What is reality, and how do we know it? Efforts to answer  this question
kicked into high gear this past decade, particularly as it relates to
educational and psychological practice. The modern dream, that there was
an ultimately knowable reality psychologists could use as a platform for
therapeutic intervention, came under intense criticism from many sides.
Feminists and postcolonials felt excluded by the values and vision of the
predominantly male and Eurocentric values of science. While a growing
league of constructivists and social constructionists saw reality as a
product of idiosyncratic or socio-cultural processes that did not converge
on the modernists' discoverable REALITY. The challenge of critiquing
modernist notions of reality has been to put forth as a credible alternative,
for ideas that keep us from losing the meaning of our experience to some
nihilistic (there is no meaning) or relativistic (all meanings go) abyss.
Constructivists and social constructionists offer radically different ways
of conceiving of reality, from the modernist view that there is one
knowable reality. But, these ways have largely been regarded as
incommensurable. Martin and Sugarman put forward a postmodern attempt to
reconcile the hermetically-sealed individualism of constructivist
psychology with the non-agentive relativism they perceive in social
constructionist theory. Their view of psychology is situated in the
constraints and possibilities our ways of interacting create for us, and
they see those ways as transcend-able, too. 

        The book, after setting forth its challenge in reconciling the
views of constructivists and social constructionists, highlights the
inadequacies of the either/or thinking on the part of these two approaches.
Selves don't move through the world like self-directed bathyspheres, nor
are they reactive billiard balls to different social factors such as
discourse or cultural knowledge as it is received. The authors prepare us
for their hermeneutic view via their postmodern criticism of psychology as
a discipline: it is too scientistic, and questionably borrows its
metaphors and methods from inanimate sciences to explain such human
domains as intentionality and meaning. Along the way, they highlight the
shortcomings of relativism (the anything goes view) by introducing the
philosophical hermeneutics of Gadamer. Hermeneutics, for the uninitiated,
refers to the interpretive processes we rely on when creating meaning with
each other. It is those processes which create the possibilities and
constraints suggested by the book's title. From there, readers are taken
to applications of Martin and Sugarman's views in psychology and
education. The book concludes by placing these ideas in a broader
perspective of dialogical and hermeneutic interaction. Such a perspective
is offered as an antidote to philosopher, Charles Taylor's concern about
the "malaise of modernity", our inability to respond to the common good
required for social and political life.

        Psychotherapists who have turned to narrative, solution-focused
and collaborative language systems therapies will feel at home here, as
will cognitive and psychodynamically-oriented therapists who view meaning
as constructed in conversation, as opposed to requiring correction
according to therapists' views of "reality". Martin and Sugarman's efforts
to locate their views in a hermeneutic and dialogical perspective will
make sense to therapists who see their efforts with clients as conversing
with, and not conversationally operating on, client meanings. It is in the
active interactions of human beings that our meanings find their fit. Like
constructivists, they view humans as active constructors of their
phenomenological world, and, like social constructionists, they see that
construction process as intertwined with conversational practices between
human beings. But, they castigate the constructivists for their
solipsistic individualism, while indicting the lack of agency many social
constructionists see in viewing humans as merely reactive to their
conversational environments. Going further, they see conversation
constructing, upholding and transcending conversational frameworks that
are both enabling and constraining. The agentive human being participates
in, and draws from, these conversational frameworks (or discourses)
resourcefully, but inevitably runs up against their limitations. It is
through creativity that we transcend the limitations of our discourses,
otherwise we are stuck within their constraints, of, to paraphrase
Wittgenstein:  the limits of our world are found in the limits of our
language. 

        How does thinking this way help psychotherapists and educators? In
the words of Martin and Sugarman:
 
 

Again, to the capitol "R" reality believers, where meaning and experience
are regarded as being in one-to-one correspondence with each other (unless
those meanings are viewed as distortions of a knowable reality), this will
read as nonsense. The authors offer an interesting view of "objectivity"
consistent with their perspective: ideas which stand the test of critical
intersubjectivity by those sharing a sociocultural context. For therapists
who think this way, conversations become a place where client meanings can
be reflected upon for their practical utility in a client's personal and
interpersonal experience. 

        Martin and Sugarman extend their line of reasoning into its
pedagogical implications. Borrowing from Vygotsky, they see educators
creating contexts into which students are initiated, and from within which
they gain increasingly elaborate competence, so that eventually the
boundaries of such a context become transformative grist for the students'
creativity. This fits with the views of creativity theorists like
Csikszentmihalyi, and it sets forth a challenge to therapists and
educators alike to view their involvement as collaborators in facilitating
competence and transcendence of the sociocultural contexts in which
clients and students are situated. 

        For the most part, I liked this book. Constructivists and social
constructionists have been at odds with each other, while being kissing
cousins of sorts, when contrasted with their modernist counterparts. The
authors integrate two literatures by getting down to the problem narrative
thinkers would regard as authorship. A purely constructivist view would
overlook the socioculturally constructed linguistic resources from which
an author would draw, while forgetting the sense of audience and
accountability critical to an author's survival. But, they also challenge
the views of social constructionists like Kenneth Gergen and John Shotter,
claiming that such a purely discursive view overlooks the agency required
in authorship. This did not fit as well, for me, given both authors'
writing on "accountability" in authorship (Gergen, 1994; Shotter, 1989)
highlight the processes by which individual as authors may appropriate
ideas from different discourses; but these, in turn, must be negotiated
into the communities individual's inhabit. Such negotiating seems
consistent with Martin and Sugarman's view that meanings and ways of
conversing are underdetermined, despite their sociocultural  constraints.
This is a slight criticism, however, in what is otherwise a good read. For
newcomers to these ideas, this will be a challenging book. But, for those
who have found inadequacies in constructivist or social constructionist
thinking, and are looking for a perspective on learning and psychological
change that is consistent with collaboration and dialogue, this will be
well worth reading. 
         

References

Gergen, K. (1994) Realities and relationships. Soundings in social
construction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Shotter, J. (1989) Social accountability and the social construction of
'you'. In J. Shotter & K. Gergen (Eds.) Texts of identity. Newbury Park,
CA: Sage