This is also a very limiting approach to professional coaching, especially when matters of money are concerned and important economic decisions need to be made. There is no one reality when matters concerning values, priorities and life goals are concerned. An effective coach will listen to their client’s narratives and their aspirational dreams before engaging in any problem-solving or planning-based interventions. Taking an appreciative approach (Bergquist and Mura, 2011), one can even help their client create new narratives based on moments in the past when values and priorities were being fully (or at least partially) engaged in a manner that was not only authentic (aligned) but also successful.
Dynamic Objectivism: The Platonic Ideal
While many of the critiques of static objectivism are products of late 20th century and early 21st century thought, there is a much earlier source: Plato offers a dynamic objectivism through his allegory of the cave. Let’s briefly visit this cave. According to Plato, we are all living in a cave and never gain a clear view of reality. Instead, we view the shadows that are projected on the walls of the cave. We live with an image of reality (shadows on the wall of the cave) rather than with reality itself, which makes our sense of reality quite dynamic and a source of considerable tension. Plato, an idealist, notes that we have no basis for knowing whether we are seeing the shadow or seeing reality, given that we have always lived in the cave. Plato thus speaks to us from many centuries past about the potential fallacy to be found in a static objectivist perspective regarding the world—since we can never know whether we are living in the cave or living in the world of reality outside the cave.
Today, we live with an expanded cast of characters in the cave. First, there is something or someone standing near the opening of the cave. It can be cultural or personal narratives or perspectives we have encountered during our daily life. These narratives and perspectives block out some of the light coming into the cave. Not only don’t we actually see reality, sometimes the narrative or perspective determines which parts of objective reality get projected onto the wall. This is what makes the Platonic objectivism dynamic—for those holding the partition have grown up in the cave but may hold a quite different agenda from other cave dwellers. There is yet another character in our contemporary cave. This is the interpreter or reporter or analyst. We actually don’t have enough time in our busy lives to look directly at the wall to see the shadows that are projected on the wall from the “real” world. The cave has grown very large. We often can’t even see the walls of the cave and the shadows. We wait for the interpreter to tell us what is being projected on the wall and what the implications of these images are for us in our lives.
We are thus removed three steps from reality. We believe that the shadows on Plato’s cave are “reality.” We don’t recognize that someone is standing at the entrance to the cave and selectively determining which aspects of reality get projected onto the wall. Finally, someone else is standing inside the cave offering us a description and analysis. Julio Olalla (2004) offers us the hope of direct experience and suggests that a professional psychologist can assist in this process. Yet, we remained confused about what is “real” and often don’t trust our direct experience. We move, with great reluctance and considerable grieving, to a recognition that reality is being constructed for us and that we need to attend not only to the constructions, but also to the interests and motives of those who stand at the entrance to the cave and those who offer us their interpretations. We must move, in other words, from an objectivist perspective (whether it is static or dynamic) to a constructivist perspective.
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