Aborted Transition Between Two Dichotomous Cultures as Seen Through Dialogical Self Theory

The purpose of this article is to further advance the understanding of self-identity work amid transition from military to civilian life, with emphasis on the complexities between and within the military and civilian cultural I-positions of a dialogical self. An analysis of a longitudinal case study of an aborted transition leads to the hypothesis that a culturally dominant military I-position that sustains a cultural dichotomy may hinder dialogical advancement toward reintegration into civilian life. The insights from this article can be used to better understand self-identity issues amid transition and may also have relevance for nonmilitary persons who are exposed to cultural transitions.     

Introduction: The Dialogical Self in a Global and Digital Age

In this article, culture and self, like society and identity, are conceived as mutually inclusive. On the basis of this premise, self and identity are discussed in the context of an evolution toward a global and digital society. The core concept is the "dialogical self" that is described as a spatial and temporal process of positioning. Examples of multivoiced and dialogical selves are given in communities and cultures that lack advanced technological means. Apparently, the dialogical self is not an exclusive feature of the present era but a general human condition. Specific to the era is that dialogue is becoming increasingly mediated as a result of technological advances. Closely related to these advances, one can witness an increasing cultural complexity, mobility, and hybridization. It is argued that technological developments and global interconnectedness provide new opportunities for innovation of the self as multivoiced and dialogical. At the same time, such developments evoke counter forces that can close the self off from such opportunities. This article ends with a short introduction to the several contributions in this special issue.     

Dialogical Self and the Changing Body During the Transition to Motherhood

This article explores the transition to first-time motherhood and focuses on the analysis of integration in the self-system of a new I-position – the maternal one. This dialogical interchange between dynamically related I-positions (I-as-pregnant and I-as-mother) is the arena where the personal affective core of the self and the sociocultural background of social role demands are intertwined. During pregnancy and childbirth, the I-as-pregnant position becomes transformed into the lasting I-as-mother I-position. This process is seen as an activity of the subject to organize general dialogical relations within the self under conditions of bodily transformations which result from fetal development.     

Positioning Microanalysis: Studying the Self Through the Exploration of Dialogical Processes

Self-multiplicity is a widely recognized phenomenon within psychology. The study of how self-continuity emerges amidst self-multiplicity remains a crucial issue, however. Dialogical approaches are widely viewed as suitable for developing this field of study but they demand coherent methods compatible with their theoretical bases. After reviewing the available methods for the study of the dialogical self, as well as other dialogical methods for the study of psychotherapy, we conclude that we still lack a method which can be used by external observers and is devoted to the systematic tracing of the dialogical dynamics of self-positions as they unfold over time. A new method, positioning microanalysis, is described in detail as a possible way to overcome current limitations in methods focused on the dialogicality inherent in selfhood processes. Positioning microanalysis takes a genetic-developmental perspective on dialogical processes in the self and allows for the depiction of microgenetic movements of self-positions over time and the establishment of more or less stable sequences or patterns of positions. This is illustrated by its application to an emotion-focused therapy session.     

Auditory Verbal Hallucinations as Dialogical Experiences

The purpose of this study is to offer a model in which auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) can be conceptualized as dialogical experiences. This model is of interest in that it integrates several different perspectives (phenomenological, cognitive, social, and evolutionary) and the findings of empirical research on the subject. Hallucinations are understood as the product of a state of consciousness in which the self is dissociated into different positions or perspectives. After reviewing the most relevant results of psychological research, dialogical self theory is proposed as the theoretical framework for understanding hallucinatory experiences. It is argued that the voices possess a series of characteristics, pragmatic properties, relationships with the voices similar to their social surroundings, and more dissociative experiences in people who experience voices than in those who do not, with which they may be considered a dialogical experience. Finally, a model attempting to integrate psychological research on AVHs within the framework of dialogical self theory is presented.     

Psychotherapy and Recovery from Schizophrenia: A Model of Treatment as Informed by a Dialogical Model of the Self Experience in Psychosis

Since the term schizophrenia was coined, the disorder has been linked to experiences of self-diminishment. This link calls for theoretical work that helps us understand experiences of diminishment wherein persons find themselves less than they once were but nevertheless able to recognize and describe their diminishment. In response this paper describes how dialogical psychology may help us both understand this feature of schizophrenia and inform the practice of psychotherapy. In particular, we suggest that some alterations in sense of self in schizophrenia may proceed from a range of losses in a person’s ability to sustain intrapersonal and interpersonal dialogues. Moreover, we suggest that these losses lead to at least three different forms of disturbed self experience: barren, monological and cacophonous selves. We then explore the unique challenges each poses to psychotherapy and suggest that attention to dialogical deficits may enrich self-experience if it attends to aspects of self-experience that emerge within session.     

