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Commentary: Accessing the
Experience of a Dialogical Self:
Some Needs and Concerns
Article in Culture & Psychology · March 2009
DOI: 10.1177/1354067X08099618
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Culture & Psychology
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Commentary: Accessing the Experience of a Dialogical Self: Some Needs
and Concerns
Carla Cunha and Miguel M. Gonçalves
Culture Psychology 2009; 15; 120
DOI: 10.1177/1354067X08099618
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Commentary
Abstract This commentary focuses on König’s (2009) work as an
opportunity to elaborate on selfhood as a dynamic and dialogical
phenomenon. We depart from Bakhtinian dialogism and
dialogical self theory to focus on the dynamics of selfhood
processes and draw a more explicit theoretical link between the
dialogical self and phenomenological experience. The
interconnected dimensions of discontinuity and continuity in a
multiple, multipositioned self are also elaborated. We defend that
the construction of similitude in the self is permitted by selfregulation and self-organization processes that create recurring
patterns in a moving self. Finally, the role that the introduction of
difference and alterity can play in the promotion of change and
development is also discussed.
Key Words change, dialogical self, experience, self-organization
Carla Cunha
University of Minho and ISMAI, Portugal
Miguel M. Gonçalves
University of Minho, Portugal
Accessing the Experience of a
Dialogical Self: Some Needs and
Concerns
Following Bakhtinian dialogism—one of the main philosophical
origins of the dialogical self theory—and the importance it attributes
to communication as a contextualized activity, selfhood becomes
addressed as a dynamic process of dialogical becoming (Marková,
2003a; Salgado & M. Gonçalves, 2007; Valsiner, 2002). This means that
if, for Bakhtin (1929/1984), ‘to be is to communicate’ (p. 187), then we
can only conceive and construct selfhood through this dialogical
quality that constitutes the fabric of humanity. This dialogical framework seems quite adequate for the study of multicultural identity, and
so we will take this opportunity to focus on some issues that we have
selected from Jutta König’s (2009) work.
We will begin this journey by elaborating upon Bakhtinian relationality to build a ground for understanding selfhood as both a relational
and a cultural process and product. We will then address the dialogical
Culture & Psychology Copyright © 2009 SAGE Publications
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Cunha & Gonçalves Experience of a Dialogical Self
self in its dynamic movement of positioning and re-positioning in time,
and detain ourselves in the challenging reflection upon self’s diachronic
and synchronic continuity and discontinuity. Following this, we will
finish by elaborating upon the role that the introduction of difference
and novelty can play in the promotion of self-change.
Dynamics of the Dialogical Self
Taking relationships as the basis for human development is an idea
assumed quite explicitly by several authors—some departing from a
Bakhtinian dialogism (like Baxter, 2004; Jacques, 1991; Marková, 2003b;
Salgado & Hermans, 2005, to name only a few), others following different thinking traditions (in the line of Baldwin, Mead and Vygotsky—
cf. the elaborations of Marková, 2003a, and Valsiner & van der Veer,
2000, upon these traditions). All of these authors, in their own terms,
stress the importance of social relationships in human development
and somehow support the I–Other dyad as the building foundation for
the constitution of the self.
Particularly in the dialogical framework, Marková (2003a) amplifies
Bakhtin’s motto and, assuming a relational primacy for human
existence, adds quite poetically: ‘To be means to communicate, and
to communicate means to be for another, and through the other, for
oneself’ (p. 257). Hence, in this point of view, to address the interplay
between culture and identity construction implies the emphasis on
the role that our relational experiences play at the core of human
development—and relationships are always embedded in a cultural
matrix.
The issue of multiculturalism has been particularly productive, both
at theoretical and empirical levels, within the dialogical self theory
since to this field of studies this phenomenon appears both as a challenge and as an opportunity to illustrate its emphasis on how our inner
complexity is fed by a diverse cultural environment (Hermans &
Kempen, 1998; König, 2009; Valsiner, 2002). To this perspective,
acculturation must be seen as an ongoing process, something that is
never quite finished, as several other authors in the field have been
emphasizing (e.g. Hermans, 2001; Valsiner, 2001).
