Soul Sessions | Jungian Coaching Podcast by CreativeMind

Episode: How Openness Impacts Coaching: The Big Five Personality Traits

Date: January 6, 2025
Hosts: Deborah Berndt Maldonado & Dr. Rob Maldonado

Main Theme and Purpose

This episode launches a five-part series exploring the "Big Five" personality traits and their role in Jungian coaching. The focus here is on openness to experience—one of the Big Five—and its critical impact on the effectiveness of both coach and client. Deborah and Dr. Rob discuss why openness matters, how it relates to Jungian theory and individuation, and practical ways to foster openness in oneself and in coaching practice.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Discuss Personality in Coaching?

• Personality assessment is fundamental in coaching and psychology, helping determine “what makes a good coach?” and guiding effective coach training.
• Many tests (Myers-Briggs, Big Five, archetype tests) abound, but the CreativeMind approach emphasizes Jungian coaching ideals: personality as an expression, not a fixed identity.
• “If you take a test and you think, I am this personality, you're limiting yourself. So we're going to open your mind to seeing beyond just the labels and create your own design of who you are. That's what individuation is, right?” – Deborah (01:19)

2. Overview of the Big Five Traits

(03:01)

• Openness
• Conscientiousness
• Extraversion
• Agreeableness
• Neuroticism
  Today’s focus: Openness

3. Defining Openness

• Contrasted with a fixed or closed mindset: seeing oneself or one's life as unchangeable (03:45)
• Lacking openness equates to being “uncoachable.”
  • “Even if you’re the most fabulous coach in the world...if you have a client not open to new experiences, they're not going to get results.” – Deborah (04:38)
• Openness is a spectrum; everyone has some capacity, but the degree matters (05:13).

Two extremes:

• Rigid, repeat-the-past approach: safe but stagnant
• Excessive openness/adventure: may lack balance
  (06:16)

4. Openness in Jungian Coaching

• Traits enhancing coaching: curiosity, creativity, and symbolic thinking.
• Curiosity: “You want to understand how your mind works and how your clients’ mind is working and how you can help them as a coach through that curiosity.” – Dr. Rob (07:11)
• Creativity: Comes from the collective unconscious, not just personal ingenuity (11:44).
• Symbolic Thinking: Ability to see meaning and patterns beyond the literal or linear (16:22).
  • “Instead of looking at even like things that seem like bad luck...if you can look at symbolically or pay attention to your dreams...you start to see your connectedness to everything.” – Deborah (17:44)

5. The Role of the Ego & Persona

• From a Jungian lens, the ego creates the personality to manage life’s unpredictability.
• If too rigid, it blocks growth, limits openness, and fuels neurosis and anxiety (08:21)
  • “If we want to control our life, we know we get neurotic, right, we get anxious, we get upset...when things are uncertain.” – Dr. Rob
• Comfort with unpredictability = resilience and adaptability (09:39)

6. Growth Mindset & Handling Change

• Openness enables creative problem-solving, adaptation to crisis, and thriving in uncertainty (see: COVID example) (09:39–11:20)
  • “The people that survived and thrived are people that said, well, how do we make this creative?” – Deborah

7. Collective Unconscious Explained (11:43–15:36)

• Jung distinguishes personal unconscious (your own stored memories/emotions) from the collective unconscious (repository of all humanity’s experiences and wisdom).
  • “Jung says, think of it as a repository of humanity. All the generations that have come before us have contributed to that collective unconscious.” – Dr. Rob (14:02)
• Deep creativity arises from this shared “soul”—accessible after integrating the “shadow” (personal unconscious).

8. Practical Cultivation of Openness

• Engage in art and literature to naturally step out of rigidity into creativity and symbolic thinking (19:50–20:47)
• Let go of coaching scripts! Openness means co-creating with clients, not imposing fixed curricula (22:05)
  • “Jung himself said, learn everything...but then forget it. Don’t read scripts and just be with your client as two souls collaborating on a creative journey.” – Dr. Rob (21:18)

9. Depth Coaching vs. Ordinary Coaching

• Ordinary coaching works on the conscious, external, “problem-solving” level.
• A depth (Jungian) coach leverages symbolism, dreams, and unconscious material for transformation (18:59).
  • “You're not just rearranging the furniture, you're actually being maybe a direct participant in your own destiny versus just trying to navigate life through the external.” – Deborah (19:22)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“Our personality isn’t who we are, it’s who we’re expressing ourself as in that moment. But it’s not a fixed concept.”
— Deborah (01:19)

“Even if you’re the most fabulous coach in the world … if you have a client not open to new experiences, they’re not going to get results.”
— Deborah (04:38)

“Curiosity, creativity, and symbolic thinking … give you a great advantage in working with the depths of the psyche.”
— Dr. Rob (16:06)

“If we want to control our life, … we get neurotic, … we get anxious, we get upset … when things are uncertain.”
— Dr. Rob (08:21)

“Jung himself said, learn everything, all the techniques, all the theory, but then forget it. … Just be with your client as two souls collaborating on a creative journey.”
— Dr. Rob (21:18)

“You’re not just rearranging the furniture, you’re actually being maybe a direct participant in your own destiny versus … trying to navigate life through the external.”
— Deborah (19:22)

Important Timestamps

• [01:19] – The distinction between personality test results and authentic self; concept of individuation
• [03:01] – Introduction to the Big Five traits
• [04:38] – Why openness matters for coaching outcomes
• [06:16] – The balance and extremes in openness
• [07:11] – Curiosity’s centrality for coaches
• [08:21] – The Jungian ego and its impact on openness
• [09:39] – Adaptability, thriving in unpredictability, COVID example
• [11:44] – Jung’s view: Creativity as collective unconscious
• [14:02] – The collective unconscious explained
• [16:22] – Symbolic thinking and its power
• [18:59] – Depth coaching vs. ordinary coaching approaches
• [19:50] – How art and literature cultivate openness
• [21:18] – Jung’s advice: Learn all, then forget; co-create with the client
• [22:05] – Openness in session: let go of scripts and ‘shoulds’

Summary

This episode lays a foundation for understanding openness—not just as a personality trait, but as a fundamental mindset and skill for effective Jungian coaching. Deborah and Dr. Rob explain how curiosity, creativity, and symbolic thinking make coaches more capable of guiding deep transformation, connecting individual change to the wider tapestry of human experience represented in the collective unconscious. Through tangible examples and vivid metaphors, they encourage listeners to see openness not as a fixed score, but as a living, practical capacity to be cultivated for personal growth and transformative coaching impact.

Next episode: Conscientiousness – The Structured and Ethical Coach.