Conference Agenda

sing the character Bobby from the Stephen Sondheim musical Company as a unifying device, I describe how I moved past the restrictive codependency of my first marriage to become more present in relationships, more capable in my professional life, and, ultimately, more alive. Embracing the concept of the self as what psychologist Jerome Bruner calls our greatest and most intricate work of art, I suggest that we, through experience and reflection, continue to draft, revise, and refine that work of art in a lifelong pursuit of meaning and understanding.

Any divorce is a critical event in a life, what I refer to as a moment of significant wobble. Such occurrences cause people to pause and consider the portent of these events going forward. The wobble caused by my first divorce felt demoralizing at the onset, but ultimately proved to be liberating and self-enlightening.

In this autoethnographic sharing, I use my experiences prior to and post divorce to provide an example of how divorce is as much a start as an end. Using dialogical self theory (Hermans and others), dialogical theory (Bakhtin and Nikulin), and narrative theory (Bruner), I unpack the story of my divorce and the ways I subsequently dialogued through the uncertainty. In doing so, I illustrate how being vulnerable and open to contradictions can bring nuance and new complexity to events that, though distant in time, remain present in our lives. I argue that our efforts at shaping the self as a work of art are never completed. Rather, we remain engaged in an unfinalizable shaping of that art, a continual process of becoming alive.

his research-oriented symposium presents six recent studies investigating the functional role of the dialogical self in navigating temporal perspectives, cognitive challenges, and life dilemmas. Collectively, these works explore how internal dialogues and the negotiation between various I-positions facilitate wisdom, critical thinking, and decisive action. The first thematic cluster focuses on the construction of the self across time. Toruj et al. (2026) examine how dialogical flexibility – the capacity to shift between I-positions -moderates episodic future thinking and temporal distance. This is complemented by Marczewska and Oleś (2026), who demonstrate that engaging in a dialogical bridge through future-self letter writing enhances self-continuity and life meaning by integrating current and future I-positions.

The second cluster addresses the cognitive and regulatory mechanisms of internal activity. Kutnik (2026) identifies intellectual humility as a critical moderator, suggesting that respect for external viewpoints determines whether internal dialogues enhance or hinder critical thinking efficiency. Similarly, Puchalska-Wasyl and Bielawski (2026) explore the empirical intersection between wisdom and the integration of clashing perspectives within internal dialogues, utilizing Grossmann’s framework of wise reasoning.

Finally, the symposium highlights the practical application of Dialogical Self Theory (DST) in problem-solving. Kaczmarek (2026) provides evidence that matching the mode of reflection (narrative vs. dialogical) to the specific type of life dilemma optimizes solution quality. These findings are extended into applied settings by Gabińska and Younes (2026), who utilize the Dialogical Dilemma Solution (DDS) technique to assist students in career decision-making, emphasizing the significant influence of internalized parental voices. Together, these presentations advance our understanding of how intrapsychic dialogical processes serve as an "operating system" for rational judgment, identity consistency, and the resolution of complex life choices.

In this presentation we introduce the personal and cultural construction of meaning in autobiographical tattoos, focusing on the associated processes of self-construction, I-position construction, and shifts in discursive positions. From a discoursive psychological perspective autobiographical tattoos are conceptualised as a specific form of remembering, not as static representations of past events but as meaning-making practices through which personal and cultural narratives are continuously co-constructed.

Drawing on dialogical self theory (Hermans) and discursive approaches to the embodied self (Harré, Wiggins), in this presentation we explore how tattooing anchors significant biographical events to the embodied self, commonly assumed to be the most stable self-aspect (Harré). At the same time, tattooing produces a new embodied self-aspect (Wiggins), which becomes integrated into the dialogical organisation of the self. These positions and self-statements emerge partly from the lived biographical event and partly from the culturally embedded meanings of the tattooed motif, unfolding through diverse constructive strategies and patterns. They also influence everyday internal and external discourses related to both the tattoo and the life event it represents.

In this way, autobiographical tattoos function simultaneously as a distinctive form of dialogue between the personal and the cultural, operating across processes of remembering, meaning-making, self-construction, and everyday social interaction.

