Coaching has established itself as a key component of employee learning and development. Yet despite the prevalence and impact of coaching in organisations there has been a lack of theory regarding the processes through which coaching behaviours influence outcomes for coachees (i.e. motivation performance and wellbeing). As such in the current review we integrate theory from the emerging humanistic coaching literature with self-determination theory to explicate a process model of how different types of coaching practices (autonomy- competency- and relatedness-supportive behaviours) that are integral to humanistic coaching influence employee outcomes through the attainment of psychological needs (autonomy competence and relatedness). The proposed model has practical implications to enhance the success of coaching relationships in addition to creating a stronger theoretical foundation upon which humanistic coaching research and practice can draw.