Adult Attachment and Well-Being: Dimensions of Differentiation of Self as Mediators

This study investigated adult attachment dimensions as predictors of interpersonal forgiveness, positive emotionality, and social justice commitment through dimensions of differentiation of self. The sample consisted of 209 master’s level graduate students at a Protestant-affiliated university in the United States. Results revealed that higher attachment anxiety was associated with decreased differentiation of self and that decreased differentiation of self was then associated with lower levels of interpersonal forgiveness, positive emotionality and social justice commitment. Increased attachment avoidance was similarly associated with decreased differentiation of self, which then corresponded to lower levels of interpersonal forgiveness, positive emotionality and social justice commitment. Findings are discussed in the context of existing theory and research, and attention is given to the implications for clinical training and practice and future research.     

Scaffolding within the structure of Dialogical Self: Hierarchical dynamics of semiotic mediation

Scaffolding is a notion that allows us to conceptualize direction towards change. As a form of guidance, scaffolding may result in both change and non-change. In this paper I apply the notion of scaffolding by signs (semiotic mediation) to the theory of Dialogical Self (DS). The DS is a construct that brings into psychology a new way of theoretical thought—thinking in dualities. Dualities are systemic units of two opposites that are mutually related by functional dynamic relations. Within the theory of DS, human psychological functioning is explained by transformations of constantly changed I-positions that are mapped both structurally (internal/external) and temporally (past/present/future). Semiotic mediation within the DS guarantees the person's psychological distancing from the here-and-now setting. This distancing is guided by promoter signs—generalized meanings of field-like form that orient the self's transformation. These signs are parts of the semiotic mediating processes where higher-level signs guide the range of openness of the sign hierarchy itself for further transformation when that is needed.     

Indian Philosophy and Ethics: Dialogical Method as a Fresh Possibility

This paper discusses the positions held by two opposing camps—the traditionalists and the positivists (to use Pradeep Gokhale’s typology) regarding the presence or absence of ethics in Indian philosophy. It subsequently offers a way ahead of the impasse where I consider some inputs inherent in the method of dialogue in pre-modern Indian philosophy for imagining an ethics of and ethics for plurality. Such an ethics, I argue, cannot be imagined without involving the category of ‘Other,’ which has otherwise remained elusive in the Indian philosophical debates. The diverse nature of Indian societies demands Other-centric ethics to assess and evaluate the enduring moral crisis pervading contemporary times.     

对话学习与道德教育论

C .O .Schrag的哲学解释学和K .J.Gergen的社会结构主义等理论对我们阐明以学生活动为中心的对话学习理论具有启发性。对话学习是我们能够开创美好未来的最佳教育理论。人类是通过对话创造未来可能的生活。人类的未来充满各种不确定性 ,惟有对话才能把这种不确定性转化为确定性和可能性 ,并且把未来的可能性转化为学生的创造性活动。学生是在进行对话的过程中表现自己并得到成长。对话是通过语言的相互交流、相互解释和相互理解来达到共识的过程。另外 ,对话既是学生实现自我潜能的过程 ,同时也是创造文化的过程。学生在面对面的相互理解、相互交流、相互切磋的对话过程中能够创造出新的理念。通过这种对话过程 ,学生将创造出更有价值的人生 ,也将创造出道德的和美学的文化共同体。活生生的对话使你和我成为“亲近的我们” ,使共同体的生活更具有道德性和创造性。总之 ,以学生活动为中心的对话学习教育理论的实施将有力地推进学校、国家和人类的充满道德和创造力的文化共同体。我们社会和教育现状也要求 ,必须要从以老师为中心的教育体制转向以学生对话为中心的新的教育体制。     

The Dialogical Dance: Self,Identity Construction,Positioning and Embodiment in Tango Dancers

Argentine tango is a complex phenomenon, involving music, dancing and lifestyle, today practiced by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. This is already a good reason for psychology to make it an object of study. Besides, studying tango could also help to develop a dialogical way of theorizing and a dialogical methodology, taking into account both the genetic historical and eso-systemic dimensions and the individual experiencing. As any other product of human psyche, tango creates an universal and abstract representation of life starting from very situated and individual acts. Such institutionalized representation, which is at the same time epistemological, ethical and aesthetical, becomes a tradition -that is the framework distanced from the individual immediate experience- within which the meaning of the experiences to be make sense in return. To illustrate this epistemological and methodological stance, a history of the development of tango as dialogical social object first is sketched. Then, an ethnographic study about the Self actuation in a community of Italian tango dancers is presented. Results show how participants construct and actuate their identities in a dialogue between their I-positions inside and outside tango community.     

