Conference Agenda

We present an application conceived as a complement to and support for psychotherapy, with the aim of strengthening the therapeutic alliance, self-regulation, and timely intervention. The application is grounded in the Model of the Agonistic Self, one of the approaches within Dialogical Self Theory. According to the model, power relations are central feature of self-dynamics, which unfold through constellations as broader patterns of relationships among multiple metaphorical voices. The application is designed as a guided self-reflection tool that helps individuals identify, name, and relate to recurring inner and external voices as personifications of thoughts, emotions, and intentions that emerge across situations. Based on user input, the application generates an individualized constellation of voices, along with the values, assumptions, and contexts that typically activate each voice. The outcome is a structured and idiographic map of the self that can be revisited and refined over time. A central objective is to provide a shared therapeutic platform for both clients and therapists. For clients, the constellation offers a concrete language for experiences that are often diffuse, supporting differentiation, emotional clarity, and values-based agency. For therapists, it functions as a collaborative aid for case formulation, offering a common reference point for exploring internal conflicts, identifying maintaining patterns, and selecting interventions. Because the same profile is accessible to both parties, therapeutic work can focus less on reconstructing experiences from memory and more on engaging with clearly represented patterns. In addition to session-based use, the application includes tools that extend therapeutic work between sessions. These include a daily log for tracking situations and internal shifts, brief exercises for anxiety regulation, and a structured decision-making aid that supports reflection on competing internal perspectives and values. The long-term goal is to integrate an AI-assisted component that builds on prior user inputs to support reflective dialogue, recall helpful strategies, and facilitate planning.

Research with teachers and other practitioners suggests that they often encounter a moment of wobble—some occurrence in their practice that caused them to pause, to wonder, to question (Fecho, Graham, & Ross, 2006; Fecho, Coombs, & Stewart, 2024; Jansky, 2021). Much as a rope walker, unsteady and wobbling, rivets attention, so does wobble in one’s practice. The uncertainty about outcomes can invoke dread, but it can also present exciting possibilities. Wobble serves as a harbinger, an opportunity for reflection, that can lead to more substantive change through inquiry as a meaning making process.

When such moments occur, I invite teachers to take part in an Oral Inquiry Process (OIP), a protocol that honors the theoretical underpinnings of the Descriptive Review, a more complex protocol developed by Patricia Carini (Himley & Carini, 2000). Both protocols are designed to elicit multiple perspectives and support systematic and intentional reflection into practice. However, the OIP is more streamlined and facilitates not just external but also internal dialogue (Bakhtin, 1981; Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010; Hermans, 2022). Practitioners share their wobble stories in small groups. Participants then respond to the stories through three questions: what I-positions did they identify in the story, what connections did they make to the story, and what issues were evoked by the story?

In the workshop, I invite participants—psychologists, counsellors, educators, therapists--to write a wobble story based on an occurrence in their practice, take part in small group OIP responses to those stories, and then reflect on the process. The intent is to usefully interrupt the comfortable but limiting routines of professional practice by dialoguing through the uncertainty and embracing possibility (Hermans, 2022).

Dialogical Self Theory (DST) conceptualizes the self as a dynamic multiplicity of I-positions situated within an internal and external society of voices. These positions—personal, social, remembered, imagined, and culturally informed—engage in ongoing dialogue, negotiation, and tension. Psychological movement occurs not through unification, but through shifts in positioning and the emergence of new dialogical relations.

This experiential workshop explores how I-positions can be accessed, differentiated, and transformed through structured dialogical writing. Participants will first map salient voices within their own society of mind, identifying dominant, marginalized, and silenced positions. Through guided dialogical exercises, they will explore how these voices relate, conflict, or seek recognition.

The central practice of the workshop is the transformation of dialogical encounters into short, carefully crafted stories. Writing is approached as a dialogical act: a process that externalizes voices, reorganizes their relationships, and allows new positions to emerge. These brief narratives do not summarize experience; they reposition the self. By translating I-positions into story form, participants experiment with creative re-authoring and symbolic integration.

Each story is paired with a symbolic illustrated postcard. The postcard functions as a tangible artifact of dialogical movement—a material reminder of newly negotiated meanings and emerging positions. As an object that can be held, revisited, and shared, it extends the dialogical process beyond the immediate encounter.

