Highly specialized training to facilitate profound client change
Percepta Leadership’s Center for Applied Psychodynamics helps coaches, leaders and HR professionals facilitate profound, lasting change by developing specialized skill in working with the unconscious dynamics that shape how people think, feel, lead, and relate.
Deepening Your Practice: 3 Psychodynamic Concepts to Strengthen Executive Coaching Outcomes
Get your FREE copy of our actionable mini-toolkit, complete with core psychodynamic insights and reflection tools to boost coaching effectiveness.
Learn the psychological drivers of human behavior through our
Psychodynamic Coaching programs
Deepening Your
Coaching Practice -
Understanding the “Why”
As leadership roles become more complex, the pressures leaders carry increasingly show up in coaching spaces. Psychodynamic coaching helps coaches deepen their capacity to coach to clients’ underlying emotional and relational dynamics, and the unconscious patterns that shape how leaders think, respond, and lead.
Curious to Learn More?
When It’s Felt but Not Said: Working with Client Affect
For coaches, the ability to recognize, tolerate, and hold client affect is essential. When clients feel safe enough for their full experience to be present, defenses soften—allowing deeper exploration, insight, and more meaningful change.
Curious to Learn More?
Working with Defenses:
A Psychodynamic Perspective
When leaders encounter stress, conflict, or threat to their sense of self, familiar protective patterns are often activated. These responses, such as perfectionism, minimizing, or intellectualizing, are not consciously chosen; they are natural, adaptive responses to emotional pressure – not as problems to eliminate.
Curious to Learn More?
Understanding Resistance:
When Goals and
Vulnerability Collide
From a psychodynamic perspective, resistance is not opposition—it is a signal that something meaningful in the client’s internal or relational experience feels at risk. When coaches recognize this, they can respond with greater attunement and protect the coaching alliance, rather than inadvertently working against it.
Curious to Learn More?
Learn the psychological drivers of human behavior through our
Psychodynamic Coaching programs
Deepening Your
Coaching Practice -
Understanding the “Why”
As leadership roles become more complex, the pressures leaders carry increasingly show up in coaching spaces. Psychodynamic coaching helps coaches deepen their capacity to coach to clients’ underlying emotional and relational dynamics, and the unconscious patterns that shape how leaders think, respond, and lead.
Curious to Learn More?
When It’s Felt but Not Said: Working with Client Affect
For coaches, the ability to recognize, tolerate, and hold client affect is essential. When clients feel safe enough for their full experience to be present, defenses soften—allowing deeper exploration, insight, and more meaningful change.
Curious to Learn More?
Working with Defenses:
A Psychodynamic Perspective
When leaders encounter stress, conflict, or threat to their sense of self, familiar protective patterns are often activated. These responses, such as perfectionism, minimizing, or intellectualizing, are not consciously chosen; they are natural, adaptive responses to emotional pressure – not as problems to eliminate.
Curious to Learn More?
Understanding Resistance:
When Goals and
Vulnerability Collide
From a psychodynamic perspective, resistance is not opposition—it is a signal that something meaningful in the client’s internal or relational experience feels at risk. When coaches recognize this, they can respond with greater attunement and protect the coaching alliance, rather than inadvertently working against it.
Curious to Learn More?
Learn the psychological drivers of human behavior through our
Psychodynamic Coaching programs
Tanna Brodbar, Founder, discusses how Psychodynamic Coaching adds depth by helping coaches understand what’s happening beneath clients’ words and behaviors, and how to leverage that understanding to guide attunement and curiosity – from a grounded, ‘whole human’ lens.
Become an ICF-Accredited
Certified
Psychodynamic Leadership Coach
Deepen your leadership coaching capabilities in just 3 months and earn 29 ICF continuing education credits. Join an elite group of coaches trained in psychodynamic leadership coaching through our ICF-accredited Certified Psychodynamic Leadership Coach program.
Our Certified Psychodynamic Leadership Coach program equips coaches with the understanding of unconscious dynamics and practical tools and skills to work with clients in the coaching context.
ICF-accredited (29 CCEs). Rigorously peer-reviewed.
Taught by experienced faculty.
February 2026 Founding Cohort – Closed
Next cohort starts September, 2026
Space is limited.
Founding Cohort Price
USD$2,500.00
(plus applicable tax)
Learn psychodynamic leadership coaching at your own pace
Dig into what really makes a leader tick. Our psychodynamic coach training workshops go beyond conventional coaching strategies and deeper into the psychological factors that can shape a leader’s behavior, relationships, and decision-making processes. Workshops are grounded in psychodynamic psychology and provide practical, in-depth strategies along with real-life client scenarios to enhance leadership coaching outcomes.
Get certified in psychodynamic coaching techniques at whatever time works best for you! Our standalone courses (below) are fully online and self-paced.
Get certified in psychodynamic coaching techniques at whatever time works best for you! Our standalone courses (below) are fully online and self-paced.
