The landscape of narrative and the dialogical self: exploring identity with the personality web protocol

Abstract

The paper discusses the application of a dialogical approach to the study of lives tradition in personality psychology. The assumption that a person's ‘life story’ can be conceived and told as an integrated unity is questioned. I argue that multiplicity and conflict are inherent properties of elaborated life narratives. It is suggested that problems in theorising ‘self’ and ‘identity’ can be addressed by assuming a ‘normal’ state of multiplicity in the person, rather than by normalizing psychic unity and integration (e.g., Erikson, 1959). Using the concept of ‘positioning’ in conversation, borrowed from discursive psychology, it is argued that the ‘dialogical self’ can be understood as a polyphony of (storied) positions. In this approach the contradictions and conflicts that are an important part of identity are acknowledged. In the second half of the paper a method for investigating the dialogical self is described, and a case study is presented to illustrate the approach. In discussion, implications for theory and research in the narrative psychology tradition are explored.