The study examines the role of the Ideal Self in shaping women’s self-perception and self-attitude within their culturally constituted life-world (Schutz & Luckmann, 1973). Drawing on existential-phenomenological psychology and poststructuralist feminist theory, the research reconceptualizes Simone de Beauvoir’s notion of the cultural "Other" (L'Autre) as an internalized cultural law structuring women’s identity (de Beauvoir, 2011; Butler, 1990, 2011). Within the women’s life-world, this law takes the form of the “Ideal Woman,” which becomes an individualized yet culturally mediated Ideal Self (Irigaray, 1985). Unlike traditional psychological accounts that describe the Ideal Self as a personally constructed aspirational image (Higgins, 1987; Markus & Nurius, 1986), the present study conceptualizes it as a normative structure preceding and organizing self-experience. The empirical study involved 30 adult women (20–63 years), native speakers of Russian and English residing in several countries. Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted in both languages, focusing on representations of femininity, experiences of normative expectations, and attitudes toward the Ideal Self. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim in the original languages, and analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009). The system of categories was developed iteratively and comparatively across the Russian- and English-language corpora, allowing conceptual refinement sensitive to linguistic nuances. Findings indicate that the Ideal Self functions as a fundamental organizing principle within women’s life-worlds, often producing existential tension or a sense of "impossibility" that calls for reflective transformation (Butler, 2011; Gilligan, 1993). Through processes of meaning-making, participants renegotiate their relationship to this internalized cultural law, thereby reshaping self-attitude (Schutz & Luckmann, 1973). The study proposes a reconceptualized model of the Ideal Self linking cultural normativity, gendered identity, and self-attitude, with implications for personality psychology and psychotherapeutic practice.

To analyze how multiple positions of the self are configured in the life story of a Colombian soldier who was amputated by anti-personnel mine, from a dialogical and phenomenological perspective. Method. A single case study was used, with historically structured sampling. A semi-structured interview with a phenomenological approach was applied. The interpretive phenomenological approach (IPA) and the Equifinality Trajectory Model (TEM) were used for the analysis model. Results. The participant's trajectory is marked by three main stages: 1) stepping on the anti-personnel mine and the rehabilitation process; 2) retirement as a soldier and the setting of goals through others; and 3) the consolidation of a life project as a Paralympic athlete that integrates military identity with the new physical condition. Discussion. The reconfiguration of the self implies an openness to others and to the new that allows for the reinterpretation of lived experience and the construction of a renewed identity in constant dialogue with the context.

This presentation is a reflection on how dialogue can transform today’s polarized, traumatizing discourses into contexts of healing and recovery. Contemporary, globalized societies are characterized by uneasy and increasing uncertainties, rapidly expanding crises, and a strong emphasis on technologies at the expense of social and human values, neglecting the complexities of human existence. In this sociocultural setting, liminality, traditionally understood as the in-between stage of communal and personal-level transitions, extends. Being arrested in a liminal hotspot, characterized by increased suggestibility in an ambivalent state coupled with the intensity of emotions blocks natural reconstructive processes in the turbulent phases of identity development. When keeping the person arrested in a stressful or traumatizing situation, criminalizing, or medicalizing the emerging human conditions would not solve the problem of blocked transitions.

Dialogue, a bridge between people and cultures, respects the human potential for positive change, and can convert extended or permanent liminalities into a transformative context. Its traditional, face-to-face form is grounded in the unity of mind and body. People are not only responding to each other by their empathetic words but also by gut-level responses, such as, for example, changes in heart rate patterns during a psychotherapy session. This way, your story can momentarily become my story, and your experience is construed as similar to my experience. These responses are powerful enough to establish the transient context of I-Thou relationship as an authentic and transformative experience and help the suffering person eliminate oppressive and spurious self-positions. By integrating many other important self-positions (as core me-positions, I-positions, and mine-positions), the door towards personal development opens.

Dialogical Self Theory conceptualizes the self as a dynamic multiplicity of I-positions and voices—a “society of mind” that invites research capable of capturing complexity while still producing cumulative, comparable findings. This symposium targets a central methodological frontier for the dialogical self community: the systematic measurement of dialogical qualities across intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions, in ways that are theoretically faithful, psychometrically robust, and usable across cultural and applied contexts. In a historical moment marked by polarization and uncertainty, assessing how individuals navigate plurality and contradiction is increasingly consequential for social, developmental, and clinical research.

The symposium includes three complementary contributions that map dialogical functioning at linked levels of analysis. First, the further development and validation of the Dialogical Flexibility Scale (DFS) refines a brief assessment of adaptive internal self-regulation: mobilizing one’s repertoire of I-positions to shift perspective, transform dialogical content, sustain dialogue across scenarios, and conduct hypothetical dialogues with imagined figures. Second, the cross-cultural validation of the Greek Internal Dialogical Activity Scale–Revised (IDAS-R) evaluates factorial structure and reliability in a large Greek-speaking sample and links specific dialogical forms to self-talk, psychological distress, well-being, and positive/negative affect—elucidating distinct mental health signatures of supportive versus maladaptive dialogues. Third, the Dialogicity Scale (DS) introduces a theory-driven, Bakhtinian-inspired construct bridging inner polyphony with interpersonal engagement and an ethical ethos of answerability, developed through expert review, cognitive interviews, and cross-validated factor analysis.