And if in some situations we might have the possibility of dealing
with life in a unambiguous way—becoming almost oblivious to our
inner complexity (e.g. when we are involved in a repetitive task, like
preparing our breakfast)—the fact is that several daily life experiences
face us precisely with the opposite: ambiguous situations that pull
us in different directions, prompting our inner dialogicality into a
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Culture & Psychology 15(1)
consciously felt experience (Abbey & Valsiner, 2005; Ferreira, Salgado,
& Cunha, 2006—e.g. imagine that while preparing your breakfast you
realize that you’ve run out of coffee and you start wondering what to
do next . . .). These ambiguous daily life situations face us with discontinuity, breaks or ruptures that challenge us, interrupting our flow of
living, making us stop, reflect and resolve inner tensions, drawing
upon our symbolic and cultural devices to re-establish situational
adjustments and self-continuity (Zittoun, Duveen, Gillespie, Ivinson,
& Psaltis, 2003). And these are the moments when we are
phenomenologically more aware of the triggering of internal
dialogues. Addressing these moments is the point where the dialogical self theory has proven most resourceful, providing theoretical
and empirical tools to portray and access our inner complexity. In
doing so, it depicts selfhood as a polyphonic, multivoiced, dynamic
trajectory of positioning and re-positioning of the self in an irreversible flow of experience and brings the notions of voice and
I-position to the core of selfhood processes (Hermans, Kempen, &
van Loon, 1992; Valsiner, 2002).
Although these notions have been incorporated quite diversely by
different authors and researchers (cf. the review of Ferreira, Salgado,
Cunha, Meira & Konopka, 2005), we consider them most profitable
when we focus on the possibility to address dialogical positions as
specific moments of phenomenological experience (thus bridging
Herman’s theory with other phenomenological authors like Stern, 2004).
According to Stern (2004), the ‘present-moment’ of our subjective
experience corresponds to the feeling of what happens to me in a given
moment of phenomenological and experiencial consciousness. This
implies: (a) the recognition of the self as experiential center, and (b)
being aware of a specific experience that happens now, to me. The
subjective experience of the present is a gestalt that is usually brief in
its duration, but felt with a beginning and an end, since it triggers
a specific sense-making (appearing also as a meaningful unit). This
experiencial unit is accompanied by an affective tone that shifts along
with our flow of living.
Our interest in conceiving this dialogical–phenomenological interconnection is also strengthened by the theoretical linkage that can be
made between the following three concepts: the ‘present-moment of
experience’; the Bakhtinian notion of positioning (Holquist, 1990); and
the dialogical notion of I-position (Hermans et al., 1992). It is particularly inspiring to us to conceive this possibility of addressing selfpositions, which occur moment-by-moment, as successive lived and
felt experiences of the I (as a center) in a process of positioning and
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Cunha & Gonçalves Experience of a Dialogical Self
re-positioning as time goes by. This phenomenological focus is, then,
complemented with the notion of voice, as meaning-making and
dialogical skills intervene to make sense of our internally felt multiplicity. Hence, voices articulate particular meanings rooted in our
experiential positions, as attempts to make sense of what we feel and
communicate it to others. In more simple terms, to us a voice represents the expression of a specific point of view that emanates from a
particular position of the I—as a center—from which something is
experienced and uttered in a given moment in time (Holquist, 1990).
Detaining ourselves now in the process of dialogue, we would like
to first of all emphasize voices as the medium for the establishment of
dialogical relations between different I-positions succeeding each
other in the flow of experience (according to Hermans et al., 1992). If,
along with Bakhtin, we assume that addressivity lies at the core of
human existence, then our experience is communicationally materialized in the notion of utterance. This concept—considered as the
Bakhtinian basic linguistic unit—also interested other authors in the
psychological field, since they conceived an utterance: (a) as an event
of the self (Holquist, 1990); and (b) as a phenomenal event (Dop, 2000).
According to Shotter (1992): ‘’The utterance is thus a real social
psychological unit in that it marks out the boundaries (or the gaps)
in the speech flow between different “voices”, between different
“semantic” positions—whether between people or within them’
(p. 14). In this sense, the utterance demarcates an (inter)subjective
positioning because the communicational agent is positioning
him/herself towards the interlocutor and towards the cultural background that is framing what is being said. The author is, then, a multipositioned author—in a temporal movement of positioning and
re-positioning—addressing simultaneously the interlocutor and other
audiences, including him/herself, and other social discourses that
contrast with that specific utterance.
