Our public education system was birthed at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. We needed to train people to compartmentalize themselves, to do one thing over and over again with accuracy and precision.
So, much of our current educational processes are based on compartmentalization; creating, distinctions between this and that. There is much emphasis placed on the PARTS of something and not so much reaching to integrate the whole.
Western medicine falls into this same trap. We have an amazing understanding of the components of the human body. Wester medicine is trully gifted at fixing our PARTS and yet, at a core level fails to grasp both the mystery and the importance of the whole.
Human beings are more than just a collection of parts and we must approach working with people in ways that are holistic and integrated.
Even in coaching there is such a rush to “specialize”. We often get the question at CTI: do you train Career Coaches or Executive Coaches or Education Coaches?
I understand the importance of specialization in any practice. It helps us identify ourselves in the market place and provides a focus for the development of tools that speak to specific audiences. Hooray for that.
That said, at its core, Co-Active Coaching understands that we are always working with the WHOLE of a person, whether we are working with them at work or at home and wheter we are working on their career or their parenting.
It’s an illusion that we can separate or isolate one part of a person’s life and work with that only. Each part is irrevocably connected to the other parts in a fulid and ever changing constellation of emotion, desire, experience and understanding.
KKH