By combining dialogical mapping with narrative crystallization, the workshop demonstrates how DST can move from theory to embodied creative practice. It proposes that writing can serve as a bridge between multiplicity and coherence, allowing voices not to be silenced, but transformed through dialogue.

The idea that the essence of the self can be located within the narratives individuals construct in response to the question “Who am I?” has been conceptualized as the narrative self (Bruner, 1990, 2002; Crossley, 2000; Gergen & Gergen, 1983, 1988; McAdams, 1985, 1993). Narratives of the self are commonly formed through a dialogical process involving two interrelated perspectives: how the self is perceived by others (“me”) and how the self understands itself (“I”) (Hermans & Kempen, 1993; Hermans, 2001). While such expressions are often shared through language, self-expression is not limited to linguistic forms alone. In response to this broader understanding of self-expression, the present study adopts a visual narrative approach, which recognizes visual imagery as a meaningful medium for narrating the self. Visual narratives refer both to the act of expressing events, experiences, beliefs, and values through images and to the visual artifacts produced through this expressive process. This study examines expressions of the self as they emerge within childcare as a social practice, drawing on visual data produced by nursery teachers in Japan. Participants created drawings depicting aspects of their work that they valued most. The study consisted of two components: (1) the creation of drawings representing participants’ childcare practices across the past, present, and future, and (2) focus group interviews in which participants reflected on and discussed their drawings. Analysis of the drawings revealed multiple dimensions of the self, including the observing self, guiding self, cultivating self, co-growing self, and embracing self. These findings demonstrate the potential of visual narrative methods to capture the self as intertwined with time, place, events, and relationships with others. Future research should further examine the relationship between modes of self that appear contemporaneously and those that emerge teleologically, within ongoing social practices.

In an era of global changes and mental health challenges, clinicians strive to reflect the emerging realities in their areas of practice and inquiry. As a practitioner, what I find largely defining the process, and potentially the outcome of psychotherapy, is: a) the relational space between me and my client, b) the relational space within my different selves, and c) the interconnectedness of these relational spaces. In my doctoral research, I used the concept of relational space, which includes human and non-human elements, verbal and non-verbal interactions, emotions, embodied responses... and more. In order to study the complex encounter of relational spaces in the therapy room, in my doctoral research I used stories about an event that occurred during a therapy session or about something I reflected on about a particular client or a particular session. In these autoethnographic stories, the focus is not on the therapy techniques, nor on the client’s difficulties. Instead, the focus is on the relational conversation between my client and myself, as well as on how my dialogical self emerges in the therapy room, my inner dialogue and thoughts and feelings. In a way, what I am trying to do is create a professionally employable space for the personal. The collaborative dialogue between these relational spaces as shown in autoethnographic stories creates relational ripples, which in turn open up possibilities and generate transformative practices in the psychotherapy process. Writing autoethnographic stories and their use in my practice and in my inquiry is a methodological tool, applicable and useful to other practitioners, who need to respond to current mental health challenges.

This study examines how secondary school teachers integrate GenAI into the design of learning activities after participating in a targeted training program. Using a qualitative design, approximately 30 teachers redesign a previously used learning situation by incorporating a structured framework that regulates students use of GenAI. Data are collected through pre- and post-design artifacts and semi-structured interviews. The analysis focuses on identifying the dialogical dynamics underlying teachers decision-making, exploring how different voices, such as institutional expectations, pedagogical beliefs, prior experience, and emerging technological affordances, interact, conflict, and become integrated in the design process. The study also examines how GenAI itself may function as a new “voice” within the self, influencing instructional choices and representations of learning. This research contributes to DST by extending its application to the domain of educational technology design, an area still underexplored. It provides empirical evidence on how dialogical processes operate in real educational contexts when professionals face disruptive tools such as GenAI. Furthermore, it offers insights into how structured frameworks can mediate these dialogical processes, supporting more reflective and intentional pedagogical integration of technology

This research analyzes the emergence and transformation of diverse masculinities in LGTBI movement activists in three Colombian cities and integrates the perspective of the Dialogic Self (Hermans, 2003) with the Equifinal Trajectory Model (Tsuchimoto & Sato, 2024). The study conceives identity not as a static entity, but as a process of dynamic semiosis (Valsiner, 2024). Through a qualitative multiple case study design, the life narratives of three leaders were explored, examining how their positions of the Self: Me as a man, Me as gay, Me as an activist, constantly negotiate with the social voices of heteronormativity. The results reveal that the construction of dissident identity is an “act of meaning” where the subject transforms cultural tensions into a personal-collective synthesis. The analysis of the trajectories reveals critical bifurcations where the internal dialogue between conflicting positions—fear of rejection vs. desire for authenticity—precipitates the reaffirmation of the Self in meso-systemic ecological environments. It is concluded that activism functions as a semiotic resource that allows the reconfiguration of the subject's polyphony, validating forms of existence that challenge the monologism of hegemonic masculinity.

