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Learn to coach the root causes of your clients’ self-doubt, create deeper, lasting change and build a business around your impact.

You already know how to coach.

Clients open up to you. They have powerful insights. Sometimes they say, “Oh my god, that’s IT!”

I mean, this is the best job in the world of course you want your work to have a meaningful impact!

But do you sometimes leave sessions wondering: is this actually working?

If you have clients with imposter syndrome, self-doubt or a sometimes brutal inner critic, you’ll probably recognise that coaching around it can feel like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole:

You spend a session unpacking a negative thought or a limiting belief… and by the next session, another suspiciously similar one has popped up.

Or your client takes a few brave steps towards the thing they want, only to hit a setback that seems to confirm their inner critic was right all along… and so you start again.

Perhaps your most self-aware client can name the pattern, explain exactly where it came from and have one of those magical aha moments…but insight isn’t translating into action towards the things they long for.

I used to feel completely bamboozled by this.

It left me questioning whether I could really help my clients figure it out, and wondering whether my coaching tools were actually up to the job.

Underneath these worries was the most vulnerable question: Does my coaching really make a difference?

 

And that kind of worry tends to follow us into our businesses.

Because it’s bloody difficult to market your coaching wholeheartedly when a part of you isn’t convinced it creates the change people are paying for.

So perhaps you hold back. Struggle to explain what makes your work different. Keep yourself occupied with busywork (procrastibranding, anyone?!).

And when someone does say yes, the joy of signing a new client can be quickly followed by another flicker of doubt:

Can I deliver the depth of change I’ve invited them to believe is possible?

I want you to know: nothing has gone wrong. Your training has given you a fantastic foundation, and if these questions are emerging in your coaching, it’s pointing to this:

You’re ready for the next stage of your development.


Self-belief Coaching Academy has entered the chat:

So, because I’m an overfunctioning oldest daughter, I responded to my own worries and doubts by spending over two years completing a rigorous master’s degree in the psychology of coaching, and researching the experience of self-doubt.

Here’s what I learned, and it’s the thing most coach training misses:

Self-doubt isn’t a mindset problem to fix.
It’s a protective intelligence to work with.

SBCA shows you HOW to do this.

Self-doubt holds us back – it can show up as perfectionism, procrastination, people-pleasing, and proving yourself.

And these patterns are never random.

Beneath them are deeply held meanings about who we need to be to belong, what keeps us safe, and what feels possible for us.

Most of us have been trained to coach self-doubt using approaches that focus primarily on mindset, behaviour change, and inner-critic work.

These approaches can be enormously helpful, but they aren’t designed to reach the deeper layers shaping why a pattern exists, what it protects, or why clients can actively resist the very changes they long for.

Inside SBCA, you’ll learn to recognise and work skilfully with the meaning-making, identity and protective patterns beneath these familiar expressions of self-doubt.

You’ll develop the discernment to understand more of what is happening beneath your client’s story and make thoughtful choices about where the conversation might go next.

This isn’t about ‘fixing’ your clients or eradicating self-doubt.

It’s coaching at the level of identity.

So you can help your clients create deeper, more lasting change and trust the difference your coaching makes.

SBCA doesn’t just deepen your client work. It expands what feels possible for you, too.

You won’t just become more skilled at helping your clients move beyond self-doubt; you’ll start to recognise and shift the places it’s been holding you back too.

Not so you can finally get rid of it, but so you can understand what it has been protecting and relate to it with greater compassion, choice and self-trust.

You’ll begin to recognise where self-doubt has been shaping your coaching, visibility, leadership and sense of what is possible for your business. 

You’ll become more able to make choices that aren’t organised around avoiding failure, judgement or rejection.

Your confidence in your coaching becomes more grounded, too.

Because you’re no longer hoping your coaching is effective.

You understand what you’re listening for, why you’re making particular choices and how those choices support meaningful change for your clients.

Brilliant coaching isn’t separate from your business strategy. It’s the foundation of it.

When you trust the difference your coaching makes, it’s waaaay easier to talk about the value of your offers with conviction, invite clients into deeper, longer-term coaching relationships and become known for the lasting change you help create.

You’re not building a business around clever marketing, or getting stuck in patterns of overdelivering and undercharging.

You’re building a valuable body of work around coaching you deeply trust and believe in.

