Soul-Centered Coaching: Encouraging Psychological Creativity Within a Life Coaching Partnership

Abstract

James Hillman (1972) declared, “What the psyche has experienced during the past seventy years in analytical therapy should also be possible for it wherever it goes” (p. 5). As a life coach—someone who starts from a place of curiosity—I became curious. Did this mean that the imaginal practices of depth psychology could be used within a life coaching container? Could imaginal practices such as Jung’s active imagination and Hillman’s personifying work in a life coaching partnership? What benefits might life coaching clients gain through creating a connection with psychic figures? What would a life coach—or a depth psychologist—need to merge these two ways of engaging with individuals, both in terms of training and resources? And, finally, what does each profession—life coaching and depth psychology—obtain from such a merger? Using the methodology of hermeneutic phenomenology, I entered into a six-session soul-centered coaching partnership with three participants. Each took part in six sessions designed to develop their psychological creativity while experiencing a coaching relationship. Factoring in my own observations, as well as the personal accounts of the participants, I found that imaginal practices positively impacted participants’ abilities to connect with and move through their life transitions. This merging of the two professions would require life coaches to undergo extensive learning in depth psychology, and depth psychologists to acquire professional coaching skills, but this study holds forth promise for a blending of the two fields.