Together, the symposium proposes an integrative roadmap for dialogical assessment: distinguishing the breadth of dialogical resources from the capacity to use them flexibly, differentiating supportive from maladaptive patterns, and linking internal polyphony to dialogic action—thereby broadening the scientific apparatus and scaffolding the assessment of dialogical processes across clinical, educational, and social contexts.

Caring for a close person diagnosed with cancer constitutes a complex process that may be both demanding and empowering for caregivers. Understanding the psychological mechanisms that shape how caregiving is experienced is essential for developing effective psychosocial support interventions for caregivers. The present study investigated whether caregiver burden is better explained by attachment orientation, conceptualized as a relatively stable and enduring disposition, or by I-positions, which reflect more immediate and embodied self-experiences.

A cross-sectional study was conducted in Turkey with 188 informal caregivers of individuals with cancer. Participants completed the Zarit Caregiver Burden Scale, the Adult Attachment Style Scale, and the Caregiving I-Positions Profile Form, and provided information regarding the patient’s disease and treatment, as well as the nature of their caregiving responsibilities.

The findings indicate that specific I-positions are significantly associated with caregiver burden. In particular, I-positions such as “I-as-victim,” “I-as-lonely,” “I-as-angry,” and “I-as-anxious” predicted caregiver burden more strongly than objective caregiving demands and insecure attachment orientations. Mediation analyses further revealed that these I-positions fully mediated the relationship between insecure attachment and caregiver burden. These results suggest that conceptualizing caregivers’ internal mental stances in terms of I-positions offers a valuable framework for developing more targeted psychosocial interventions aimed at enhancing caregiver well-being.

'Narrative medicine' recognizes that patient stories need to be heard to co-construct a healing story. Medical staff are trained to listen in empathic ways by familiarizing themselves with literature and art. A broader 'narrative-dialogical-informed medical care' hosts the idea that patient stories are told from many different positions; interventions need to allow for their stories to be told using various means and voices. The present paper presents the process of a narrative-dialogical intervention on a group of 13 women with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser Syndrome (MRKH), a congenital condition characterized by absence of the uterus, cervix and upper two thirds of the vagina often associated with additional renal anomalies, in individuals assigned female at birth. The group was coordinated by two psychologists and a medical doctor, with the collaboration of the head of the 1st department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the 'Alexandra' General Hospital, University of Athens, where participants received medical care. The intervention followed three steps: (I) Use of the “Fiction Tool” (Androutsopoulou, 2001, 2015) required participants to retell a favorite story from literature, name three heroes, their feelings, and future prospects. Heroes are seen as outer and inner positions of the self; (II) Discussion was extended from fictional stories to personal issues. The participants expressed a variety of concerns regarding their health, their relationships, fertility, and social stigma. They also made suggestions for optimal care. (III) Participants were psycho-educated in recognizing a variety of inner voices or positions of self and navigating their inner dialogue toward empowerment. The participants spoke of the intervention in positive words, emphasizing the importance of a safe space for telling stories of physical and psychological distress. They also thought that the group provided a much-needed social support network. Follow-ups were scheduled to monitor the long-term impact of this intervention.

This paper proposes a psychobiosocial framework that integrates osteopathy and massage therapy with dialogical self‑therapy to address physical injuries and illnesses as expressions of embodied story, moral injury, and relational trauma. Drawing on dialogical self theory, we reconceptualise pain and bodily symptoms as “I‑positions” that speak from within a multi‑voiced self, including positions such as “I‑as‑injured,” “I‑as‑carer,” and “I‑as‑betrayed by the system.” Osteopathic and massage practices are used not only to restore biomechanical function, but also to invite patients into a co‑created narrative in which sensations, tensions, and postures become portals for conversation and witnessing. Through guided externalisation, the practitioner and patient together name and dialogue with these embodied positions, honouring them as valid responses to injury, overuse, structural violence, and moral constraint rather than as purely mechanical faults. Building on work in narrative and Indigenous‑informed medicine, we emphasise story as ceremony, touch as relational communication, and the clinical encounter as a small community in which new meanings of suffering can emerge. Moral injury in healthcare and labour settings is framed as a human response to systemic wrongs that becomes “stuck” in the body, shaping pain, fatigue, and autonomic dysregulation. By dialoguing directly with bodily I‑positions that carry guilt, shame, anger, and thwarted care, the team supports patients and practitioners in relocating responsibility, reclaiming agency, and reauthoring their participation in families, workplaces, and communities. Clinical vignettes (from musculoskeletal injury, chronic pain, and post‑COVID moral injury among health workers) illustrate how coordinated sessions of manual therapy and dialogical self‑therapy can reduce pain, increase flexibility in self‑positioning, and deepen spiritual and communal connection. We argue that such integrative practice aligns with Indigenous and relational worldviews, challenges narrowly biomedical reductionism, and offers a hopeful pathway toward mutually healing relationships between bodies, stories, and systems.