Continuity and Discontinuity in the Dialogical Self
Departing from this multipositioned authorship, the self is conceived
as a moving and developmental phenomenon in constant transformation. Alterity resides at the center of what happens at the (inter- and
intra-)personal level, triggering self-discontinuity in the shift between
positionings and re-positionings. The self, as an open system, has a
fluid and dynamic character requiring a constant adaptation to novel
situations in its positioning movement. From this perspective, we have
no difficulty in recognizing the multiplicity and multivoicedness
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Culture & Psychology 15(1)
dimensions highly emphasized by Hermans and his followers and
specifically highlighted in Jutta König’s work in multicultural
identity.
However, one of the most striking questions that this theory
raises is the problem of self-recognition and integrated agency (cf.
Richardson, Rogers, & McCarroll, 1998). In fact, we all have a felt
sense of continuity, a familiarity within ourselves that contrasts with
a fragmented version of our identity. As Hermans (2003) highlights,
the dialogical self simultaneously incorporates continuity and
discontinuity—in fact, unity and multiplicity appear as faces of the
same coin. According to Salgado and Gonçalves (2007), two reasons
can justify the intertwining of these two dimensions: on one hand, in
an I-position, the I is the experiential center along an uninterrupted
transformational movement (there is a synchronic and diachronic
union in the same I—Hermans, 2003); on the other hand, we cannot
understand this perspective without framing it in a relational primacy
that structures human existence.
We can better understand this unity as an emergent process of
relationships if we look closer at ontogenetic development. According
to Bertau (2004b), in the encounters of the baby with social others, there
is the need for both interlocutors to be simultaneously part of a specific
relationship and, as well, to be detached from it—thus, becoming
social-and-individual. We claim along with Bertau (2004b) that ‘it is
highly interesting that one aspect seems to condition the other’ (p. 92):
in this sense, unity and individuality—as being one either through our
relationships with others or through our relationship with ourselves—
require an effort of constructed coherence within experienced difference and discontinuity.
The I is always shown in this dependence of the Other, with whom
it is involved; thus, otherness appears as the complementary feature of
this multiplicity since ‘[we] have to be related to one another, mutually
turned to, and at the same time we have to be detached from the other,
we have to discern him or her from ourselves in order to build up any
communication’ (Bertau, 2004a, p. 30). In this sense, subjectivity is the
emergent and unifying process of our experiential and symbolic multiplicity, relationally instituted (d’Alte, Petracchi, Ferreira, Cunha, &
Salgado, 2007). Subjectivity is not enclosed within the I; it also
incorporates its addressees, its audiences (internal, external, imaginary
or potential), and each new experiential position creates the need to be
clear in meaning and create distinctions—simultaneously to ourselves
and to others—attributing sense to our experiential ambiguity
(Salgado & Hermans, 2005).
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Cunha & Gonçalves Experience of a Dialogical Self
Constantly involved in novelty and difference, moment-by-moment,
we are thrown to negotiate between present, past and future, between
ourselves and others, chasing the coherence and internal stability so
praised in Western culture (Salgado & Gonçalves, 2007; Salgado &
Hermans, 2005). Bakhtin highlights that we have no alibi for existence
(referenced by Holquist, 1990), and this means that we have no possibility of not addressing the world and responding to it—even when we
are silent we are communicating something to our audience. The world
is always addressing us and we are impelled to respond to it, being
morally responsible for our replies.
In this pursue of internal and external coherence and stability, we
agree that the self acts, basically, as a ‘lazy problem-solver’ (Valsiner,
2002, p. 261), trying to construct a familiarity in the present that allows
a temporal continuity between past, present and constricting future
possibilities. This constraining of the future is, most of the time, also
focused on the anticipation of personal disruptions and the attempt to
minimize them, maintaining self-continuity.