Far From Freud: Psychology Fundamentals for Psychodynamic Coaching
What is psychodynamic coaching? Learn foundational psychodynamic concepts, understand benefits, limitations, and applications of psychodynamic coaching, and work through key distinctions between coaching and therapy.
ICF accreditation: 3 Core Competency; 4 Resource Development Continuing Coach Education Credits
USD$400.00 (plus applicable tax)
Hidden Forces: How the Unconscious Impacts Thoughts, Feelings and Behaviors
Want to better understand what might be behind your client’s unspoken dynamics? This module dives into the role of the unconscious in informing how people think, perform, and interact with others. Insights help coaches to better understand the deeper, unconscious dynamics that may be at play for clients in relation to their coaching goals.
ICF accreditation: 2 Core Competency; 2 Resource Development Continuing Coach Education Credits
USD$300.00 (plus applicable tax)
Intersubjective Attunement: The Psychology of Connecting Deeply with Clients
What’s needed to establish and maintain strong, effective connections with clients? In this module, we discuss the psychological components of establishing an attuned connection, and explore core psychodynamic principles within the coaching context.
ICF accreditation: 3 Core Competency; 3 Resource Development Continuing Coach Education Credits
USD$400.00 (plus applicable tax)
When Clients Resist the Process: Understanding and Navigating Client Emotions and Defenses
What might make the coaching experience feel a bit rocky at times? This module explores the complex dynamics that can emerge during coaching, with a special emphasis on client defenses and resistance. We examine client emotions through both psychological and neuroscientific perspectives.
ICF accreditation: 2 Core Competency; 2 Resource Development Continuing Coach Education Credits
USD$300.00 (plus applicable tax)
The Ethical Coach: Power, Boundaries and Inclusion
How do we create inclusive coaching spaces, while also understanding boundaries at a practical level? This module addresses power dynamics in the coaching context, the importance of cultural sensitivity in psychodynamic coaching, and ethical issues in psychodynamic coaching. Robust practical emphasis and support is provided to help distinguish between coaching and therapeutic practices.
ICF accreditation: 3 Core Competency; 3 Resource Development Continuing Coach Education Credits
USD$400.00 (plus applicable tax)
Go deeper. Coach smarter. Facilitate real client change
Who This Is For
- Certified executive, leadership, and business coaches looking to go deeper, past surface strategies
- Certified life coaches looking to expand their practice into the highly skilled executive coaching space
- Other professionals with at least 5 years of relevant experience
Program Structure
- Live, online delivery
- Biweekly workshops | EST timezone
- Small cohort sizes (1:10 instructor/participant ratio)
- 26-29 ICF Continuing Coach Education credits
Individual Workshops:
- On demand
- Training at your own pace
- Guided training experience
Cost and Prerequisites
-
USD$2,500.00 (plus applicable tax)
Individual Workshops:
-
USD$300.00-$400.00 (Prices vary based on the number of CCEs offered, plus applicable taxes)
As heard on
She & Success Podcast
Meet the faculty
Tanna Brodbar
Founder, Percepta Leadership | MBA, MA,
ACC, BCC | Student Therapist in Supervision (OPCC) | Adjunct Professor | Member, CAPT
Annika Klein
Dr. Gabriella Locke
PhD, LPC, CRC, CSAT, CDHWP | Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Counseling & Art Therapy, Pennsylvania Western University | Education Director, Center for Applied Psychodynamics
Fiona Sookhai
Leadership Breakthrough:
From Self-Doubt to Executive
Leadership
Challenge
A high-performing senior professional in a highly competitive industry was struggling with interpersonal relationships at work and feeling increasingly frustrated after being repeatedly passed over for promotion. Though widely respected as a subject matter expert, they were concerned they weren’t being seen as ‘leadership material’. They also found it difficult to navigate challenging workplace dynamics, particularly in high-stakes conversations, and often avoided conflict. Even though they deeply wanted to be a leader (and believed they had the potential to successfully do so), they also second-guessed their leadership ability.
Approach
Through a year-long coaching engagement, we focused on their goal of building greater self-awareness of ‘in-the-moment’ thoughts and triggers, as well as ongoing behaviors that detracted from how they wanted to be perceived by others. We explored underlying thought patterns around confidence, defensive reactions, and relational safety, with a particular focus on strengthening empathy and overall emotional intelligence. The client also experimented with small, visible leadership behaviors that would reflect their authentic voice and demonstrate expected executive-level qualities, particularly in how they communicated and responded under pressure.
Outcome
The client’s confidence and leadership impact grew meaningfully. They began to navigate stakeholder relationships, including challenging conversations, more effectively and to self-advocate with clarity and credibility. Their voice became not only heard but listened-for.
Ultimately, they were promoted to an executive-level position, stepping into leadership of a senior team for the first time in their career. They gained the respect from both their team and senior leadership as credible, thoughtful, and grounded leader.
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