This paper presents advances from a doctoral research project that examines the configuration of the Self in adolescents with overweight/obesity, drawing on an approach that integrates cultural semiotic psychology and the Theory of the Dialogical Self. The study is grounded in the premise that the Self is social in its origin and dialogical in its functioning, constituted by a dynamic multiplicity of I-positions that are configured through dialogue with the voices of significant others and with broader sociocultural discourses about the body, health, and self-care.

The study focuses on understanding how cultural self-care practices and meanings associated with the body and body weight emerge within the family context through processes of affective and semiotic mediation. To this end, it draws on the concept of Affective-Semiotic Fields (ASF) proposed by Valsiner (2014), understood as dynamic systems of affective regulation that organize subjective experience and orient action. From this perspective, adolescent overweight is conceptualized as a dialogical space of tension in which multiple voices—medical, familial, educational, and peer-related—converge, become internalized, and are hierarchically organized within the Self system. These voices give rise to diverse I-positions that do not operate in isolation but relate to one another through dialogues, contradictions, and ambivalences that shape subjective experiences of the body and self-care practices.

Methodologically, the research adopts a qualitative and idiographic approach, employing strategies of co-construction of information and a microgenetic analysis of adolescents’ and families’ narratives. The results suggest that the Self of adolescents with overweight is configured through tension-laden dialogues between I-positions regulated by hypergeneralized Affective-Semiotic Fields, which hierarchically organize internalized voices in which affect predominates, enabling self-care practices to be signified as expressions of agency and self-care rather than mere responses to external demands.

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).

How do we make sense of a person or social groups living through adverse and conflicting cultural situations, whose consequences lead to different layers of rupture from previous life context and/or knowing systems? Refugees, diabetic adolescents, women undertaking bariatric surgery, and school children negotiating gender social canons demand the development of creative methods to discuss culture, self, identity, and dialogical relations. This symposium presents studies from Brazil, Colombia, and Spain that propose experiential-based group methodologies for tracking emergent and shifting I positions in semiotically mediated situations. Special attention is given to the positions that arise and undergo change in the moment, highlighting the fluid and dynamic nature of dialogue and ongoing dialogical processes, while confronting the constraints and challenges related to conflicting social issues. All individual presentations are grounded in the interconnection between Cultural Psychology and Dialogical Self Theory (DST). The study of Roncancio, Cleves, and Cardona explores how families of children with diabetes (T1DM) construct meanings about food management. The methodological design outlines daily food activities such as shopping, meal preparation, and dinner. Within The Stories that Matter’s Project, the outcomes of art-based workshops support the discussion of how creative methods enable the exploration of the ambiguity and uncertainty that characterize asylum seeking by male participants. Similarly, Freire’s study on children's transition to primary school shows how dialogue within joint prototyping activites enhance awareness of the DS, helping them navigate gender differences and cultural dynamics. Branco highlights the role of imagination, illustrating how the Trajectory Equifinality Approach provides a longitudinal method for studying key life transitions and shifts in DS. By having the DS as an “interdisciplinary platform for innovative research,” this body of work draws on a focused effort to explore meaning-making indicators beyond verbal communication to develop deep understandings of how the DS evolves and transforms.

With a focus on the professional identity of psychologists, the symposium examines this theme from multiple complementary perspectives, including the coordination of I-positions, the navigation of meta-intentionality, and the role of imagination in identity development. The symposium approaches becoming a psychologist as a process unfolding across transitional phases: formal educational training (K. Kullasepp, J. Bo Christensen, S. Indius), the transition from psychology student to being recognized as a psychologist (J. Bo Christensen), and professional identity construction in clinical practice explored through the lenses of meta-intentionality (S. Indius) and imagination (J. Sigurddatter).

Focus of presentation by Kullasepp, Christensen and Indius is on the educational training period exploring psychology students. The research question concerns coordination of different I-positions (personal, professional) when reflecting on professional role related issues and how prospective psychologists make sense of meta-intentionality in therapeutic relationship.

J. Bo Christensen’s study pays close attention to the dynamic and non-linear transition from psychology student to psychologist consisting ongoing negotiation between perspectives I as a professional and I as non-professional within the context to adjustment to the formal role.

