Thinking about what we know in coaching

Alongside methods and tools, my coaching training prompted a more philosophical reflection: what can we say we really know when we speak about someone’s experience?

I have long felt uneasy with the idea that everything is only a matter of perspective, as if nothing exists beyond interpretation. I am equally sceptical of the assumption that there is a single, objective truth that we can fully access if we analyse carefully enough. Neither of these positions seems to reflect how people actually live and make sense of their lives.

Encountering the framework of critical realism offered a helpful alternative. It proposes that there is a reality with structures and causes that shape what happens, while also recognising that people interpret and give meaning to this reality in different ways. For coaching, this provides a way of thinking that takes both outer circumstances and inner experience seriously.

In practice, this means I do not try to reduce a client’s story to a simple account of what “really happened”, and I also do not dismiss the influence of their environment. I work in the space between: what is felt, what is happening, and how it becomes meaningful for the person.

I now carry this orientation into my sessions. It supports me in listening with attention to both the world around the client and the way they understand their place within it.