CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Health Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1597867
This article is part of the Research TopicIntegrating Health Psychology in Practice: Enhancing Well-being and Improving Health Outcomes Across Diverse ContextsView all 18 articles
Positive Health Coaching: A conceptual analysis
Provisionally accepted
Croia Loughnane*
Jolanta Burke
Elaine ByrneMarina Inglesias CansCiara ScottMary CollinsRoger Bretherton
Roisin O'donovanChristian van Nieuwerburgh
Padraic James Dunne- Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland
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Positive Health Coaching (PHC) is a novel approach designed to address the growing need for a more holistic perspective on health to combat the rising epidemic of noncommunicable diseases (NCD). Extending beyond disease prevention, PHC promotes complete physical, mental, and social wellbeing, aligning with the World Health Organisation (WHO) vision of health as a resource for everyday life (WHO., 1986, O'Boyle et al., 2023, van Nieuwerburgh and Knight, 2023). This paper introduces the conceptual analysis for PHC, which emerged from the wider theoretical base of Positive Health Sciences (PHS). PHC is an interdisciplinary field that integrates medical and psychological approaches to promote a dynamic and comprehensive orientation and journey toward positive health (O'Boyle et al., 2023). PHC bridges the gap between theory and practice by integrating insights and strategies from lifestyle medicine, positive psychology, health psychology, and coaching psychology. While the first three elements establish the PHS foundation of PHC, the fourth component operationalises these theories through coaching strategies. This paper aims to guide readers on a journey from understanding the foundational principles of PHS to exploring how PHC operationalises these concepts to promote overall health and wellbeing.
Keywords: positive health, health coaching, Health Psychology, Positive Psychology, lifestyle medicine, Health Promotion, disease prevention
Received: 21 Mar 2025; Accepted: 16 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Loughnane, Burke, Byrne, Inglesias Cans, Scott, Collins, Bretherton, O'donovan, van Nieuwerburgh and Dunne. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Croia Loughnane, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland
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