ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at developments in society that ultimately have consequences for coaching conversations and other everyday professional dialogues and the way they should be conducted. Western societies are influenced by neoliberal thinking and New Public Management strategies, a trend that many social and political scientists regard as dysfunctional. Freedom paradox contributes crucially to the self-exploitation that is in fact much more effective than the exploitation by others that characterized the disciplinary society. The disciplinary society has been replaced by an achievement society with self-management, self-monitoring and self-control as the key mechanisms of control. The dissolution of time and space and the acceleration and vast amount of information we are constantly subjected to are among the main causes of the massive growth in the aforementioned digestive-neuronal abreaction, which describes the mental meltdown of the fatigue society. Whizzing becomes the metaphor for a diffuse and hectic life, and whizzing becomes synonymous with the fusion of acceleration and stagnation.