S.Indius’s presentation explores therapeutic relations and becoming a psychologist. Specifically, it focuses specifically on how a therapist’s reflective awareness of both their own intentions and those of the client shapes the therapeutic relationship and contributes to the ongoing development of professional identity.

Professional identity construction in psychotherapy is also a central focus of J. Sigurddatter study. The study highlights the significance of imagination and intense emotional experiences in the process of becoming a psychologist. Imagination is conceptualized as a process through which the dialogical self is reorganized.

This invited workshop introduces Dialogical Sonic Self-Portraits (DSSP), an arts-based, practice-oriented method developed within Dialogical Self Theory. Building on Hubert Hermans’ formulation of the self as a dynamic multiplicity of I-positions, the workshop explores how dialogical processes can be engaged at the level of vocal presence itself, understood as the relational ground on which positions emerge, encounter one another, and shift through ongoing processes of positioning and affective orientation.

Drawing on Bakhtin’s account of dialogism as the relational organisation of voices, the workshop attends to the material conditions through which dialogical relations are sustained at the level of voice itself. This orientation is informed by Mladen Dolar’s theorisation of voice as a structural remainder binding speaker and listener, Barthes’ notion of the grain of the voice as bodily presence beyond semantic meaning, and Cavarero’s understanding of voice as embodied address and exposure to the other.

Participants create a short sonic self-portrait by recording I-positions separately and composing them into a single audio artefact using minimal editing actions such as sequencing, overlap, silence, and relative volume. Editing is approached as a dialogical practice through which relations between positions are arranged, sustained, or unsettled within a shared sonic space. Dialogical positions are not assumed to pre-exist the recording process; rather, they are enacted through voicing and listening as these develop in relation to one another, in line with Dialogical Self Theory’s understanding of positioning as dynamic, relational, and affectively oriented.

The workshop is designed as a 90-minute, hands-on session. Participants work individually using their own mobile phones or laptops to record, edit, and listen to their sonic self-ports. Guided listening supports reflection on how dialogical relations become audible in the sonic in-between. No prior technical expertise is required, and sharing of audio material remains optional.

This workshop aims to provide a space for a dialogical exchange between Dialogical Self theory (DST) and Internal Family systems theory (IFS) with the intention of highlighting ways in which both models through their confluences and contradictions can cross-fertilize and inform each other in the context of multiplicity informed psychotherapy.

DST views the mind as a landscape inhabited by multiple I-positions which converse, converge, diverge, conflict and negotiate. Out of these dynamics, counter positions, promoter positions and meta-positions may emerge enabling the system to reorganize as a result of increased multivoicedness. (Hermans, 2001, 2024; Hermans & Gieser, 2012). Emphasis is placed on how the ‘external’, societal and cultural landscape influences, forms and reforms internal dynamics which are in constant interplay with the external environment. The IFS model also conceptualizes the psyche as multiple, comprising of a system of parts which occupy relative stable functional ‘positions’ within the internal system (for example ‘protectors’ and ‘exiles’) and operate in characteristic patterns of relationship to one another (Schwartz, 1987; Schwartz & Sweezy, 2020). IFS additionally proposes the presence of Self, which is not a part or I-position, but a qualitative different mode of awareness that can act as a wise, compassionate observer and healer of the internal system (Schwartz & Sweezy, 2020). Although IFS acknowledges the influence of external context, it places greater emphasis on internal dynamics and on how the therapist can facilitate a reconfiguration of the internal system through Self-to-part relationships.

This workshop will explore how both models can shed light on the same incident and how a combined view may enrich client case conceptualization and psychotherapeutic intervention. Giannis Antetokounmpo’s famous “there is no failure in sports” post-game interview will be used as a vivid live example of inner multiplicity, vulnerability and public meaning-making and reconstruction in real time.

In the first part of the workshop, participants will be briefly introduced to the core concepts of IFS therapy centering on the structural dynamics of the internal system (the distinction between protectors -managers and firefighters - exiles, and Self) and key practices of IFS therapy such as Self-to-part relationships. Parallels and contradictions from DST will be additionally mapped.

In the second part, participants will work in small groups with a transcript and video excerpt of the interview with the aim to analyse and reflect on the segment from DST and IFS perspectives. From a DST perspective, we will identify the act of positioning and counter-positioning, the presence of promoter and meta-positions, the external voices that shape the inner dialogue and the unfolding meaning making process. From an IFS perspective, we will map exiles, protectors, the presence of Self and the ways the system attempts to regulate in the face of crisis. Groups will use simple guiding questions (‘Who is speaking here?’, ‘What are they trying to accomplish?’ , ‘What are they protecting?’, ‘Who/what are they speaking to?’ , ‘What global narratives are they drawing from?’ ,‘How successful is that meaning making process?’) and briefly note emerging hypotheses about how the two models illuminate different aspects of the same incident.

