IACTM-accredited diplomaOnline learning
Stances, session protocols, methodologies, coaching situations broken down and annotated: the program's content stays available around the clock, on all your devices, with its practice exercises.
Diploma program · 100 % online
Coach
Learn to stop knowing on the other person's behalf - and create the space in which everyone finds their own answers. A fully online professional coaching program, grounded in real practice.
Hours, support and price
157 hTotal training time
4 hOf one-to-one video coaching, included
€1,200incl. tax, i.e. €100 per month over 12 months
Price subject to a pathway adjusted following the diagnostic interview.
What the price includes4 hours of one-to-one video coaching with your referent, to be scheduled freely across your program. This volume is the same for every learner on this program: it is not decided at the diagnostic. It comes with unlimited e-mail support - as many questions as you need on content, deliverables and method, answered within 72 working hours. If you want more video time, additional 4-hour packages (€300, i.e. +€25/month) can be added at any point.
The promise
What you'll actually be able to do.
By the end of this program, you practice coaching with the rigor of a professional ethical framework and the finesse of a well-honed presence.
You know how to welcome a request without answering it prematurely, build a solid working alliance, run a session with a flexible structure, and hold a maieutic stance that lets the client find their own answers. You become the kind of coach people choose precisely for what you don't give them - a space, a listening ear, questions that shift something.
- Build a solid working alliance and hold an authentic stance.
- Conduct an intake session, co-build the coaching contract, and align goals with values.
- Practice deep listening, master the art of questioning, and structure a session.
- Use specific methodologies (narrative, systemic, belief work, cognitive-behavioral).
- Sustain client commitment, evaluate, and close a coaching process.
- Conduct structured reflective practice, in supervision and case analysis.
- Practice within a rigorous ethical framework and build your positioning as a coach.
Prerequisites
What you need to start
A clear intention to practice coaching, whether as a main activity or as a dimension integrated into another role. Real availability for hands-on practice (coaching several clients during training). A capacity for introspection and personal commitment. No academic prerequisites: Synodeo relies on maturity and stance.
The program
A path built step by step.
01
Building the helping relationship
Everything starts with the quality of the bond: the trust that's built, psychological safety, the working alliance that gets formalized. You learn to conduct a first session and create that particular space where the other person dares to be themselves.
02
Defining goals and framework
A client rarely arrives with what they're actually looking for. You learn to distinguish the stated request from the real one, to check whether a situation is coachable, to use goal-setting models as tools, and to work on aligning goals with values.
03
Maieutic presence and change
The heart of the craft. You work on listening at multiple levels, the quality of a presence that becomes a tool for coaching, the art of maieutic questioning, the power of silence, and structuring a session with rigor without rigidity.
04
Specific methodologies
You broaden your toolkit: narrative and systemic approaches, visualization and belief work, cognitive-behavioral approach - learning to choose the right methodology, introduce it at the right time, and recognize the boundary with therapeutic work.
05
Steering, ethics and positioning
A session never really ends when the session ends. You co-build an action plan, practice the art of not rescuing, close a process, consolidate your ethical framework and ongoing professional development, and work on your positioning to take your place in the community.
Zoom in on the content
What you work on, module by module.
One example of method and one case-study excerpt per module - taken directly from the program's courses.
01
Building the helping relationship
The working allianceThe frameworkPresence & psychological safety
Method in focus
The four moments of first contact: welcoming and letting the client settle in, synchronizing without imitating, naming what you perceive without ever diagnosing, and opening exploration only at the end. The order matters more than the length.
Case in focus
A coach starts her first session too quickly with an efficient, structured client. The session is technically flawless - but the client cancels the next one without re-engaging. In supervision, the coach realizes she skipped the settling-in stage: the bond never had time to form.
02
Defining goals and framework
The request behind the requestThe coaching contractFormulating a goal
Method in focus
Distinguishing the stated request from the real request before contracting, and explicitly stating what coaching is - and isn't - to defuse misunderstandings that become costly later in the process.
Case in focus
A client asks to "manage my time better." Taken at face value, the goal seems clear. But a question left unanswered behind the scenes - confidentiality toward his employer - will undermine all the work that follows, up to disengagement.
