Akke-Jeanne Klerk

Jungian Coaching

In this blog series, I answer a few questions I was asked by my colleague Gauri Ramesh about Jungian Coaching. Gauri is the Certificate Program Coordinator at Jung Platform and wondered if I could say a little bit more about the Jungian Coaching Certificate Program that I developed.  

What is Jungian coaching?

Jungian coaching is partnering with a client to maximize their potential. But this is not potential as conventional coaching usually defines it. Conventional coaching is about performance, productivity, or becoming a better version of a predetermined self. Jungian coaching is about becoming more fully who you already are at the deepest level.

How do we know about that potential? We listen to what the psyche is showing us. Not just what the client says they want, but what their dreams are pointing to. What lights up when they speak. What goes quiet. What keeps returning, uninvited, to the surface of their life. The relationship a client has with their own psyche is key.

Most of us have learned to listen to the loudest voice inside us, the ego, the part that plans, protects, and performs. Jungian coaching and Jungian life coaching gently expand that listening. In depth psychology, the Self is often experienced as the guide within. It speaks in images, in longing, in the things that unexpectedly move us.

In coaching, we tune in to that voice and follow it. We pay attention to the persona, the shadow, and the Self. The persona is the face we show the world. The shadow holds what we have pushed aside in order to fit in, to be accepted, to survive.

The Self is the deeper organizing center, the part of us that knows, even when the ego does not, what this life is truly asking of us. Jungian coaching works at the intersection of all three. For coaches, therapists, and anyone drawn to depth psychology, this is where real transformation becomes possible.

coaching and jungian psychology

Conventional coaching is a short-term partnership; it is oftentimes results-focused. The desired results are usually formulated from an ego perspective (‘ego’ is what a person identifies with as ‘I’). The underlying worldview seems to be that we ourselves create our lives. We can choose who we want to be, and if we choose well, we can live a comfortable life. 

Jungian analysis is a type of therapy that lasts for several years and is about exploring the depths of the unconscious. It is focused on awareness raising and becoming whole. The underlying worldview is one in which it is the task (and privilege) of our lifetime to become our true selves. Like the acorn that will turn into an Oaktree, we need to become aware of our own essence so we can facilitate its expression in our lives. This requires a willingness to let go of our ego desires and learn about the desires of the Self. Through analysis, we learn to develop an ongoing relationship to the Self.

Jungian coaching combines Jungian psychology with temporary companionship. We partner with our client on their life journey, just for a short time. We are in an equal relationship to our clients (meaning that we are not the guide nor a mentor for our clients).  Rather we tune in and the Self guides the process. It requires deep listening from the coach and the client. 

Also it requires that the coach has lived experience and has learned ways to deal with woundings and challenges on their life path.

what happens in a jungian coaching session

In Jungian coaching sessions, we follow what has aliveness and imagination for the client. We engage in shadow work, we pay attention to the imagination, dreams, to symptoms, longings, to repeating patterns and situations. And in the process, we might have to change the course of the coaching a few times. Rather than ‘willing a way through’ to get a desired outcome, in Jungian Coaching the client learns to listen to their own psyche, their sense of self expands and they are more aligned with their Self's desires for life. In coaching we also work with images, the body and how to decipher what the telos of our symptoms is. 

what is The Story Behind the Jungian Coaching Program

At 21, I picked up Carl Jung for the first time. Something in me recognized it immediately. I could see my future clearly: by 40, I would be a Jungian analyst, working deeply with people, exploring dreams, following the psyche wherever it led.

I worked toward that image with everything I had. A Master's degree in Psychology. Six years of personal Jungian analysis. The beginnings of analyst training. And then, quietly, the image started to fade. Not because something had gone wrong. But because it was complete. The vision that had carried me so far simply stopped asking anything of me.

At the time, that made no sense. But Jung had taught me something essential. It is not the ego that shapes a life worth living. It is the Soul. And the Soul speaks in images, in aliveness, in the quiet withdrawal of energy from what no longer serves the deeper journey. I had learned to follow those hints. So I let the old image go and waited.

What followed was a liminal time. In between. I coached clients. I taught coaching skills. I kept reading: Hillman, Thomas Moore, Bosnak, Marion Woodman, Tina Stromsted. I stayed close to the work without knowing where it was leading. And in the meantime I facilitated coaching certificate trainings from a psychodynamic perspective. 

Then, slowly, something began to stir. A fantasy took shape. What if these two worlds could be brought together? What if depth psychology could live inside a coaching relationship?

The idea grew quietly at first. Then it caught fire. The image of a Jungian Coaching program became vividly, urgently alive. It did not feel like something I invented. It felt like something that had been waiting. Waiting for me to find it, and teach it.

The Jungian Coaching Program: What to Expect

I have developed a coaching model and several tools that take key Jungian concepts into account. In an on-demand course I explain the model, provide examples and offer a few tools people can easily apply in their coaching. 

In the Certificate Program, we dive into the depths of Jungian Coaching. We put the soul at the center of the coaching. We reflect on key concepts in Jungian psychology and apply them in conversations. Apart from shadow work, we work with the imagination, dreams, and mythology. These skills are necessary for sparking the individuation process of our clients. Deep transformation may happen. 
This blog is updated in June 2026.

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Akke-Jeanne Klerk
Akke-Jeanne is Jung Platform’s co-founder & Jungian Coach. Her background consists of a Master’s in Psychology, and several years of training in Jungian Analysis. She is the author of ‘Psychology of Heartbreak’ (in Dutch) and has offered trainings on coaching for over a decade.

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