Contemporary educational environments are characterized by rapid transformation and crisis conditions that challenge the stability of educators’ professional identity. These challenges are especially evident in contexts of social disruption such as the current transformations affecting the Ukrainian educational system. In such contexts, educators are required not only to adapt to institutional changes but also to reconsider the meanings and values that shape their professional roles.

This paper examines the development of educators’ professional identity from the perspective of dialogical self theory and proposes the concept of dialogical self-authorship as a psychological mechanism underlying this process. To the author’s knowledge, the concept of dialogical self-authorship has not yet been systematically conceptualized in studies of educators’ professional identity.

The dialogical self is understood as a dynamic multiplicity of relatively autonomous I-positions that interact within an internal dialogical space. In professional contexts, these positions may represent different roles, expectations, and value orientations related to educational practice.

Dialogical self-authorship is defined as the process through which educators construct an authorial professional stance by reflexively integrating multiple professional I-positions. This process begins with the recognition of contradictions within professional experience and develops through internal dialogue and reflective reinterpretation of professional meanings.

The paper presents a conceptual model of dialogical self-authorship that includes four components: problem-actualization, dialogical-reflective interaction of I-positions, integrative meaning construction, and authorial professional positioning. Through these processes educators develop the capacity to interpret professional challenges and construct a coherent professional position. The emergence of a reflective meta-position enables educators to coordinate multiple I-positions and assume an authorial stance toward their professional development.

The study also proposes criteria for assessing dialogical self-authorship, including reflective awareness, dialogical positioning, integration of professional meanings, professional self-efficacy, and readiness for professional development.

In whole-class instruction, lessons are conducted primarily using an IRE structure of communication (Mehan, 1979), which involves an exchange consisting of the teacher’s “initiation,” the child’s “reply,” and further “evaluation” by the teacher. When a designated child speaks, other children acting as listeners are required to listen to the conversation. Children acting as listeners can also contribute significantly to the lesson’s progression by making various statements, offering opinions to the speaker, and guiding discussions (Nakata, 1996). Utterances from listeners deviating from the routine play a major role in lesson progression, and listener utterances influence both the lesson’s flow and learning (Yokoyama, 2023).

This study focused on listeners’ utterances directed at speakers outside the routine, and examined how these utterances refine and share the speaker’s ideas. When a speaker explains their thoughts or illustrates them using a diagram, listeners sometimes rephrase the speaker’s ideas. This study clarified how the speaker’s ideas become refined through this listener-initiated “rephrasing.” To achieve this, classroom observations of third-grade mathematics lessons were conducted, and case studies were analyzed to examine speakers’ and corresponding listeners’ opinions. Specifically, this study examined two points: 1. How are speakers’ opinions rephrased? and 2. How are speakers’ opinions shared with the class after being rephrased by the listener?

The results showed that when the speaker explained their devised solution to the whole class, the listeners verbalized the diagrams, named the solution method, and paraphrased the speaker’s opinion while supplementing it. By incorporating the listener’s “paraphrasing,” the speaker’s initially conceived idea became refined and clarified. It can be considered that aspects of the speaker'’ thinking are brought into relief through the listener adding various interpretations.