In the third part, the whole group will engage in an interactive dialogue on integration: how IFS can expand DST’s view of vulnerability and processes of therapeutic change, and how DST can, in turn, significantly inform IFS practice by foregrounding audience and cultural narrative. Participants will be invited to leave with the seeds of a possible integrative framework that both honours the inner family of parts and remains attuned to the wider dialogical field within which these parts – or I-positions – are brought to life and transformed.

Why are some poets more likely to die by suicide than other writers? Research into writing-for-wellbeing has begun to answer this question and it may have to do with which I-positions they express.

Can you tell from a text whether your lover might leave you? Research shows you may be able to predict this by the way they position themselves in a response and whether they match your language use.

But…what if you weren’t afraid of rejection? What if you knew how to express I-positions and develop meta- and promoter positions, empowering yourself through life and loss? Writing-the-self is one way you might do this.

We know that writing can be healing. Psychotherapists and counsellors frequently prescribe it and the field of writing-for-wellbeing is now established with over 40 years’ of published research. Quantitative studies show that writing about trauma – particularly expressing both the events and the emotional impact of those events – can reduce doctor’s visits, increase immunity, and lessen chronic illness symptoms. Some assume that “getting it out” (i.e. catharsis) is what offers the change, but studies shows that meaning making and identity (re)construction may be at the heart of the improvements in how people feel.

This workshop combines creative, expressive and reflective writing practices with Dialogical Self Theory, inviting participants to express and develop the voices within. It offers three transformative writing exercises: (1) a question and response, (2) poetry exploring contradictions, and (3) a written inquiry process that undoes painful thinking.

In the last 30 years I’ve facilitated over a thousand students, and have come to see that most of us struggle with shame about some aspect of our lives. Structured writing can help us overcome resistance to such feelings, become vulnerable in healthy ways, and experience new ways of being.

Parrhesia, speaking the truth in the moments of deep societal and individual crises, is an internal dialogue, made transparent for a witnessing and emotionally involved audience. When addressing a societal issue, the parrhesiastes risks their personal existence, while establishing or maintaining their integrity. On an individual level, parrhesia demonstrates and enables the ritual separation from earlier identities and entering the unpredictable zone of liminality. Parrhesia is hazardous, however, it might be the only way to avoid freezing into an inauthentic state that paralyses human development. It requires an internal, I-I type encounter between the core self-positions and states: a courageous and fundamental expression or revision of core identity elements in a crisis when life cannot continue the way as it was before. As the values expressed by the individual are identical with those of a larger community, parrhesia is characteristic of the hero’s story, often appearing in myths, tales and works of art.

In this presentation, I compare two parrhesiastic acts performed in the former dictatorships in Hungary: Istvan Bibó’s, Minister of the State’s speech in the very last moments of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution putting an end to open terror, and Gabor Bódy’s film, the Dog’s Night Song (1983), an attempt to reflect on the destructive and powerful semantic web of lies in a soft dictatorship.

In any dictatorship, core identity elements must be suppressed or eradicated in a painful process of group- and individual-level identicide. Substitute fake elements, often, former contra-ideal selves, are linked to previous, traumatizing experiences of entrapment. Bibó could escape identicide, but suffered the grave existential consequences of his speech. Bódy’s identicide and attempted parrhesia turned into a (debated) suicide. His work is a deep reflection on the individual's dissociative responses to a traumatizing social system.

When reading narratives such as novels and manga, readers often place themselves in the position of the protagonist and experience intense emotions, including tension, anticipation, fear, anger, and joy. Moreover, fictional characters—despite their non-existence—may later function in the mind as if they were real others, offering encouragement or guidance that influences readers’ actions and judgments. This paper theoretically re-describes the experience of narrative reading by drawing on the conceptual framework of Dialogical Self Theory.

When a reader begins a narrative, a work-specific “narrative domain” is established within the self, in which character-based I-positions corresponding to the protagonist and other major characters are gradually constructed. As narrative absorption deepens, the protagonist’s I-position is foregrounded and becomes dominant within the self. In some cases, readers may temporarily shift to the I-positions of other characters, organizing emotional responses and meaning-making from those perspectives. In contrast to conventional views that conceptualize narrative engagement as a monolithic self empathizing with characters external to the self, this paper conceptualizes story characters as I-positions that temporarily constitute elements of the self.

Within narratives, characters with differing perspectives and values interact, generating multiple contradictions both within and between positions. Such contradictions are essential to narrative development and function as generative conditions for human action and meaning-making.

