As a coach and psychologist, my work has long centred around a question that continues to evolve with each client: how do we truly transform? Over time, I’ve come to see that transformation often starts with symbol. A dream, an archetype, a sensation in the body—these become entry points into deeper awareness. My participation in 2020 in the Masters in Transpersonal Psychology with Alef Trust served as the springboard to the idea of applying archetypal work within a transpersonal coaching framework.
The thresholds between the known and the unknown have guided me into the development of Archetypal Coaching, an integrative model that weaves together transpersonal coaching psychology, astrology, dreamwork, active imagination, and somatic awareness. Drawing inspiration from sources such as Greek Theurgy, Jung’s transcendent function, Hillman’s imaginal psychology and Dängeli’s transpersonal coaching, this approach invites clients to participate in an active, embodied dialogue with their own psyche.
Rather than interpreting dreams or astrological patterns as fixed messages, Archetypal Coaching presents them as symbolic fields where the client can engage, explore, and choose. Our inner archetypal catalogue offers countless potentials—Mars might inspire courage, Saturn might help ground a commitment—and by consciously anchoring through a trait that already belongs to the client, a powerful shift occurs. This isn’t about becoming someone else; it’s about remembering who we are, symbolically and somatically.
Anchoring through an archetypal trait that inherently belongs to the client has a significant and powerful effect. When a person experiences a quality not as something to acquire, but as a living part of themselves, it becomes deeply integrated. That’s where somatic awareness and active imagination come in. As clients explore symbols through the body and imagination, they engage with the unconscious in a way that transcends analysis. This is gentle, experiential work that unfolds through images, sensations, and inner dialogue. The coach becomes a guide—not to answers, but to meaningful participation with the psyche.
Once dialogue and recognition with symbols and archetypes have taken place, clients create or choose symbols that represent their higher potential, embodying Jung’s concept of the transcendent function—where conscious and unconscious elements unite to form a new whole. This capacity to create symbols enables consciousness to transcend inner conflicts and achieve balance.
I’ll be sharing a glimpse of this work at two conferences this summer. On Wednesday, June 11, I’ll be presenting a poster at the Coaching Psychology Conference in Birmingham, organized by the British Psychological Society. Then, on July 7, I’ll be in Barcelona to display the same poster at the Science of Consciousness Conference hosted by the University of Arizona.
The full approach will be explored in my upcoming book, Archetypal Coaching: Creating Synergies through Astrology and Dreamwork, to be published by Routledge on August 25. Readers can receive a 20% discount using the code 25AFLY2. For more information visit: www.routledge.com/9781041041900
I hope this work serves as an invitation—to engage with symbols not as abstract ideas, but as living presences. The psyche, I believe, is always in conversation. Archetypal Coaching is simply a way of listening more closely.
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