Theory of Mind (ToM) is the ability to attribute mental states such as desires, intentions, and perspectives, to other people. It may be the case that one’s ToM facilitates the self in organizing itself as a dynamic, dialogical multiplicity of interacting positions. However, existing ToM measures are largely based on a priori notions of what researchers conceive as ToM – which may leave out aspects of ToM, potentially biasing investigations of this relationship. Therefore, we set out to investigate ToM in what we hope is a more ecologically valid method, using open-ended reports in order to conceive a new ToM measure that can advance understanding of relationships between ToM and the Dialogical Self. After analyzing open-ended reports (N = 1969 instances) for ground-up theme emergence, and developing as well as collecting data on 83 representative questionnaire items, we ran preliminary Exploratory Factor Analysis (N = 566 MRU student participants) on the items to see if factors would be extracted. The EFA extracted fairly strong factors in line with the typically reported ToM constructs of Goals and Desires, Intentions, and Empathy, as well as Perspective Taking. The EFA also extracted a fairly strong ToM factor not common to the literature, representing a construct we termed About Me. Further, the EFA revealed potential factors around the uncommonly reported constructs of Mental Time Travel, Inner Experiences, Appearances, and Context. Finally, weaker extracted factors involved Social Comparison, as well as Behaviour, and Attributes. As this is only a preliminary analysis, next steps include more EFA models and Confirmatory Factor Analysis to gain more clarity on what is presented here. Although preliminary, this study has implications for advancing Dialogical Self theory, even if in a modest capacity.

Background: Intellectual humility (IH) involves the awareness of one’s intellectual fallibility and openness to revising viewpoints. While personality traits like Machiavellianism are known to negatively predict IH, less is known about the psychological resources that can buffer this effect. This study investigates the role of dialogical flexibility (DF) — the ability to shift between I-positions and constructively transform internal dialogues — as a potential moderator in this relationship.

Method: The study was conducted on a diverse sample of N=619 adults (M=41.2; SD=11.22; 51% female) recruited via the Ariadna platform. Participants completed the Dialogical Flexibility Scale (DFS), the General Intellectual Humility Scale (GIHS), and the Two-Dimensional Machiavellianism Scale (TDMS).

Results: Consistent with expectations, Machiavellianism (both in terms of views and tactics) was a significant negative predictor of intellectual humility. However, moderation analysis revealed that dialogical flexibility significantly buffers this relationship. For individuals with high DF, the negative impact of Machiavellian tendencies on IH was significantly diminished compared to those with low DF.

Conclusions: The findings suggest that the mere presence of internal dialogues is insufficient for intellectual growth; rather, it is the quality and flexibility of these dialogues that support IH. Dialogical flexibility serves as a protective resource, making the dialogical mind more resilient to manipulative tendencies and more open to epistemic revision. These results offer a new perspective on the Dark Triad and internal dialogical activity by highlighting DF as a potential target for interventions aimed at fostering humility and protecting against manipulation.

This study investigates parent-child dynamism and internal self-negotiation among 30 Japanese mothers of children aged 0–12, focusing on their narratives regarding "Shiage-migaki" (maternal toothbrushing assistance). Utilizing Dialogical Self Theory, the research identifies significant internal conflicts between the "Responsible Authority" (upholding health norms) and the "Empathetic Caregiver" (responding to the child’s resistance).The analysis reveals the influence of "Family-Specific Thresholds of Tolerance." While mothers often report uncertainty in general parenting amidst shifting social trends, toothbrushing is positioned as a domain of high normative pressure where they exercise authority based on specific internal boundaries. However, these boundaries are subject to Micro-Oscillations during intense interactions. The study categorizes conflict resolution styles into four distinct types: 1) Internalized Authority (strict enforcement driven by duty), 2) Creative Dialogical (transforming the conflict into playful interaction), 3) Self-Suppressive (prioritizing the child’s emotional state over the task), and 4) Resigned/Distanced (relativizing the task's long-term importance).Significantly, mothers perceive this ritual as the final hurdle that concludes each day ("saishu kanmon"), performed while physically and mentally exhausted from work and domestic labor. The successful completion of this demanding task provides a critical context for self-valorization. By fulfilling their maternal duty despite intense internal conflict, mothers generate a sense of competence and moral integrity. This process functions as a vital psychological mechanism for restoring self-worth among self-sacrificing Japanese mothers who tend to underestimate their own value due to cultural expectations of "good motherhood." These adjustments are linked to specific "Self-Care Modes"—Static, Physical, or Social/Professional—which function as regulatory mechanisms to alleviate internal tension and maintain self-integrity. The study concludes that "Shiage-migaki" constitutes a dialogical space that functions as a vital arena for fostering the mutual development of both mother and child.