Self-belief Coaching Academy is an evidence-based, trauma-informed, ICF-accredited certification for thoughtful coaches.

12 places available

6 months of rich learning

12 months of supervision and support

We begin October 2026:

Here's what changes for coaches...

What you’ll learn to see, understand and do:

Use an evidence-based developmental approach to recognise and coach the root causes of self-doubt, rather than repeatedly working with the symptoms.

Work skilfully and ethically with protective patterns through a trauma-informed lens, so you can coach at depth within the boundaries of coaching.

Use proven approaches and tools to help clients develop greater self-belief, self-trust, self-worth and self-acceptance, creating transformational change.

Develop the discernment to understand what you’re listening for, why you’re making particular coaching choices, while allowing the conversation to unfold.

Recognise how your own self-doubt shows up in your coaching, visibility and business, so you can lead your practice with greater conviction and fulfilment.

You’ll feel at home inside SBCA if…

You’re a coach, therapist or mentor who wants to work with greater depth and effectiveness so your clients’ insights translate into more satisfying choices and changes in their lives.

You’re curious about the root causes of perfectionism, procrastination, people-pleasing, overthinking and self-criticism, so you can work with what these patterns are protecting rather than repeatedly coaching the symptoms.

You want to work in an integrated way that is developmental, systemic, soulful and compassionate, so you can honour the complexity and context of your clients’ lives without reducing their struggles to individual inadequacy.

You’re willing to examine your own relationship with self-doubt alongside your clients’ experience, so your vulnerabilities and responses can become a source of discernment and development rather than unconsciously shaping how you show up.

You believe meaningful coaching goes beyond quick fixes and behavioural change, and you want to support clients at the deeper layers of meaning-making and identity where lasting transformation becomes possible.

You want to feel more resourced, skilful and confident as a coach, so you can stop reaching anxiously for the next tool and trust yourself to make thoughtful choices in the moment.

You already have experience working with clients and are ready to deepen your craft, so you can apply what you learn immediately, become known for brilliant coaching and build a business around your impact.

Because deeper coaching takes more than knowing more

ORIGINAL TOOLS AND FRAMEWORKS

Learn a coherent, evidence-based coaching methodology developed through academic research and refined through thousands of client sessions over the last decade.

Rather than reaching for another disconnected tool and hoping it works, you’ll have a bigger map for understanding what is happening beneath your client’s story and making more discerning choices about what may help them create meaningful change.

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

This is a deeply practical programme. You’ll practise the tools in real time, use them in your client work and reflect on what happens with the support of the SBCA Team and your peers.

Your confidence won’t come from simply knowing more theory. It will grow through lived evidence that you can use this work skilfully and that it is making a difference for your clients.

TRAUMA-INFORMED PRACTICE

Develop a deeper understanding of protective patterns, emotional activation, boundaries and the impact of past experiences within the ethical scope of a coaching relationship.

You’ll feel more able to work at depth without second-guessing whether you’re doing too much, straying beyond your role or missing something important in the room.

GROUP SUPERVISION + REFLECTIVE PRACTICE

Receive 12 months of group supervision and support as you integrate the work into your coaching practice, business and leadership.

You’ll have somewhere to bring the sessions you’re still thinking about, the choices you’re questioning and the edges you want to explore. This ongoing support helps you keep developing rather than returning to familiar habits or trying to work everything out alone.

PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION

SBCA doesn’t just change how you coach. It changes your relationship with your own self-doubt, visibility, leadership and sense of possibility as a practitioner.

As you become more able to recognise and work compassionately with your own protective patterns, you can stop letting them quietly determine how visible you’re willing to be, what you allow yourself to want and how boldly you lead your business.

ICF ACCREDITATION

SBCA is accredited by the International Coaching Federation as Continuing Coach Education (CCE), with certification woven into the programme as you learn.

You’ll leave with meaningful evidence of the depth of your development, strengthening your professional identity and helping clients and organisations recognise the rigour behind the work you do.

Six months. Nine modules. One deeply integrated body of work.