03
Maieutic presence and change
Active listeningQuestioning & reframingRunning a session (GROW, SCORE)
Method in focus
Compose, follow up, reframe: conducting a session using structuring models (GROW, SCORE) without ever applying them rigidly - in service of the client, never of the model.
Case in focus
A session goes off in every direction: lots of words exchanged, no progress. Retracing the thread, the coach realizes her follow-up questions were answering her own curiosity rather than what would move the client forward.
04
Specific methodologies
Narrative & systemicVisualization & beliefsCognitive-behavioral approach
Method in focus
The four-step narrative exploration: externalizing the problem, mapping its influence, identifying exceptions already lived, then rewriting a more empowering story with the client.
Case in focus
In a corporate coaching engagement, externalizing the problem - naming it, taking it out of the person carrying it - reveals a system of collective tensions that the individual approach alone hadn't shown.
05
Steering, ethics and positioning
Commitment & accountabilityEvaluate, adjust, closeReflective practice & supervision
Method in focus
Co-building commitment with the client and systematically debriefing what wasn't followed through - not as a failure to sanction, but as material to work with in its own right.
Case in focus
A client's commitments evaporate session after session. Rather than insisting, the coach explores what this evaporation says about the relationship - and closure, later, becomes a piece of work in itself.
Condensed, anonymized excerpts from the program's case studies - for teaching purposes, not transcripts of real sessions.
How it works
100 % remote, at your own pace - never alone.
A fully remote program, open for twelve months from enrollment, that you move through at your own pace - and supported end to end.
Personalized coaching
You're coached yourself: over video, a Synodeo mentor supervises your real coaching sessions, questions your presence and choices, and annotates your black book. Four hours of video coaching are included in the program, alongside unlimited e-mail support.
The black book
Session after session, you log your real client work in it - doubts, judgment calls, turning points - before drawing from it the reflective analysis that will support your diploma.
Lived practice
You don't become a coach on paper: validation rests on real clients actually coached, and on what you're able to say about it.
Assessment
Validated by your practice, not by an exam.
Continuous validation
Nothing waits for the end: your learning is validated along the way, through self-corrected exercises, personalized feedback on your work, and the written dialogue your mentor maintains around your black book.
Final validation
Before a Synodeo mentor, over video, you present and defend the reflective analysis of a real coaching engagement - without ever disclosing your clients' identity or private details.
Diploma & certification
A proven diploma, solid recognition.
At the end of the program, Synodeo awards you its professional diploma. It doesn't certify attendance: it validates competencies actually demonstrated in your black book, tested in real client work and developed with your mentor.
This diploma is part of a dual-recognition model. On one hand, a professional certification backed by an external professional body, which situates your competencies against industry standards. On the other, a professional diploma awarded by Synodeo, which puts the school's own responsibility behind the quality of your training and assessment.
Synodeo designs its own curricula and trains with full pedagogical autonomy; professional recognition, meanwhile, rests on a third party external to the school. The same rigor runs from the first case study to the final defense.
Frequently asked questions
What people often ask us.
Do you need a state-recognized diploma to become a professional coach?
Coaching is not a regulated profession: no state diploma exists to practice it. A coach's credibility rests on the solidity of their training and practice. Synodeo awards its own Coach diploma, built on a demanding framework and validated through real client work, analyzed in supervision.
Can you become a coach without prior coaching experience?
Yes. The program requires no prior coaching experience, but it does require a clear intention, real availability to practice with several clients during training, and a capacity for introspection.
What's the difference between coaching and therapy?
Coaching works on professional goals with a client who is able to act, in the present; therapy addresses suffering. Recognizing this boundary - and referring to a care professional when it's reached - is one of the competencies the program builds.
How does a coach build a client base?
The final stage of the program is dedicated to this: defining your positioning, your offer, your place in the professional community. Your mentor also works with you on this, starting from your real situation.
Professional recognition
A programme recognised by the IACTM.
This programme is recognised by the International Association of Coaches, Therapists & Mentors (IACTM) under Synodeo's accredited-trainer status. Your diploma may carry the IACTM logo, and once you graduate you may apply in your own right for the corresponding IACTM accreditation: Coach.
An accreditation qualifies a programme; it is not a State approval, and it is distinct from the certification of your competencies, which your Synodeo diploma attests. It situates the training against the shared standards of the profession.
Certification partners