina University, MSW from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her PhD in Social Work from Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Canada. She is currently an Associate Professor and Director of the BSW Program in the School of Social Work at East Carolina University. Dr Carawan uses qualitative research methods to study and work with marginalized populations, including the lives and culture of fishermen and fishing families in the eastern region of NC, the emotional, behavioral, and social aspects of dyslexia. In addition, she conducts research on teaching/learning in social work. Hers is a qualitative approach - phenomenological, community based and often incorporating participant generated photography and art. An abiding interest in all of Dr Carawan’s research is her commitment to social and economic justice for the persons and groups she studies.

Ruth Q. Wolever, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, and of Psychiatry & Behavioral Science at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the School of Nursing. Ruth serves as the Director of Vanderbilt Health Coaching through the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. She is an integrative health coach and a clinical health psychologist with expertise in designing, implementing, and evaluating behavior change programs for medical patients and those at risk for chronic disease. Ruth is the Founding Research Director for Duke Integrative Medicine and the Chief Scientific Officer for eMindful. A nationally recognized expert on Health and Wellness Coaching, she is one of the elected leaders of the National Consortium for Credentialing Health and Wellness Coaches (ncchwc.org), a non-profit organization whose mission is to professionalize the field of health and wellness coaching, bringing forth national standards and a uniform job definition that will clarify best practices and allow for rigorous study. Dr Wolever is also a national leader in the study of mindfulness-based approaches to self-regulation and lifestyle change.

Notes

* Note: This study was conducted while Karen Goble, MA was completing her MA at East Carolina University and Ruth Q. Wolever, PhD was at Duke University School of Medicine.