SBCA teaches you how to work with the root causes of self-doubt through a rich blend of developmental coaching, trauma-informed practice, experiential learning, and evidence-based tools, all delivered within an incredibly supportive learning community. Over nine modules, you’ll learn how to support clients with more depth, discernment, compassion, and confidence:

1. What Is Self-Doubt?

  • Understand the core purpose of self-doubt, its subjective and personal nature, and how you can incorporate this work into your coaching practice.
  • Learn how self-doubt shapes behaviour, identity, and decision-making — and why insight alone often isn’t enough to create change.
  • Learn the unconscious drivers of self-doubt and how to identify these with your clients.

2. Self-Doubt and Developmental Psychology

  • Discover the ‘meta-model’ of adulthood; how our sense of self is formed, reformed and transformed and how this helps us to navigate self-doubt.
  • Understand how to identify, make sense of and coach effectively with all of your clients no matter what they bring.
  • Learn a rich approach to coaching that helps clients expand their capacity for self-awareness, emotional resilience, and meaningful action.

3. Trauma-Informed Coaching

  • Develop a grounded understanding of trauma, nervous system activation, boundaries, and emotional safety within an ethical coaching relationship.
  • Understand how to speak to what is happening in the ‘here and now’ for your client and how this may be connected to the ‘there and then’ of past trauma.
  • Learn how to coach in a way that is sensitive to boundaries and avoids entanglement or working directly with the traumatised self.

4. Coaching the Root Causes of Self-Doubt

  • Learn how protective beliefs are formed and how to compassionately work with the psychological risks and unconscious strategies that keep clients stuck.
  • Learn how to coach beyond the client’s stories and uncover the root causes of your clients’ (often unconscious) protective beliefs.
  • Practice making space for your client to sit with the protective intelligence of self-doubt in order to develop a deeper capacity for resilience.

5. Coaching Beyond the Client's Story

  • Learn how to untangle inherited narratives, identity stories, and old meaning-making patterns so clients can relate to themselves differently.
  • Understand how meaning-making forms our sense of self and how to coach at the deepest level: the client’s identity.
  • Discover how to change the underlying meaning of beliefs and empower your clients to take positive action.
  • Turn your growing self-belief coaching toolset into a ‘single session’ offer to start coaching clients effectively (whatever your niche).

6. Coaching The Protector

  • Explore the inner critic through an original, compassionate, trauma-informed lens and learn how to transform self-doubt from an adversary into a source of insight and protective intelligence.
  • Tap into creative curiosity to characterise and personalise your clients’ self-doubt (without infantilising, dismissing or ignoring).
  • Discover how to evolve the client’s relationship with their Protector to develop psychological safety.

7. Your Self-Doubt

  • Deepen your awareness of your own protective patterns, emotional triggers, and coaching edges so you can lead with greater presence, integrity, and courage.
  • Discover how to recognise your own self-doubt and tend to your vulnerabilities with compassion. 
  • How your responses and emotions within your client work can be a source of growth and development.

8. Coaching the Clients’ Self-belief Compass

  • Discover practical and creative coaching tools, concepts and approaches, specifically designed to support clients to expand their self-belief, self-worth, self-trust, and self-acceptance.
  • Learn how to help your client acknowledge and grow their capacity for their ‘True Whole Nature’ – the person they are beneath their self-doubt.
  • Grow your capacity to work with clients at the deepest level – supporting the forming of their self-concept to cultivate meaning, fulfilment, and a values-led life.

9. Coaching Dreams and Goals

  • Learn a model of human change that supports your coaching work and offers a trajectory for how you can work with clients over time.
  • Learn a compassionate, courage-based approach to goals that helps clients take meaningful action even in the presence of fear, uncertainty, and psychological risk.
  • Learn how to prepare for and coach your clients through obstacles and setbacks, as well as flare-ups of self-doubt and uncertainty.

How the learning becomes part of your coaching:

SBCA is built around an original, evidence-based methodology developed during a rigorous master’s degree at Oxford Brookes exploring the psychology of coaching, deep research into the experience of self-doubt, and over a decade of coaching with thousands of humans.

As a Certified Self-belief Coach, you’ll be licensed to use the SBCA tools, frameworks and coaching approaches in your own client work, giving you a coherent methodology for your practice. You won’t simply learn the theory. You’ll learn to use the methodology skilfully, ethically and in ways that feel genuinely your own.

Alongside the curriculum, you’ll be supported through live calls, coaching practice, supervision, and assessment as you learn – you’ll be 80% of the way to certification before the programme completes.

