Research Paper: Coaching Grounded in the Masculine and Feminine Principles

Research Paper By Josephine Sophie
(Life Coaching, INDIA)

Introduction

The fundamental premise of this paper is based on C.G. Jung’s recognition of archetypal patterns of masculine and feminine, which transcends gender. It exhorts readers not to confuse the inherent gender linked traits with the non-gender linked archetypal principles and patterns. The masculine and feminine principles and the static and dynamic differentiations within them are perhaps the most primary patterns in all of life. Every human contains the static and dynamic energies associated with both masculine and feminine principles.

These four basic patterns, static masculine, dynamic feminine, static feminine and dynamic masculine, underlie all human activity and are revealed in behavior, motivation, fantasies, values, beliefs and other aspects of psychic functioning. At an interpersonal level they describe ways in which parts of self are held, experienced and acted upon by individuals within the family and social system.

The masculine principle urges one to meet competitive challenges, to seek honor and recognition, and to focus on concrete achievements. In direct contrast, the feminine principle values the non competitive creation of things that are appreciated for their own essence regardless of their comparative qualities and emphasizes caring for people and for life in all forms of its manifestation.

It is the theses of this article that human beings find themselves locked into stereotypes because of cultural conditioning and, thus, are disregarding their full potential. Unwittingly, conventional coaching tends to reinforce the typecasts and does very little to tap into the other latent possibilities and integrate them to lead to the development of a wholesome human. Coaching tends to align itself with the divide of the masculine and feminine principles and can take a single dimensional approach.

Neither principle is adequate on its own. As coaches, we can do much of our best work in opposition to a severe cultural bias that gives little value to nurturing, receptive, accommodating behavior, especially in the corporate world that idealizes active, assertive, controlling behavior. Within each individual is a whole universe that holds innumerable possible states of being which are in the realm of both the masculine and feminine. Given that our culture is patriarchal, men have suffered from the oppression of their own feminine qualities, for example being vulnerable or nurturing and women have raged against men in the outer world, unaware of the ways in which their own inner masculine aspects have oppressed them more brutally and consistently than outer men could ever imagine.