PART 3 | The Scientific Practice of Jungian Coaching

Written by John O’Brien, Ph.D.

Read PART I | The Scientific Practice of Jungian Coaching

Read PART II | The Scientific Practice of Jungian Coaching

Individual Case Study: Corporate Leadership

The client, a gifted graduate of the leading British and American universities, referred themself for Jungian coaching shortly after their appointment to a senior position in a Global company based in Europe. They had received evaluations from their employer that although an outstanding professional, and indeed ‘brilliant’, their relationship skills required improvement. Feedback had been collected via 360 feedback from colleagues and superiors. The gist was that they seemed ‘emotionally disconnected’ with colleagues and subordinates. This had been delivered with some concern, at their annual evaluation, in which his promotion prospects had been discussed. Their initial coaching aims were therefore to improve relationships at work and to secure their next promotion. 

Dance of Coaching

The client had read about Jungian coaching and felt an affinity for this approach, on the basis of its positive orientation and its respect for diversity. (The client described themself as belonging to particular minority groups). After an initial ‘chemistry check’ they engaged in Jungian Coaching for long-term work, at a frequency that felt comfortable, initially once per two weeks.  They varied the intensity of the work over time, sometimes requiring more, sometimes less frequent engagement. Acknowledging the importance of mutually agreed time boundaries for safe space, they found a natural rhythm to the ‘dance of coaching’. (This differs from traditional analytic arrangements in that appropriate self-agency is encouraged by considered flexibility in making choices within a secure and confident coaching relationship, rather than by the ‘containment’ of rigid time boundaries.)  In this case, the client preferred a ‘partnership working approach’ which fully respected and engaged their intellectual capabilities and curiosity. They soon reported and reflected deeply on his conscious and ‘unconscious’ (symbolic) experiences, including positive and problematic encounters, memories, and dreams.  

Emerging Challenges & Deepening the Coaching Process

They reported two persistent themes. The first was difficulty with unreasonable and unfair male superiors, and the second was with a particular female subordinate manager who appeared to be subversive. On completion of the first stage of Jungian coaching, they reported improvements which were substantiated by 360 feedback and evaluation. Having secured their initial objectives, they then reported similar issues in personal relationships that they wished to address.  The same thematic issues which appeared at work appeared in the personal domain.

The coaching was deepened by the client giving a full personal and family history (anamnesis) and taking the Word Association Experiment. As a result, they discovered two key (by definition, unconscious) complexes at work. Firstly, they became aware of a lack of trust in male authority. They noticed that many of their early survival strategies learned in response to their father were being automatically repeated in their attitude towards their superiors, from whom they expected the same betrayal, dishonesty, and lack of care (which they had reportedly experienced as a child). This left them in a position where, despite willingness and utmost efforts to relate in a positive way to colleagues, they found it difficult to emotionally engage. Secondly, they received feedback from their subordinates that they were a hard-working genius and not unkind, but distant from them. They connected 360 feedback that they were ‘cold’ and ‘aloof’ to their early maternal situation which had been lacking in warmth, through the necessity of their mother to run the large family household in the absence of the father. 

Complexes and Their Impact on Professional and Personal Life

These were identified as negative parental complexes, i.e. clusters of feeling-toned experiences affecting present perception, decision making, and action without their full awareness of them. In this case, they were also identified by the client as ‘cultural complexes’, as they connected them to influential and repeated themes in his family and culture, as well as to the specific companies and geographic locations in which he worked. As they found themselves increasingly able to self-diagnose, their ability to understand others expanded.  Partly motivated by spiritual values, they began to study in search of greater meaning. At the same time, they took the WAE again to gain a snapshot of their psyche at that time (one of personal crisis) further identifying complexes and stimulating productive reflection and dialogue.

Developing Emotional Awareness and Empathy

They increasingly shared narratives and dreams and reflected upon these to achieve freshly stated goals of a) awareness, expression, and mastery of feelings, and b) a method of self-agency.  Their capacity for empathy grew with their ability to think symbolically (my observation). 

By paying close attention to their feelings and to the responses of others, they learned to notice when they were in the grip of a complex and became more able to plan and implement more effective ways of dealing with human interactions. They noticed a close relationship between complex episodes and the triggering of the inferior function as described in MBTI terms (Quenk, 1996). They began to interpret their own dreams, to observe synchronicities and to engage more and in their own way with their spiritual life. 

Transformation: Changes in Relationships and Professional Success

They noticed that they would often find themselves surrounded by significant others (for ex. boss, certain colleagues, partner…) who reflected the same significant complexes constellated on their internal ‘stage’. As they worked on transforming their complexes, the outer situation changed, reflecting more positive values and occasioning situations in which their natural talents found room for authentic expression.  

Interestingly, when several years later, they were contacted by the author to participate in this research, and they immediately replied with the news that after two promotions, they had moved to an authoritative and influential role with greater responsibility (good authority) and influence in their global industry, while expanding their portfolio to include creative and mentoring interests. The following week they reported a significant breakthrough in personal relationships.   

Among other outcomes, they also reported greater self-effectiveness, improved relationships, a release of fear, improved physical health, a greater tolerance of uncertainty, and trust in themself.