Small classes (a maximum of 12) mean personalised support and individual care. This is a learning environment designed to support you, your learning, and rich integration into your practice.

You’ll be warmly invited to engage with the class, reflect deeply, experiment courageously, and develop your own style and presence as a coach.

Hello you! I’m Sas Petherick

I’m a coach, mentor, supervisor, and teacher specialising in self-doubt, developmental coaching, and the inner work of meaningful change.

For 15 years, I’ve coached with thousands of clients through 1:1 work, group programmes, workshops, retreats, and coaching supervision. 

My Master’s research explored the lived experience of self-doubt, and this has evolved into the Self-belief Coaching methodology taught inside SBCA.

Almost 100 coaches have been through the SBCA programme, and I’m excited to have you join a community of thoughtful coaches who care deeply about their craft.

What interests me most is not just supporting beloved clients to navigate their self-doubt – it’s the ripple effects this work opens up:

What becomes possible in the world when we relate to ourselves and each other with more compassion, discernment, and capacity?

How do we, as coaches, foster greater self-leadership in our clients and ourselves?

SBCA is designed for coaches who have a foundational grounding and experience in the craft of coaching, and are ready to support clients with richer depth and skill.

If that’s the kind of work you’re here to do, you’ll feel right at home inside this programme.

Everything you need to learn, practise and certify:

The complete Self-belief Coaching Academy curriculum

9 in-depth training modules with video lessons, tools, and supporting resources

The Self-belief Coaching Academy Student Manual.

Live group calls over six months for coaching, discussion, reflection, and Q&A

A Practice Pod with two other coaches to help you integrate and practice

Weekly study group sessions hosted by Head Self-belief Coach Scott Robson

25 original coaching tools and frameworks to use in your client work (just add your branding!)

Monthly Supervision + Support calls for 12 months following the programme

Lifetime access to the curriculum and training materials

Step into the next stage of your development as a coach.

BECOME A CERTIFIED SELF-BELIEF COACH

The next SBCA class begins 6th October 2026, with six months of live teaching and practice, and 12 months of supervision and support.

SBCA Classes: Tuesdays, 7-9pm UK time
SBCA Study Group: Thursdays, 7-8pm UK time

For most of the programme, that works out as:

2–4pm US East Coast
11am–1pm US West Coast
6–8am Wednesday Sydney

Tiny daylight-savings footnote: for our first three calls in October, Sydney will be 5–7am. And there’s one rogue week at the end of October when the US times shift an hour later before their clocks catch up to the UK. Because TIMEZONES.

You’ll have access to a full online calendar that automagically calculates to your time zone so you never have to work this out.

Download the full timetable here.

SBCA is intentionally intimate, with just 12 coaches in each class. This creates space for meaningful conversation, personalised feedback and the individual care that helps this work become part of how you coach.

Because the learning is deep and experiential, joining SBCA begins with a short application. It’s an opportunity for us to meet and chat about whether the programme is the right fit for you and your practice.

When your application is accepted, a $500 USD deposit will secure your place and be credited towards the total programme investment.

If you’re ready to trust your coaching more deeply, create lasting change and build a business around your impact, I’d love to welcome you into SBCA.

24 monthly payments

$292

(US Dollars)

12 monthly payments

$584

(US Dollars)

Full Payment

$6,250

(US Dollars)

SAVE $750

All prices are in USD and inclusive of taxes.
The total investment is $USD 7,500.
I offer a 10% discount ($USD 750) if you pay in full.
There is no change in price for payment plans.
All payment plans begin 1st October 2026, just before the programme begins.

How to Apply for SBCA:

Let’s see if SBCA is a good fit. Click the application button below to complete a short application form (this will take about 5 minutes). You’ll also be able to book a call with me.

We’ll meet on Zoom for a no-pressure chat to talk more about your coaching work, and answer any questions you have about the programme.


If your application is approved, you’ll be invited to secure your place with your deposit and select your preferred payment option. SBCA 2026 begins 6th October 2026.

If you have questions before applying, you’re very welcome to contact me anytime at sas@saspetherick.com

FAQs

I have loads of self-doubt. Can I still become a Self-belief Coach?

YES. You are very much among friends here.

SBCA was seeded during my master’s research into self-doubt, when I began making connections between my own lived experience, what I was seeing beneath so much of my clients’ stuckness, and the work of the researchers I found most compelling.

