Abstract
According to Positioning Theory, participants in narrative interaction can position themselves on a representational level concerning the autobiographical, told self, and a performative level concerning the interactive and emotional self of the tellers. The performative self is usually much harder to pin down, because it is a non-propositional, enacted self. In contrast to everyday interaction, psychotherapists regularly topicalize the performative self explicitly. In our paper, we study how therapists respond to clients' narratives by interpretations of the client's conduct, shifting from the autobiographical identity of the told self, which is the focus of the client's story, to the present performative self of the client. Drawing on video recordings from three psychodynamic therapies (tiefenpsychologisch fundierte Psychotherapie) with 25 sessions each, we will analyze in detail five extracts of therapists' shifts from the representational to the performative self. We highlight four findings:• Whereas, clients' narratives often serve to support identity claims in terms of personal psychological and moral characteristics, therapists rather tend to focus on clients' feelings, motives, current behavior, and ways of interacting.• In response to clients' stories, therapists first show empathy and confirm clients' accounts, before shifting to clients' performative self.• Therapists ground the shift to clients' performative self by references to clients' observable behavior.• Therapists do not simply expect affiliation with their views on clients' performative self. Rather, they use such shifts to promote the clients' self-exploration. Yet, if clients resist to explore their selves in more detail, therapists more explicitly ascribe motives and feelings that clients do not seem to be aware of. The shift in positioning levels thus seems to have a preparatory function for engendering therapeutic insights.
Highlights
The self is far from being a unified notion (e.g., Neisser, 1988). This holds true for different facets of the self, which may be at issue in social interaction
One way to question the client’s authority concerning their self is to shift from the client’s focus on their autobiographical, told self of which they are conscious to their performative self, which they enact in the interaction with the therapist
Our analyses show that shifts to the performative level of client’s conduct therapists’ interpretations can still address other facets of the client’s self
Summary
The self is far from being a unified notion (e.g., Neisser, 1988). This holds true for different facets of the self, which may be at issue in social interaction. Figure and Interprets it in Terms of Strength (001–131) The story preface: (“my strength developed on that day,” “da ischt an diesem meine STÄRke entstande; an dEm TAG,” 001003) projects an autobiographical key narrative It is a story about pride and self-assertiveness when facing a threat of devaluation: The client considers himself to be treated as unfair and disrespectful, because he is not appointed as a ward nurse, he fulfilled this position for 9 months perfectly well and without any complaints (30–36), was praised by the doctors and proved to be a responsible and strict leader of his team (between 38 and 102, not shown). The therapist displays empathy with the client and his claimed self of strength She shifts the focus and treats the performative level as primary by interpreting the client’s story not as a factual story about the becoming of his identity (= representational positioning), but as a performative, strategic self-presentation, whose function is to be questioned, because it serves to avoid facing experiences and feelings of weakness. After the client concludes his story with an interjection that expresses concern (“HA:I yai yai,” 03), the therapist refocuses on the client’s prior claim that he has to be satisfied with his health condition, and casts it into doubt (13–15)
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