Animas Centre for Coaching

Animas Centre for Coaching is a UK-based coach training organisation founded by Nick Bolton in 2008. It is one of the leading transformative coaching schools in the UK and European field, offering an accredited Diploma in Transformative Coaching delivered fully online to cohorts internationally. Animas is the institutional home of the 12 Principles of Transformative Coaching framework and has trained a generation of coaches in its distinctive philosophical and practical approach.

Animas operates as a fully remote organisation. There is no campus: faculty, students, and supervisors are distributed across the UK and internationally, and every element of the training is delivered online.

The organisation distinguishes itself from goal-oriented coaching schools by anchoring its work in existential, humanistic, and phenomenological traditions. Where most coaching training emphasises technique and structure, Animas emphasises the philosophical foundations of coaching practice: what coaching is, what makes transformation possible, and how the coach's stance shapes the work as much as their skill.

At a glance

• Founded — 2008

• Founder and CEO — Nick Bolton

• Type — Coach Training Organisation (CTO)

• Structure — Fully remote; no physical campus

• Current programme — Accredited Diploma in Transformative Coaching (online, ICF Level 2 / PCC pathway accredited)

• Accreditations — ICF (Level 2), EMCC (Senior Practitioner Level), Association for Coaching (AC)

• Sister organisation — International Centre for Coaching Supervision

• Distinctive contribution — The 12 Principles of Transformative Coaching framework

• Canonical book — The Art of Transformative Coaching: Philosophy, Principles and Practice (Bolton, 2025)

History

Animas was founded in 2008 by Nick Bolton, an existentially-trained coach and supervisor who saw the early UK coaching field as overweight on goal-setting and underweight on the philosophical depth that coaching at its best could offer. The organisation was built around a different premise: that coaching is most powerful when it operates at the level of the client's identity, perspective, and meaning rather than merely at the level of behaviour change.

Across nearly two decades of operation, Animas has built one of the most distinctive transformative coaching curricula in the global field. The organisation expanded its accreditations across the major professional bodies (ICF, EMCC, AC), built a sister organisation in the International Centre for Coaching Supervision, and developed the 12 Principles of Transformative Coaching framework, codified most fully in Bolton's 2025 book The Art of Transformative Coaching: Philosophy, Principles and Practice.

Animas has operated as a remote, online-first organisation throughout, with cohort-based teaching delivered globally and a community of practice that includes faculty, current students, and a substantial graduate alumni network across more than 50 countries.

Programmes and accreditation

Accredited Diploma in Transformative Coaching — Animas' flagship and current training programme. ICF Level 2 (PCC pathway) accredited; accredited by EMCC at Senior Practitioner Level; recognised by the Association for Coaching (AC). Cohort-based, fully online delivery, typically running 12 months. Covers the 12 Principles framework and foundational coaching practice, and includes 1-to-1 mentoring sessions, 40 practice coaching hours, coaching supervision, practice groups, and observed real-client work.

International Centre for Coaching Supervision — Animas' sister organisation, offering specialist training in coaching supervision. It builds on the transformative orientation and is one of the more developed supervision training pathways in the UK and European field. It operates as a separate organisation rather than as an Animas programme.

What makes Animas distinctive

Three structural choices distinguish Animas from goal-oriented training schools:

Philosophy-first curriculum — Animas' Diploma leads with the philosophical and theoretical foundations of transformative coaching before introducing technique. The argument is that a coach who has not internalised what the work is cannot make their technique transformative. This produces a longer training arc but a deeper practitioner.

Fully remote delivery — Animas was an early adopter of full online delivery for accredited coach training and has invested heavily in cohort-based online learning. The organisation trains coaches globally without geographic constraint, a position it has held since well before the field's broader move to online delivery.

Integration over dogma — The 12 Principles framework explicitly draws from multiple traditions (psychological, philosophical, somatic, systemic) without committing to a single one. Animas-trained coaches typically emerge with a broader theoretical fluency than coaches trained in single-method schools.

Recognition and publishing

The Animas Diploma is recognised across all three major UK and European professional bodies (ICF at Level 2, EMCC at Senior Practitioner Level, and AC). Bolton's books, including the 2025 canonical The Art of Transformative Coaching, are increasingly used as course texts in other UK and European training programs that draw on the existential and humanistic traditions. The Animas YouTube channel, blog, and white papers publish ongoing content on transformative coaching practice, and the organisation maintains an active community of practice through its alumni network and supervisory groups.