After the reader leaves the narrative world, the narrative domain enters a “sleep mode,” defined as a temporary inactive state that withdraws from the experiential foreground while retaining the potential for reactivation. Even in this state, some character-based I-positions remain dialogically available, continuing to engage with everyday I-positions. In this way, memorable fictional characters persist as “internalized others” within the reader’s self. From this perspective, narrative reading opens dialogical possibilities with diverse others and transforms the self into a more polyphonic and enriched configuration.

According to Hubert Hermans (2004), characters from digital games can enter the domain of the player’s self and become interlocutors in their intrapersonal communication. The present study aims to identify affective types of in-game interlocutors and their psychological functions. From a group of 244 players, 69 were selected based on their engagement in internal dialogues with game characters. The participants completed three measures: (1) the Dialogical Activity Form (DAF), (2) the Figure’s Emotional Climate Inventory (FECI), based on a list of 24 affective states derived from the Self-Confrontation Method developed by Hermans, and (3) the Functions of Dialogues–Revised Questionnaire (FUND-R). Four affective types of in-game interlocutors were identified. The first three profiles align with previously established types, whereas the fourth is characteristic of the digital game context. Affective types of in-game interlocutors were also analyzed in terms of six functions: analyzing, bonding, self-knowing, fantasizing, ruminating, and testing. The results highlight the significant contribution of affectively laden in-game interlocutors to players’ personal functioning. The findings will be discussed within the framework of Dialogical Self Theory.

This article presents qualitative research on ten short narrative psychotherapy sessions and five group discussions. The study examined co-writing as a therapeutic approach for patients with drug-resistant schizophrenia. It examines the dominant narratives in collaborative writing sessions between therapist/researcher and patient, as well as the most conflictual narratives and the I-positions that express them. A reflexive thematic analysis combined with a descriptive phenomenological analysis was carried out to explore the most representative themes and the meanings, experiences, and life worlds of people with this diagnosis. Central to this process is the co-construction of a meta-position that can manage the various internal and external I-positions and facilitate collaboration while avoiding power imbalances between clinician and patient. Overall, co-writing emerges as a promising relational and meaning-building intervention in psychotherapy and mental health services. It fosters a collaborative and relational approach by reconfiguring the power dynamics between therapists and clients, creating a more equitable and shared meaning-building process. From a practical standpoint, co-writing necessitates revising the clinical and ethical approaches. Therapists must develop technical, ethical, and dialogical skills related to negotiating co-authorship, managing disagreements, and shared reflexivity.

Long‑term narrative and dialogical therapies are fundamentally mismatched with classical randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Healing is multi‑component and contextual, including narrative groups, dialogical meetings, community and family involvement, shifts in staff culture, and attention to spirituality and Indigenous or local meanings, all of which occur together. Trying to isolate a single manualized “active ingredient” for an RCT, in their view, distorts what actually helps people. Work that is genuinely dialogical and evolving in response to participant feedback clashes with fixed protocols and tight fidelity demands. Ethically, it is questionable to randomize people in severe distress (psychosis, suicidality, chronic coercive care histories) away from a recovery‑oriented milieu to a fixed and rigid protocol. Outcomes like identity change, agency, and community participation are poorly captured by symptom‑only scales. Instead of classic RCTs, we favor mixed‑methods and naturalistic designs: pre–post quantitative measures, comparison with treatment‑as‑usual, intensive case series, and phenomenological descriptions of change. On locked inpatient units, they reported that adding a daily narrative group produced significantly greater improvement on measures such as BASIS‑32 than comparison units, with changes they interpret as clinically meaningful. In longer‑term dialogical and largely non‑pharmacological work with psychosis, we describe reductions in hospitalization and crises, diminished suicidality, and return to education, work, and relational roles—“recovery of function in the ordinary world”—even when some symptoms persist. There is a modest but growing body of literature showing that narrative‑based psychotherapies produce statistically significant improvements in symptoms and functioning, sometimes comparable to or superior to conventional CBT, though studies are usually small and methodologically limited. Narrative/dialogical approaches have enough empirical and experiential support to be considered reasonable alternatives or adjuncts to standard care, and future research must find creative designs that preserve the relational, cultural, and community context rather than stripping it away for the sake of methodological purity.

Background and Aim: People living with brain tumors face enduring uncertainty and a lack of understanding from others (Janda et al., 2006). Drawing on Dialogical Self Theory (Hermans, 2001), this study examines how "being understood" is interactionally achieved during life-story interviews and how these dialogical processes reshape illness narratives.

