The dialogical self and the transpersonal: new thinking in psychotherapy

Abstract

One of the most exciting developments in the field of counselling and psychotherapy is the current work in the area of multiplicity within the person. Of course we are all familiar with this idea through the notion of subpersonalities, and similar ideas such as ego states and subselves and parts. The trouble with the term subpersonalities is that it lends itself too easily to reification. Reification is that all too easy process by which we turn a theoretical construct into a solid object. I know from my reading of student essays how easy it is to speak or write as if ‘the oral type’ really existed out there in the world, and similarly with ‘the unconscious’, ‘the schizoid character’, ‘the ego’ and all the rest of these concepts.