Along with other authors (e.g. Salgado & Gonçalves, 2007; Valsiner,
2002), we believe that the study of microgenetic development allows
the illustration of the interesting aspects of this self-continuity in the
making. On the one hand, the microgenetic level draws attention to
particular and recurrent forms or processes of self-organization and
self-regulation within the dialogical self (cf. Valsiner, 2002); and, on the
other hand, it is at this level that we can capture the specific processes
of reorganization in the self that are related to consolidated developmental changes. Thus, it is in the interplay between microgenesis and
superordinate levels of development (mesogenesis and ontogenesis)
that we can distinguish between what a mundane variation is and
what is revolutionary in the self.
Continuity as Self-Organization of Voices
We have become increasingly interested with the possibility of studying
patterns between positionings and voices in the dialogical self as selforganization processes that account for this continuity in time (cf.
Cunha, 2007a, 2007b). Although this concept of self-organization has
been emerging in other sciences in previous decades—particularly
when it refers to dynamic systems theory (Barton, 1994)—the fact is that
it has not been consistently applied to the field of psychology and
particularly to the study of selfhood dynamics. Trying to be more
precise, Lewis (2000) emphasizes that this concept of self-organization
‘is an idea . . . that promises coherent explanation in the study of pattern,
change and novelty’ (p. 42).
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However, for Lewis and Granic (1999), there has been some
confusion in the psychological literature around this concept of selforganization, due to the prefix self (whereas, in other sciences, the self
prefix means related to itself, for psychology, the self acquires the status
of a scientific object of its own). In this sense, according to these
authors, this concept can mean different aspects, like: (i) the emergence
of order in a complex system (placing the emphasis on the coherence
of the system); (ii) the proliferation and integration of the system
(placing the emphasis on its adaptation); or (iii) the self-organization
of the self itself (as an object of study).
Although we might come across these different distinctions, we
consider that all these aspects are in order when we try to grasp the
self in its self-organizing process. This vision of the self as a selforganizing system, as an emergent phenomenon in a socio-cultural and
relational background, does not contradict notions like intentionality,
agency or autonomy, but stresses the need to develop theoretical efforts
to articulate these concepts. If we take the self as this self-organizing
system, we can try to understand the way it maintains its stability
through real-time dynamic processes, selecting information, reducing
or amplifying certain effects to maintain its coherence and continuity
(Hermans & Kempen, 1993). Hence, the empirical challenge is to
describe and infer the processes implicated in the construction of
similitude and the processes implicated in self-innovation and change.
We have tried to empirically address this challenge in previous
research (cf. Cunha, 2007a, 2007b), following real-time variability in
meaning-construction. This allowed us to capture three distinct
patterns of self-organization of voices in the dialogical self: (1) a
dominant voice that suppresses and silences alterity (other voices
trying to participate in dialogue); (2) a coalition of two voices that feed
each other and suppress alternate voices; and (3) an unstable multivoicedness, where several voices appear and are immediately
suppressed by the next expressed voice, without any clear domination
of any one. Although these patterns are consistent with what has
already been theoretically depicted by previous authors in clinical
samples (cf. Dimaggio, 2006; Hermans & Hermans-Jansen, 2004;
Lysaker & Lysaker, 2004; Valsiner, 2002), we consider that this study
had a two-fold innovation: first, the demonstration that each of these
specific types is also involved in the organization of ‘normal’, everyday
experience; and, second, the empirical depiction of the emergence and
development of these patterns in real-time process analysis.1
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Cunha & Gonçalves Experience of a Dialogical Self
Difference, Imagination and Novelty in the
Promotion of Change
Having elaborated on self-organization and the construction of
sameness in the dialogical self, we would like to focus now on the other
face of the problem: the role that difference, alterity and otherness play
in the promotion of human change and development. And this is what
has been particularly addressed in König’s work.
According to Hermans (1999), while we engage in a self-reflection
process, we are able to confront ourselves with the difference and
alterity of self-positionings that voice different perspectives from our
usual one, and these can be contradictory and tensional. These different positionings and voices can also come from imaginary characters
(like personal heroes) that, by being given dialogical qualities, can act
as I-positions and introduce different resources that sometimes the
person would not recognize in him/herself (Hermans, 1999). The
confrontation with this inner contradiction and tension can create two
end-points: on one hand, it can trigger self-regulatory semiotic devices
that maintain the usual self-organization pattern; or, on the other hand,
it can open a window of possibilities for the emergence of new
meanings. This latter developmental trajectory can create the ‘difference that makes the difference’ (Bateson, 1972/1999, p. 381), prompting personal change and, at the limit, leading to self-reorganization.