Method: Five cases were selected from life-story interviews with fifteen Japanese adults with diverse brain tumor histories. Using Dialogical Narrative Analysis (Frank, 2011), interview data were analyzed as multivoiced performances, focusing on turn-by-turn positioning and the evolving interviewer–interviewee relationship. A distinctive analytic feature was the interviewer's partial "insider" positioning—as a bereaved family member of a father who died from glioblastoma—alongside researcher and trainee clinical psychologist positions. This positionality was treated as both an analytic resource and an ethical challenge.

Results: Findings reveal that "being understood" is co-constructed through layered relational frames. Interviewees and the interviewer navigated multiple positions (e.g., patient–family member, friend-like, client-counselor), collaboratively generating new narrative possibilities. In this dialogical space, re-telling reopened previously closed experiences, rendering unmet psychosocial needs more speakable. Intertextual traces (e.g., blogs, SNS, mails) further supported ongoing self-reinterpretation beyond the interview encounter. Crucially, moments of recognition—when interviewees experienced being received—were linked to deeper reflection and a renewed sense of self-coherence. While the interviewer's partial insider stance fostered safety and depth of disclosure, it also required careful management of potential invasiveness.

Conclusions: This study suggests that dialogical interviewing can function as a care-like moment that facilitates narrative reconstruction. Methodologically, integrating shifting I-positions and wider interactional trajectories (including pre/post-interview exchanges and intertextual traces) offers a way to enrich qualitative data and to connect DST with narrative approach in health research. Ethically, the strategic use of partial insider positioning invites deeper dialogue but necessitates sustained reflexivity to manage mutual bias.

This symposium brings together scholars working at the intersection of Dialogical Self Theory (DST), literacy education, and emerging technologies to examine how readers and writers negotiate selfhood in classrooms organized by “feedback regimes”—policy mandates, fluency metrics, social media signals, and AI-generated response. We treat feedback not as a neutral add-on but as an identity-making force that repositions learners and reshapes dialogue. DST traces movement among multiple “I-positions” and bridges between self and society (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010). Hermans’s recent work sharpens what is at stake: intensified mediation can produce position uncertainty—multiplicity tipping into anxiety or closure (Hermans, 2025). We argue that contemporary feedback regimes often amplify this uncertainty, sometimes sounding dialogic while producing compliance or self-confirming loops.

Greg Bruno opens with a field-level analysis of post-COVID literacy pedagogy and the resurgence of “Science of Reading” discourse, framing feedback regimes as forces that shape what counts as reading and who counts as a reader. Mercedes Allen examines secondary fluency instruction, showing how metrics can support identity development or intensify uncertainty when speed and accuracy become proxies for worth. Kaylee Smedley presents learning stations as a pedagogy for dialogical reading, demonstrating how structured reflection surfaces and revises diverse I-positions without overwhelm. Chelsey Barber turns to AI-assisted composing, asking how openness to alterity and responsibility is sustained when the “other” is an algorithmic interlocutor optimized to mirror the self. Kelsey closes with dialogic process journaling and response models that cultivate Promoter Positions—internalized sustaining voices that support risk-taking and development—shifting students from solitary performance toward “We-positioning” and relational becoming (Hermans, 2025).

Together, these presentations offer DST as both analytic lens and pedagogical praxis for keeping dialogic space open when feedback threatens to foreclose it.

This symposium focuses on the lived experience of the self in flux within cultural contexts, drawing on Hubert Hermans’ Dialogical Self Theory (DST) as its central theoretical framework. The aim is to examine, from a qualitative psychological perspective, the contradictions and inner tensions that emerge within the self as it is shaped and reshaped through cultural participation.

In Dialogical Self Theory, the self is not understood as a single, stable entity, but as a dynamic multiplicity of socially and culturally situated I-positions. As individuals engage with different domains of meaning—such as family, education, work, gender relations, and cultural norms—they are required to inhabit diverse self-positions. This process often generates fluctuation, tension, and conflict among positions, revealing the dynamic constitution of the self within culture.

The symposium conceptualizes such inner fluctuations not as signs of instability or immaturity, but as contradictions arising from dialogical processes in which I-positions negotiate, confront, or silence one another. A central question concerns how these contradictions are mediated by cultural and historical contexts, and how they are narrated, interpreted, or rendered unspeakable within particular social settings.

The four presentations place primary emphasis on theoretical exploration and employ qualitative research approaches, including narrative research, ethnography, and the Trajectory Equifinality Approach (TEA). Drawing on cases from culturally embedded practices such as family relationships and career development, the presentations illustrate how selves in flux are dialogically constructed and transformed in concrete contexts.

By framing contradiction not as an obstacle to be resolved but as a generative space for the emergence and transformation of the dialogical self, this symposium aims to deepen qualitative understandings of lived self-conflict and to contribute to culturally grounded theorizing of the self.