What Every Coach Needs To Understand About The Shadow
A professional orientation for new and existing coaches.
$27 USD
Have you ever finished a coaching session with the quiet sense that something deeper was happening beneath the surface - but you couldn’t quite name what it was?
✔️ The client understood their pattern.
✔️ They were motivated to change.
✔️ They made some good progress...
... yet they slipped back into old patterns of resistance and self sabotage.
This moment is surprisingly common in coaching.
Many coaches recognise it in their sessions, sensing that something unseen is playing out, but without a clear framework for understanding or working with it.
When insight and motivation are already present, and the pattern still repeats, coaching is no longer dealing with strategy, surface-level mindset, or goal-setting alone.
It is touching the deeper forces within the psyche that shape identity and behaviour.
GET INSTANT ACCESS TO THE BRIEFINGYou may recognise this moment in your coaching containers...
The client signs up for coaching with the best of intentions and some juicy goals.
They have a good understanding of their challenges and patterns that hold them back.
They say they want something different, and they're motivated to make a real change.
... and yet, the behaviour quietly continues as if they have one foot on the brake.
Sure, they make some good progress, but over time you notice something familiar creeping back in...
The old pattern.
The self-sabotage.
The subtle resistance.
At this point, many coaches begin wondering:
- "Am I missing something here? Is this a mindset block"?
- "Do they just need more motivation"?
- "Should I challenge them more directly"?
But often what is appearing in that moment is not a lack of insight or effort...
It signals unseen forces operating beneath conscious awareness.
The missing concept in many coaching models...
Depth psychology has long recognised that human behaviour is not governed by conscious intention alone...
Even when clients have insight, motivation, and clear goals, unconscious dynamics shape behaviour beneath the surface.
Patterns are often influenced by:
✔️ The subconscious shadow - aspects of the self that remain outside conscious awareness
✔️ Unconscious identity protections
✔️ Relational projections between people
✔️ Early conditioning and learned adaptations
✔️ Competing parts within the Psychic Architecture
These dynamics appear regularly in coaching conversations, yet many coaching trainings never provide a clear framework for recognising them.
This professional briefing introduces the psychological map that helps coaches make sense of these moments.
What You'll Learn
Inside this 2.5 hour professional briefing:
Why Insight Isn't Enough
Why insight and motivation don’t always create lasting change in our clients (or ourselves).
How the Psychic Split Forms
Learn how the split forms within the psyche, and why this is crucial to your work as a coach.
The Shadow in the Coaching Room
How to recognise when Shadow actually shows up in real coaching conversations (not what you think)!
The Invisible Relationship
Transference and the curious dynamics that arise between coach and client that can leave you baffled.
Seeing the Shadow in Real Time
Micro-skills for identifying and working with shadow during coaching sessions.
Surface Coaching vs Depth Coaching
Why depth coaching is the next frontier of an evolving industry. How to stand out by serving better.
Not everything that shapes us is conscious. Not everything that challenges us is clinical.
What's Included in the Briefing:
A Full 2.5 Hour Professional Briefing
The video briefing is pre-recorded and available for you to watch on-demand. There are teaching slides and structured, practical explanations to support your learning.Â
Micro-Skills and Real Coaching Examples
Alongside the psychological framework, you’ll see real coaching examples and learn simple micro-skills for recognising when shadow dynamics may be shaping a conversation.
Immediate Access After Your Purchase
You’ll receive instant access to the full 2.5-hour video briefing, so you can begin watching immediately and revisit sections whenever needed. Many coaches revisit the briefing multiple times!Â
This Is Not Generic Shadow Work...
This briefing introduces psychodynamic coaching - a depth-oriented approach inspired by the work of Carl Jung and the psychology of Individuation.
At its heart, individuation describes the lifelong process of becoming more fully oneself... integrating the hidden, rejected, and unconscious parts of the psyche that profoundly shape our behaviour.
While these ideas originate in depth psychology, they translate beautifully into a coaching framework.
Because the moments coaches encounter in sessions - resistance, repeating patterns, emotional triggers, self sabotage - are often expressions of these deeper forces within.
Psychodynamic coaching offers a way to recognise and work with these dynamics ethically within coaching, without stepping into clinical or therapeutic practice.
For many coaches, this perspective finally explains moments in sessions that previously felt difficult to name.
As coaching continues to mature as a profession, more practitioners are beginning to recognise that real transformation often involves more than surface-level goals, mindset, or behavioural change alone.
This briefing is designed as a thoughtful starting point for coaches who sense there is more happening in a session than most training models can explain.
About Amanda Davies
Founder of the Psychodynamic Coaching Institute® and creator of the Psychodynamic Coach Academy, the world’s first certification dedicated to psychodynamic life coaching.
With 25 years of experience, Amanda is a Registered Psychologist and Fellow of the Association for Coaching. Her work has been devoted to exploring the unseen currents of the psyche - the shadow, the unconscious, and the hidden dynamics that shape how we live, lead, and relate to the world around us.
Through her work, she has pioneered a depth-oriented coaching methodology inspired by the insights of Carl Jung, translating the wisdom of depth psychology into rigorous, ethical coaching practice.
Today, through the Psychodynamic Coaching Institute® - a registered training provider accredited by multiple international professional bodies - she teaches coaches around the world how to recognise and work with the deeper dynamics of the psyche, establishing her as a transformative force in the field of personal development.
Access the Briefing Today
$27
USD
- A full, 2.5 hour professional video briefing
- Micro-skills and real coaching examples
- Immediate access after your purchase
- Return to the briefing and revisit whenever needed
- For new, aspiring and existing coaches
Get Immediate Access.
What Every Coach Needs to Understand About the Shadow.
Whether you are a new, aspiring, or experienced coach, understanding shadow dynamics is foundational to working with real human behaviour.
Because sooner or later, coaching encounters more than goals, motivation, or surface-level change.
These concepts are often only explored in our more detailed depth coaching trainings, yet they shape many of the moments coaches face in everyday practice.
This professional briefing makes the core concepts accessible as a standalone learning session for coaches at any stage of their development.
Access the full 2.5-hour briefing - Just $27Â
If you’ve ever sensed that something deeper was happening in a coaching conversation, this briefing will help give you the language to understand it.
Questions Coaches Often Ask:
How long is the briefing?
Is this suitable for new or aspiring coaches?
Is this therapy training?
When do I get access?
Is this part of the Psychodynamic Coach Academy?
A Foundational Perspective for Coaches
Most coaches eventually encounter moments in sessions that don’t quite fit the models they were originally trained in.
Understanding shadow and unconscious dynamics provides a deeper framework for recognising what is actually unfolding in those moments.
Access the Professional Briefing for $27