Teaching & Learning Guide for: Narrative and Discursive Approaches to the Analysis of Subjectivity in Psychotherapy

Abstract

Social constructionism and the ‘turn to language’ have influenced both the theory of psychotherapy and the research of therapy process; there now exists a considerable body of literature that applies a social constructionist and a deconstructionist perspective to psychotherapy theory and research. One of the issues discussed in this body of work relates to subjectivity, which constitutes a central aspect of therapeutic work as well as being at the centre of contemporary debates around selfhood. Subjective experience and one’s sense of self have been studied by different disciplines using a variety of perspectives. In broad terms, mainstream psychological approaches refer to the ‘person’ or the ‘self’, which is understood in terms of ‘personality’, that is to say, it is assumed that a person is an individual, unified, stable and self-contained entity. The terms ‘self’ and ‘person’ are also linked to humanistic approaches that emphasise the wholeness, integrity and originality of the self as well as to phenomenological approaches that are concerned with the quality of one’s experience of oneself. The term ‘subjectivity’ has been historically linked to post-structuralism and psychoanalysis and has gained increased currency as these approaches increasingly inform current social constructionist, deconstructive and discursive approaches. What all of these approaches share is an understanding of identity and experience as constructed through social processes, which involve power and systems of meanings, and as lived through by individual subjects. Subjectivity is seen as complex, distributed and fragmented, permeated by social and discursive processes, yet intimately personal, as the subject invests these processes with desire and turns them to the very stuff of his or her being. In this module, which we consider best aimed at postgraduate level, we start from the premise that psychotherapy constitutes a culturally significant institutional practice that both reflects dominant cultural views regarding ‘selfhood’ and also provides theories that further define these views and practices that implement them. We aim to introduce students to constructionist perspectives regarding psychotherapy and selfhood and also to help students begin to examine the tensions between social constructionist approaches to understand human distress and the practice of psychotherapy.