Conference Agenda

Objectives: Mother–daughter relationships are widely recognized as core relational ties shaping women’s identities across the life course. Yet, research rarely examines these relationships in adulthood, particularly across diverse cultural groups or from the mothers’ perspectives. Existing studies typically focus on a single origin group and predominantly feature daughters’ voices, limiting our understanding of how mothers negotiate relational expectations within minority and majority contexts.

Guided by Dialogical Self Theory (DST), which conceptualizes the self as a dynamic multiplicity of culturally situated I-positions and internal dialogues, this study explores how mothers from different cultural backgrounds appropriate, negotiate, and integrate societal voices regarding gender, culture, and motherhood. Drawing on critical feminist perspectives, we compare adult mother- daughter relationships among women born in Israel, Ethiopia, and the Former Soviet Union (FSU).

Method: Using a mixed-methods design with 190 mothers (ages 45–68), we examined perceptions of gender identity, social distance, and expectations of similarity and difference in mother - daughter relationships. Additionally, 37 mothers participated in semi-structured interviews.

Results: Findings reveal distinct cultural patterns. Ethiopian mothers expressed strong feminine and weaker masculine gender identities and reported higher social distance relative to Israeli and FSU mothers. The analysis identified three culturally shaped patterns of similarity and difference expectations, reflecting how mothers’ internal dialogues are shaped by migration histories, minority status, and cultural voices.

Conclusions: Through the lens of DST, these patterns illuminate how mothers navigate competing internal and external positions such as traditional gender norms, ideals of equality, and experiences of social exclusion. The study highlights how intersecting inequalities influence adult mother - daughter relationships and shape the internal negotiations women engage in as they construct their identities. The presentation will address these dynamics, challenge constraints on women’s rights across groups, and discuss pathways for reducing inequalities and promoting empowerment to transform oppressive conditions.

Dialogical self — created to be integrated: Formation of the maternal bond

Kristiina Uriko, Tallinn University, Estonia (kristiina.uriko@tlu.ee)

Roland E. Uriko, Tallinn University, Estonia

The objective of this paper is to analyze the formation of the maternal bond as a complex process of self-organization. A mother’s bond with her child is recognized as critical for a child's overall health and development. However, few longitudinal studies have examined this topic. This qualitative study is based on longitudinally-collected interview data consisting of semi-structured interviews with women from the time they were pregnant until their child turned one year old. The discussion draws on the perspectives of the dialogical self theory and the semiotic regulation model. Based on the analysis and theoretical standpoints, it can be assumed that maternal bond formation moves through meaning construction in which a woman processes the pre-semiotic material into the semiotic field. As a result of the dialogue between biological and sociocultural imperatives, sociocultural meanings are turned into personal meanings and expressed by a mother through her caregiving behaviors and responses towards her offspring. The process of the formation maternal bond could be understood as an adaptive process during which, in a dialogical attempt, the self-system aims to arrange and rearrange its meaning units and achieve more functional and coherent self-organization. A mother’s bond with her child is a developmental process that begins during pregnancy and develops further after the child is born. Therefore, maternal care requires attention to maternal difficulties in bonding during pregnancy, with sustained support extending into the postpartum period.

Keywords: maternal bond, dialogical self, semiotic regulation, meaning-making

The loss of a child in traumatic events such as the Tempi train disaster constitutes a profoundly disorganizing experience, giving rise to complex and multifaceted maternal grief. This presentation draws on a clinical case to explore maternal grief as a dynamic interplay between multiple internal voices, silence, and speech, shaped by personal, relational, and socio-cultural contexts.

Emphasis is placed on therapeutic approaches that honor polyphony, tolerate silence, and support the gradual emergence of narrative meaning. The case illustrates how ongoing connections with the deceased child through memory, reflection, and symbolic presence can sustain relational continuity. Maternal grief is also examined at the intersection of individual and collective trauma, showing how public mourning and social acknowledgment shape internal dialogues and the reconstruction of meaning.

Dialogical Self Theory (DST) conceptualizes the self as a dynamic multiplicity of relationally and culturally situated I-positions engaged in ongoing dialogue (Hermans & Kempen, 1993; Hermans & Gieser, 2012). Within systemic psychotherapy, this perspective resonates with relational and narrative understandings of identity as co-constructed through family roles, cultural expectations, and intergenerational mandates (Anderson, 1997). This paper explores the dialogical self through the narrative analysis of a dream presented in therapy by a woman in her mid-forties undergoing a significant life transition.

The dream is approached as a dialogical text in which multiple voices can be “heard”: past identities shaped by a merged family of origin, dominant present positions organized around caregiving roles (mother, wife, carer), and agonizing anticipations of a near future marked by separation and uncertainty. Alongside these voices, the dream reveals a marginalized and largely unarticulated I-position oriented toward the client’s own identity beyond care for others. The client is confronting the necessity of redefining herself as she moves away from the centrality of the mother role and toward a personal sense of mission and selfhood.

Methodologically, the paper adopts a qualitative narrative analysis informed by DST, focusing on dialogical positioning, voice dominance, and temporal movement within the dream narrative (Ribeiro et al., 2016). The therapist’s dialogical stance supports reflexivity and the emergence of dialogue between dominant and marginalized positions. The analysis illustrates how dreams can function as privileged dialogical spaces in systemic psychotherapy, facilitating movement from monological role-identities toward a more flexible, multi-voiced self during midlife transition (Hermans, 2018; White & Epston, 1990).