These are the processes conceived as underlying the Innovation Exercise
(Hermans, 1999) that served as the departure point for König’s (2009)
research procedure, but they can also explain the broader notion of
personal change and human development (either in psychotherapy or
in everyday life). König’s intention with this research procedure
applied to global nomads was precisely to understand whether different cultural positions could be identified by the participants and
whether they could be acting as flexible resources to solve daily difficulties (like those that arise in the management of a multicultural
world).
However, according to Lyra (1999), the conflicts between selfpositions are just one of the multiple forms of generating the alterity
and innovation underlying reorganization. According to Bakhtin
(referenced by Hermans, 1999), it is mostly in the I–Other real relationship that novelty emerges because the contact with the alterity of a real
other creates the more striking need to construct and negotiate a
common, shared communicational ground of meanings. This effort for
the co-construction of meanings introduces a tensional difference zone
that is also a ‘zone of proximal development’ (Vygotsky, 1978), and
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Culture & Psychology 15(1)
interlocutors participate in a joint, negotiated scaffolding of meanings
(Cheyne & Tarulli, 1999).
In our own empirical research, we developed an interview
procedure designed to promote personal innovation very much in line
with Hermans’ Innovation Exercise (1999), which we called the Identity
Positions Interview (cf. Cunha, 2007a, 2007b; Gonçalves & Cunha, 2006).
Throughout this interview, several narrative tasks are presented to the
participants in the attempt to create change processes in meaningmaking and promote innovation in the usual perspective around a
personal difficulty. These tasks are always framed within a real
relationship (interviewer–participant) even though they try to activate,
within the participant, imaginary dialogues with (absent) significant
others and promote dialogues between the self in the present and
projected futures (as-if movements; cf. Valsiner, 2007). We decided to
frame the procedure within a real relationship and focus on its unfolding in time instead of a design that captures the beginning and the end
products of an individual reflection of the participant. Our decision
had three main reasons: first, we assumed that a real relationship with
an other would be always more productive in the promotion of novelty
because of the need to jointly construct meanings that had to be
explored and understood by the two interlocutors; second, because the
confrontation with the alterity of an other is considered by us as amplifying the potential developmental zone that can be achieved together
and would not be achieved by the individual participant; and third,
and most importantly, because it created the opportunity to (at least
partially) access the inner-dialogical processes engaged in the selfreflecting tasks. Our assumption upon the power of a real relationship
in promoting self-innovation and narrative change has also been
empirically tested through the tracking of innovation-moments both
in therapeutic and in non-therapeutic changes (cf. Gonçalves et al., in
press; Gonçalves, Santos, & Matos, in press).
Thus, while reading Konig’s (2009) article, we are left with a
yearning to better understand how these participants experience their
cultural positions, leaving us inevitably engaged in hypothetical
understandings of their experiential processes (e.g. what exactly does
Lisa mean when she says ‘I like to be busy with myself like this; it
makes me feel safer’?—quoted from König, 2009, p. 109). And when
considering the use of Likert scales, we start questioning what the
meaning around a specific rating is. Certainly different individuals
attribute different meanings to numbers and ratings which can trigger
very interesting thoughts, memories and reasons that help us, as
researchers, to focus on our participant’s experiences and reflective
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Cunha & Gonçalves Experience of a Dialogical Self
processes. Even though there is a widespread use of rating scales in
psychology, considering that they are generally considered a rapid and
‘problem-free’ method for collecting data with big samples, we claim
along with Wagoner and Valsiner (2005; Cunha, 2007a, 2007b) that
these kind of methodological devices lead the researcher to a simplified understanding of the target phenomena, also preventing access to
the richness of the psychological object he/she aims to study. Using
rating tasks in a traditional form leads to a ‘mutilated introspection’,
as Wagoner and Valsiner (2005) named it (curiously, these authors take
these rating scales and use them, creatively, as a tool to explore and
deepen the meaning-making processes aimed at in their research).