The Self Between Cacophony and Monologue: A Conceptualization and Empirical Examination of Dialogical Complexity

Theory of dialogical self distinguishes between cacophonous, monological, and dialogical structure of the self. So far these structures have not been examined within systematic quantitative studies. Focusing on this issue, we conceptualized the three structures as degrees on a dimension of dialogical complexity. To assess dialogical complexity, we proposed a numerical index derived from the personal position repertoire and examined it empirically. We compared the index of dialogical complexity with indices of cognitive complexity (derived from the repertory grid technique), integrative complexity, and presence of dialogical relationships in narratives (both derived from the thematic apperception test). In our sample of a total of 60 nonclinical respondents, the index of dialogical complexity was not correlated with cognitive complexity. It was weakly negatively but significantly correlated with integrative complexity. Respondents who yielded a higher score of dialogical relationships in narratives formed the dialogical structure of the self according to the dialogical complexity index. Respondents who yielded less dialogical relationships in narratives obtained a wider range of dialogical complexity scores that indicated more cacophonous or monological structures. We conclude that the relationships with integrative complexity and with presence of dialogical relationships in narratives support the original conceptualization of dialogical complexity. However, due to limitations of the study, the results are not decisive, and further examination of dialogical complexity including clinical samples is needed.     

The Adult Self: Process and Paradox

This paper defines the adult self as an identity-in-a-mutuality-of-relating, a reality that is at once a process and a paradox. As an identity-in-a-mutuality-of-relating this self has 5 characteristics, each of which is also a process and a paradox: it is a body-self; it is rooted and disclosed in feeling; it is a felt sense of depth; it has its own clear boundaries and exists in intimacy; and it is its own responsible process of experiencing. The fullness of the adult self lies in self-actualization and self-reflection, and here this self is most a process and most a paradox.     

Religion as Dialogical Resource: A Socio-cultural Approach

William James proposed a psychological study of religion examining people’s religious experiences, and to see in what sense these were good for them. The recent developments of psychology of religion moved far from that initial proposition. In this paper, we propose a sociocultural perspective to religion that renews with that initial stance. After recalling Vygtotsky’s core ideas, we suggest that religion, as cultural and symbolic system, participates to the orchestration of human activities and sense-making. Such orchestration works both from within the person, through internalized values and ideas, and from without, through the person’s interactions with others, discourses, cultural objects etc. This leads us to consider religions as supporting various forms of dialogical dynamics—intra-psychological dialogues, interpersonal with present, absent or imaginary others, as well as inter-group dialogues—which we illustrate with empirical vignettes. The example of religious tensions in the Balkans in the 90’s highlights how much the historical-cultural embeddedness of these dynamics can also lead to the end of dialogicality, and therefore, sense-making     

Pathological Altruism, Narcicissm, and Dissociation as Prerequisite for Infanticide

The international literature about neonaticide, infanticide, and familicide has arrived at a tripartite classification on the basis of the typical pathogenesis and the therapeutic and forensic challenges connected with the emerging situation. The categories can be characterized by altruistic or narcissistic attitudes and those of unawareness and dissociative states towards imminent delivery or the postpartum situation. The psychopathological counterparts to these attitudes are major depressive disorder with melancholia, narcissistic personality disorder, and an immature personality, often in socially disadvantaged environments equivalent to borderline personality disorder with dissociative states and diminished impulse control. Aspects of perinatal bonding disturbances between mother and child play a major role for the focus of psychotherapy and forensic assessment in all three categories. They need differential characterization according to the different pathogenetic pathways of inadequate experience of guilt, inadequate self-esteem regulation, and dissociative neglect and diminished impulse control. Preventive and therapeutic perspectives of intervention are discussed.     

Dialogical construction of the selves of trainees as competent researchers

There is a widespread perception among family therapy trainees and practitioners of research as an alien activity. This perception is both damaging and unnecessary. Exercises to enhance the relationship of trainees to research were conducted in stages. Concepts of dialogically constructed selves were introduced, and exercises explored the trainees' construction of ‘self as a systemic therapist’. The idea of an extensive repertoire of selves was proposed. During subsequent research training the fact that all trainees had successfully completed a collaborative research project was exploited. Pairs successfully conducted a dialogue in which they actively and imaginatively constructed their selves as researchers.