You don’t need to have “overcome” self-doubt to support someone else with theirs. In fact, learning to understand your own protective patterns with greater compassion often becomes an important parallel process within the training.

Many coaches who have completed SBCA say the programme contributed profoundly to their own healing around self-doubt, alongside developing their capacity to coach it.

You can see all live class dates and times in the programme timetable.

Alongside the live classes, you’ll have lifetime access to a library of pre-recorded material, and we’ll post you a comprehensive student manual.

You’ll also be part of a Practice Pod with two classmates, giving you space to practise, reflect and support one another’s learning.

There is an optional Study Group, ably hosted by our Head Support Coach, Scott, where you can ask questions, explore the curriculum and deepen your understanding.

Outside the live classes, we recommend allowing approximately 2 hours each week for the pre-recorded teaching, reflection and practice.

The programme is designed to be completed within the six months of live teaching.

Many graduates tell us they continue returning to the curriculum long after the programme has finished. This is less a collection of tools to consume once and more a body of work that deepens as your coaching develops.

Yes, it does. To take part in the programme, you will need to be able to attend the live classes.

SBCA is a live, relational training programme. So much of the learning happens through discussion, reflection, practice and witnessing coaching unfold in the room. 

SBCA is designed for experienced coaches who value their foundational coach training but have begun to reach its edges.

You might recognise that feeling. Your clients are gaining insight, but the same patterns keep returning. You’re asking thoughtful questions, yet something still isn’t shifting. Or perhaps you leave sessions with the sense that there was more happening beneath the client’s story, but you weren’t quite sure how to recognise or work with it.

Many coaching approaches focus primarily on changing a client’s thinking, behaviour or habits. These can all be valuable, but they don’t always reach the deeper layers shaping why a pattern exists, what it protects, or why it continues despite the client’s best efforts.

SBCA brings developmental psychology and trauma-informed practice into the coaching conversation. You’ll learn to listen beyond the presenting story and work more skilfully with meaning-making, identity, protective patterns and the root causes of self-doubt.

This doesn’t mean diagnosing clients, digging for trauma or assuming every struggle has a hidden explanation! It means developing the discernment to recognise what may be happening beneath the conversation, and the capacity to coach at the level where lasting change becomes possible.

By the end of the live programme, you’ll already be around 80% of the way towards certification!

Certification involves completing two in-depth reflections on recorded client sessions during the programme, followed by a summary reflection essay at the end.

The process is designed to support your development as a thoughtful, reflective practitioner. There are no points for performing coaching “correctly.” Instead, we’re interested in your capacity to notice what is happening, reflect honestly on your choices and continue developing your practice.

You’ll be well supported throughout the process. The assessments are woven into the programme, with clear guidance, opportunities to ask questions and thoughtful feedback to help you understand and meet the certification standards.

Graduates tell us that completing a rigorous certification process has helped them feel more confident in their professional identity and given greater weight to their credentials. It offers meaningful evidence of the depth of their training, rather than simply confirming that they attended the programme.

We are currently awaiting confirmation of SBCA’s renewed ICF accreditation following changes to the ICF’s criteria. Once this process is complete, we’ll confirm the number and type of Continuing Coach Education credits awarded through certification.

They may well do.

SBCA strengthens coaching capability, reflective practice, professional confidence and the ability to work skilfully with complex patterns of change. These are valuable capacities in internal coaching, leadership development, people and culture, and organisational roles.

Several SBCA graduates have gone on to design and implement leadership development programmes within their workplaces, drawing on the perspectives and practices they developed through the training. So the value can extend well beyond an individual’s coaching practice and contribute to wider organisational learning and change.

I have a reference guide outlining the potential return on investment to help you build a business case for employer funding. When you apply, we can talk about your particular context and what might help you make the strongest case.

Please consider the timetable, financial commitment and live-attendance requirement carefully before applying.

The payment plan extends beyond the end of the live teaching. This is a conscious choice: I want SBCA to remain financially accessible to the thoughtful coaches I most love working with.

When you join, you’re committing to the full programme fee. If you choose to pay in instalments, you’ll remain responsible for completing those payments even if your circumstances change or you decide not to complete the programme.

Ready for the next level of coaching?

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