We love to talk about ourselves. How was our day? How we prepare for exams. What are the problems at work? We really love it when people listen to us. They nod, ask questions, support. All these stories create us. Our personal identity: Narrative psychology studies our personal stories and how we create them. This branch of psychological knowledge poses a question to which each individual answers in his own way: WHO AM I? This branch of psychology is based on theories of self and identity, postmodern, psychoanalytic and psychodynamic theories. 🔺NP develops in the tradition of humanistic psychology and very important importance is given to language - as a tool for building selfhood. This is natural, since a narrative is a story. In this case, the story of your life, which can be told using language. One should not think that this is deeply subjective knowledge, purely unique and personal. When constructing our history, WE always rely on the social and cultural context. That “place” where we live and act. Let's look at what key theories narrative psychology is based on. 1️⃣ Piaget's theory of development - the development of thinking occurs along with the development of language, including with the help of STORIES, which are told first by parents, and then by the child himself. 2️⃣Coolie’s “mirror self” concept, as well as Mead’s “me-myself” and “me-me” identities. A person always waits and analyzes feedback from Others; he wants to gain knowledge of how he is perceived in the community. This is “I-me”. It is always in the past tense, since it is formed after the act of communication. A person reflects it and again reconstructs his “I-myself”. 3️⃣Taylor's concept of self - our basic need is the need to belong to what we consider significant. Identity here is built through the attitude towards the “good”. And this is why systems of values ​​and institutions become important to build. After all, if these systems are destroyed, and a person forms his own, it may turn out that ONLY he alone supports them. And interconnection with others who think the same way is a basic human need. This is our sociality. 4️⃣Empty self - Kashman's concept. It arises in a situation of destruction of social values, traditions, and institutions. As a result, a person begins to feel emptiness, lack, deficiency, which he cannot accurately identify. This is the essence of some postmodern approaches: their excessive focus on context leads to the creation of an “empty” identity. Each time it is created again depending on the social situation and it turns out that there is no stable, permanent personality structure. 5️⃣ Postmodernists such as Foucault, Lacan, Derrida, Lyotard pay great importance to language. Only he, as a system of meanings, guides us. The subject is declared dead because postmodernists practically deny wholeness, order and consistency. (Although narrative is consistency and coherence above all). 6️⃣ In contrast to the “empty” identity, Gergen proposes the concept of “rich self.” This is a self full of possibilities for deep formation, thanks to the development of technology, tourism, and means of communication. A person can choose and fill his identity as much as he wants, and in the way he wants. (Similar to the active position of the subject-existential approach). 7️⃣ Interpretative phenomenology - on the contrary, is focused on the knowledge and experience of a person - what he thinks and feels, how he generally perceives himself, his body, other people, the world in general. That is, this approach seeks to define the “wholeness” of the self, rather than its constant variability depending on the context. In narrative psychology, balance is very important - the balance between concentration on oneself and submission to social institutions. We simply cannot ignore our connectedness to society. We are social. But at the same time, a person must feel his integrity. Myself. Be able to recognize and understand your identity. And traditionally we are aware of ourselves in time: in relation to the vulgar, the present and the future. 🔴Therefore, Husserl’s theory about the perception of time is of particular interest. A narrative is always a chain of sequential events in time. Husserl identified 3 levels of time perception: - passive - simple sequence past-present-future-active - the integrity of these sequences, which lies in the “culmination-end” pair. Events do not just go chronologically, they have a certain meaning, coherence. - The perception of self/life is sequential stories that are perceived as “mine”. It is not just a description of temporal sequences, but a way of being in time. Build your identity. 🔵It is important to note here that we are building a narrative not only for ourselves, but also for others, to see how it will be perceived. 9️⃣Heidegger's Theory of Fear is also of interest for narrative psychology, since he considers fear as a feeling of anxiety, horror, a feeling of decay that VIOLATES the narrative. Literally everything loses its meaning. A person begins to perceive his life simply as a mechanical change of events. One by one, he counts the days that bring him closer to the end of his life. 🔟Although some researchers consider Freud's psychoanalysis to be the source of narrative psychology (which is certainly true! No one before Freud used conversation to treat and help a patient), the psychoanalytic approach is criticized for the fact that selfhood and identity can be “found in the unconscious.” It is located somewhere outside of human consciousness. (Now we understand that this is not so) And Freud did not mean the whole self. Still, he proposed a rather coherent model of consciousness. The criticism is that a person is still much more aware than vice versa. Dreams also DO NOT have meaning until we ourselves begin to endow them with this meaning. Also, criticism of the “therapeutic” narrative is that often the therapist can “rewrite” the client’s narrative, asking him to come up with alternative options, which is not entirely correct. The narrative MUST coincide with historical reality. With events that really happened in the life of a person and society. ❗️Some researchers view therapy in modern society as a control system. The client reveals the most intimate areas of his life that can be controlled. In my opinion, this is a rather radical criticism. Perhaps it is applicable for people with a weak will, uncertain and doubtful. Although if you think about it, most often these are the ones who come to the therapist. Giddens, however, doubted this criticism. He suggested that control through therapy is characteristic only of a passive person, not even a person, but an “agent of reality,” which does not correspond to reality. People are not machines after all. ➡️Giddens proposed the concepts of “politics of liberation” and “politics of life.” They follow each other. “Politics of liberation” is aimed at liberating people from the oppression of existing hierarchies, for example, the femme movement. This is the acceptance of moral values ​​- equality, participation, justice. Therefore, the “politics of life” follows it and is only possible at a certain level of “liberation” from the oppressive hierarchy. This is the politics of lifestyle choice. Giddens believes that our preoccupation with ourselves, the body, issues of life and self, contributes to the revival of issues of morality and ethics. In order to restore systems of destroyed values ​​that have a common meaning. That is, through concentration on oneself, a person must come to an understanding of his sociality, his connectedness with other people. Which is not as simple as it seems. You can get stuck in ego-concentration. This is why therapy is needed - to become aware of oneself and one’s connectedness with others. Thus, the main goal of narrative psychology is to explore ways of perceiving oneself that will give a person freedom and opportunity for transformation in everyday life. One of the questions that would be logical