Nevertheless, for us, König’s (2009) work is another interesting
contribution emphasizing that imagination seems to occupy a fundamental role in human development, and multicultural experience in
particular. For example, a global nomad, while facing a difficult task,
might start imagining how he or she would resolve that particular situation as a person from origin A, or as a person from origin B, or as an
enriched person who is able to integrate both cultural experiences. In
fact, the importance of imagination is very much in line both with the
narrative and the dialogical traditions. Its importance in psychology
started growing with the narrative movement’s highlight on the
fictional nature of human life, which gave imagination a central role
never attained before in the study of psyche, self-narratives, therapeutic change and relational/cultural dynamics (Cunha & Ferreira,
2006). Hence, it is through imagination that one can explore, actualize
and expand the possibilities of what is not yet present, but is made
present as potential development and self-innovation (Gonçalves &
Cunha, 2006).
Conclusion
We tried to comment on König’s (2009) work by focusing on some of
her contributions to the understanding of multicultural identity and
elaborating on our personal views upon other interesting questions
raised.
We have argued that experientially we are always dealing with an
inner complexity and outer complexity particularly noted in a globalized society—that is why acculturation is an ongoing process. The
ambiguous life situations that we face moment-by-moment foster inner
and outer dialogues in the attempt to promote self-adaptation and selfcontinuity in changing contexts and situations. This inner complexity
is, according to the dialogical self theory, not only multipositioned but
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Culture & Psychology 15(1)
also multivoiced, as I-positions make use of semiotic and cultural tools
for expressing the experiential here-and-now (Hermans & Kempen,
1998; Valsiner, 2002).
We also elaborated upon a more explicit interconnection between
the dialogical self and phenomenological experience, characterizing
selfhood as a dynamic and emergent process. We argue that this
emergent conception of the self, taking experience as dialogue, is
consistent with Bakhtinian dialogism and makes utterance the basic
unit of meaning-making.
Alterity and discontinuity were also described as residing in the
center of a dialogical self searching for self-continuity on a momentby-moment basis. We consider that this self-organization of the
multiple I-positions that are assumed by the developing self is
achieved mainly through forms of regulation of multivoicedness
(cf. Valsiner, 2002). Alterity is, then, turned into similarity, and discontinuity is surpassed by self’s construction of continuity. We
consider that these real-time, dynamic processes are particularly
empirically highlighted through the use of microgenetic methods.
We have also elaborated on the developmental opportunity that the
introduction of difference and novelty can play in the promotion of
self-change. We commented on Hermans’ Innovation Exercise (1999)
and König’s (2009) adaptation for her research purposes, emphasizing
particularly the dialogical processes that the method provokes. And
although the Innovation Exercise draws particular attention to the
spatial distinctiveness of I-positions (in their question-and-answer
confrontations), we assume that this method can also be complemented with a microgenetic focus that grasps the transformational
movements of positioning and re-positioning of the self occurring
throughout the passage of time.
Note
1. In the context of this research, the dominance of a certain voice (or voices)
was operationalized as the repetitiveness of its expression in the succession
of positionings of the self in the flow of time and meaning-making.
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Biographies
CARLA CUNHA, MA, is a student of the PhD Program in Clinical
Psychology at University of Minho (Braga, Portugal) with a PhD scholarship
from the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT—Portuguese Foundation
for Science and Technology: reference SFRH/BD/30880/2006). She is also a
teaching assistant at the Department of Psychology and a researcher at GEDI
(Group of Studies in Dialogicality and Identity), at ISMAI (Instituto Superior
da Maia, Maia, Portugal). Her current research interests are focused
theoretically in narrative and dialogical perspectives and their application to
change processes in psychotherapy. ADDRESS: Carla Cunha, Instituto
Superior da Maia, Avenida Carlos Oliveira Campos, 4475–695, Avioso S.
Pedro, Portugal. [email: ccunha@ismai.pt]
MIGUEL M. GONÇALVES, PhD, is Associate Professor at the Department of
Psychology in University of Minho (Braga, Portugal). He has been interested
in narrative studies of the self and in narrative psychotherapy. He is presently
developing a research project on the role that narrative innovations play in the
promotion of psychotherapeutic change. ADDRESS: Miguel M. Gonçalves,
University of Minho, Portugal, Department of Psychology, Campus de
Gualtar, Braga, P-4700, Portugal. [email: mgoncalves@iep.uminho.pt]
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