ABSTRACT
The practice of coaching has been considered as an emblematic example of the contemporary process of hybridisation between psy knowledges, therapeutic cultures, and neoliberal governmentality. In this broad context, this chapter analyses the regime of subjectivation of ontological coaching, also known as “The Chilean School”. Developed in the 1980s and 1990s by three exiles from the Chilean dictatorship (1973–1990), ontological coaching can be characterised as a specific kind of life coaching which seeks the radical transformation of the person. Regarding its mode of subjection, the matrix of intelligibility promoted by ontological coaching produces a semiotic environment which problematises the perception of being a stable, reified person, understood as a metaphysical illusion. Regarding its mode of subjectivation, ontological coaching enables a set of practices of permanent self-scrutiny, aiming to unleash the power of indetermination of the modern nothingness that dwells in us, encouraging individuals to embrace the risk of permanent transformation and pursuing the telos of an ever-open future, which is full of unforeseeable possibilities. We conclude that this particular regime of subjectivation should be situated within the broader contemporary biopolitical scenario, linked to the cultural diffusion of the molecular metaphor of life and the post-therapeutic telos of the human enhancement practices.
