Part III Responding to Narrative Psychology

Abstract

This section summarizes the narrative turn in psychology in relation to identity practices and describes the two central critiques of the traditional “big story” approach to narrative identity based on its privileging of a particular view of self, one that is coherent, autonomous, and retrospectively focused, rather than multivoiced, relational, and centered in present interaction. The chapter sets forth the argument that the critiques are too limited in their challenge to the link between narrative coherence and healthy identity formation.