Should coaches consider the intimacy created in the coaching relationship and its impact, asks Lis Merrick of the Coaching and Mentoring Research Unit at Sheffield Business School The concept of intimacy is so often tainted with sexual overtones that the coaching profession tends to shun discussion of it or shuffle with uncomfortableness when it is mentioned. Intimacy at work has been well researched by Ridley-Duff¹. He links intimacy to the idea of detailed knowledge about something or someone: “Intimacy develops when two people seek to give each other...