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Narrative Subject: Between Continuity and Transformation

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Narrative Psychology

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Abstract

This chapter addresses the issue of stability and change of personality, self and identity through the prism of narrative theorization. The chapter begins by sketching the context of discussion of the issues of personality stability and change in academic psychology. It then outlines a range of positions in literary studies on the issue of narrative continuity. Narrative, change and self are thus positioned as connected by a matrix of functional links that create a range of possibilities in thinking through the issue of change. The chapter then demonstrates how some of these possibilities are realized in McAdams’s model of identity as a life story, Hermans’s dialogical self theory, and White and Epston’s narrative therapy.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Vladimir Propp published Morphology of the Folktale, in which he analyzed the underlying structure of Russian folktales and developed a classification of plots, in Russian in 1928. However, it was not translated into English and French until 1958, and only its second edition in 1968 attracted attention beyond the fields of literary theory.

  2. 2.

    For methodological implications of Vygotsky’s view on development see J. Valsiner, ‘Development, Methodology, and Recurrence of Unsolved Problems: On the Modernity of ‘Old’ Ideas’, Swiss Journal of Psychology, vol. 55 no. 2–3, 1996, pp. 119–125.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Monash University, Clayton, Australia

    Julia Vassilieva

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  1. Julia Vassilieva
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Vassilieva, J. (2016). Narrative Subject: Between Continuity and Transformation. In: Narrative Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-49195-4_4

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