This poster presents the concept of transitiance, capturing the unique experiential (translated from the Danish: oplevelsesbaserede) transition into the domain that psychologists inhabit when enacting or performing their professional being (translated from the Danish “væsen”) and means “det væsen man træder ind i” in practice. Transitiance is relevant not only in the time from student to professional life, but specifically in the shifting moments where a person enters and exits their professional social role. Transitiance is different from transience, where transitiance highlight the process of be-coming and de-coming as an on-going premise of professionalism in practice and opens the dynamic view on constant regulation of self as it enters into social role of professional. Transitiance refers to the ongoing, micro-dynamic process in which an individual continuously shifts between I-positions that regulate self into private and professional self-positions. The concept captures how the professional essence – or "substance" – is not perceived as a static, separate identity, but rather as a continuum, where identities and positions flow in and out of each other in small, situational transitions. Transitiance differs from classical transition theories by focusing on the subtle, recurring, and often brief shifts where the professional and the personal not only coexist but are actively negotiated and adjusted in practice (rapid yet stability).

Central to the definition of transitiance is, that moving through education towards professional is not one major life transition, but a constant phenomenon characterized by repeated and often invisible, small shifts between positions and substance. The concept is based on a dynamic, processual understanding of professionalism, where professionalism is continuously in and out of "focus" depending on eg. context and interaction/relation.

This presentation explores internal transformations of the self in the context of facilitated dialogue practices, drawing on the dialogical self theory and its further development into the concept of the democratic self. The theoretical framework builds primarily on Hermans’ work on Society in the Self (2018), Inner Democracy (2020), and the personalization of democracy in citizenship education (Hermans & Bartels, 2021). From this perspective, democracy is not only a societal or institutional arrangement but also an inner process, grounded in the capacity of individuals to host, negotiate, and coordinate multiple “I-positions” in a dialogical and non-dominating manner.

The empirical material is based on a dialogical training program developed by Kai Alhanen in Finland. The study employs participant observation and an auto-ethnographic approach, allowing close access to lived experiences within the training process. Special attention is given to subtle inner changes occurring during the dialogues, such as shifts in dominant and marginalized self-positions, the emergence of new dialogical voices, and increased tolerance for internal and external disagreement.

The analysis focuses on how facilitated dialogues enable participants to practice “polite confrontations,” understood as the capacity to remain in disagreement without polarization or inner closure. These practices appear to support the development of inner democracy by strengthening reflexivity, dialogical openness, and the ability to move between competing positions without suppressing them. The findings contribute to discussions in citizenship education, dialogical pedagogy, and democratic theory by showing how democratic capacities can be cultivated at the level of the self through structured dialogical learning environments.

In recent decades, young adulthood has been conceptualized as a distinct developmental period characterized by identity exploration, individuation, and increasing personal, occupational, and familial independence. Alongside this, a growing social trend has emerged in many developed societies: a rising number of young adults who continue to reside in their parental home into their thirties. This phenomenon raises questions regarding identity formation, particularly for men, for whom autonomy is often positioned as a core component of masculine identity.

This qualitative study examines how young adult men experience and make meaning of prolonged co-residence with parents, focusing on internal dialogues through which autonomy, masculinity, and adulthood are negotiated. The study draws on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 19 Israeli Jewish men aged 27–34, single and never having lived independently. Interviews were analyzed using thematic content analysis.

Four central themes were identified, each reflecting dominant self-positions. “The Golden Cage” describes the tension between voices of comfort and security and counter-voices of stagnation and reduced agency. “The Family’s Child” highlights the coexistence of aspirations for privacy and autonomy at home with enduring bonds of care, closeness, and obligation that complicate separation. “Red Lights” captures the social and romantic constraints associated with living at home, exposing conflicts between self-legitimization and internalized social criticism. Finally, “Something’s Wrong with You” reveals painful identity struggles marked by a gap between expected and lived life trajectories and ongoing friction between childlike and adult self-positions, contributing to diminished self-esteem and self-efficacy.

The findings contribute to Dialogical Self Theory by illustrating how prolonged co-residence functions as a dynamic space of internal negotiation, in which multiple self-positions are shaped by social expectations and masculine norms. Practically, the study underscores the importance of interventions that normalize this experience, reduce internalized stigma, and support identity development and autonomy within contemporary socio-economic contexts.

