What one believes about what is most important in life in order to achieve happiness and surmount problems. There is another way in which philosophical assumptions affect counseling, namely, postmodernism. Within psychotherapy today there is a growing postmodernist trend, which significantly contrasts with the theories of psychotherapy built on a traditional scientific foundation. While any large philosophical movement is often diverse and one set of statements cannot accurately capture all of the diversity of opinions, the following summary attempts to summarize the mainstream thinking within postmodernism. The purpose of science is to discover reality as it is.
Naive realism is to be distinguished from modest realism.
Naive realism is the belief that we always see objective reality accurately. Modest realism is that belief that we are able to approximate an accurate understanding of reality, especially as we study a phenomenon more. General laws and truths may be attained through the use of reason, science and technology. There are no general laws and truths. Written material has objective meaning.