The investigation of complex interactions, like those occurring in couple and family therapy sessions, calls for open minded and creative methods in qualitative discursive research. For researchers adopting the idea of identity as storytelling in dialogue, there is

a challenge in studying both internal and external positions in the complexity of such a session. In the present case study, our analysis aimed to shed light on the interplay between such positions. Drawing material from the affiliated Institute’s archive, we analyzed a transcribed 10th session with a couple.Their young adult son had suffered a

brief psychotic episode and had a ‘neurodivergent’ diagnosis. The couple struggled to make meaning of their son’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors, and deal with his difficulties in social adjustment.They adopted two antithetical positions in terms of what is realistic/idealistic in terms of the son’s life prospects.These antithetical positions extended to their relationship negotiation, but also stood out as dominant positions of

their self, where one was the ‘realist’ and the other the ‘idealist’. The therapist’s position

as promoter provided dialogical space for bridging partners’ antithetical positions,

helping them approach these positions as dominant/less dominant I-positions for

each one.The study offers an example of a discursive method to study couple therapy from a DST perspective. In terms of clinical implications, it points to the therapist’s potentially active role in promoting self-reflexivity and expanding the repertoire of I positions to help the couple cope with everyday demands and complexities.

Sexual abuse is associated with an increased risk of psychiatric diagnoses and addictions, although it is not linked to a specific syndrome (Kendler et al., 2000, pp. 953–959). Studies report differences between 21%–57% of women with addictions who experienced childhood sexual abuse and 3%–12% among those without such histories (Simpson et al., 2002, p. 29). Outcomes are shaped by variables such as age at onset, duration, and relationship to the perpetrator. A longitudinal study demonstrated correlations between childhood sexual abuse and depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, sexual risk behaviors, self-esteem, and substance misuse between the ages of 18 and 30 (Fergusson et al., 2013, pp. 666–668). Findings from the Adverse Childhood Experiences survey conducted across 22 countries, including Slovenia, reveal patterns consistent with international data (Kuhar & Zager Kocjan, 2020, p. 511).

In clinical settings, professionals encounter survivors whose addictions function as strategies for affect regulation and dissociation. Relational Family Therapy conceptualizes human experience across systemic, interpersonal, and intrapsychic levels, integrating cognitive, emotional, and somatic processes within the family as an organic psycho-social unit (Gostečnik, 2017, p. 62). Addressing trauma and addiction therefore requires coordinated interventions that acknowledge relational dynamics, embodied memory, and the regulation of affective states over time.

Collaborative practice between social workers and psychotherapists enhances addiction treatment in the context of sexual abuse trauma by integrating complementary roles within a coordinated care framework. Social workers often serve as initial points of contact, conducting psychosocial assessments, assisting with legal procedures, navigating social services, and coordinating access to resources such as housing and community support (Arajärvi et al., 2023, pp. 348–365; Kuhar & Zager Kocjan, 2020, pp. 513–520). In parallel, relational psychotherapists focus on trauma processing, affect regulation, and integrating traumatic experiences into coherent narratives influencing addiction outcomes. Structured collaboration supports understanding, planning, practice, and improved outcomes for survivors.

Maud Lewis née Dowley (1901-1979) has become one of Canada’s most renowned artists. Born with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, she lived in a protected home environment till her thirties. Many adversities followed, including the worsening of her health and a married life in poverty. But Maud managed to preserve a positive outlook to life, as depicted in her paintings that have the atmosphere and style of joyful child drawings. The present psychobiography study explored her life from the prism of narrative identity with its origins in external dialogues between parents and young children. A specific self-defining memory can often encapsulate the whole process of identity construction. Maud had a memory of painting with her mother and selling cards that later defined her existence. We analyzed this memory based on four life story constructs linked to well-being: agency, communion, redemption, and meaning making. We then traced these constructs to her whole life. The analysis revealed a narrator who found redemptive meanings in suffering and adversity, justifying Maud’s high levels of happiness despite hardship. In terms of clinical implications, there are known benefits in encouraging persons with disabilities and chronic illness to explore all forms of creativity with lasting resilience effects.

This project explores the phenomenon of meta-intentionality, defined as “the desire for the other to want what I want”, within the dialogical space of psychotherapy. The project conceptualizes meta-intentionality as a dialogical movement where the therapist’s intentions are aimed at the client’s own intentional structures to foster a genuine, internal desire for change, as well as instances where clients can have intentions for the therapist and therapy process. Drawing on Dialogism, the project frames the therapeutic relationship as a process of coauthorship and epistemic co-responsibility. In this view, meaning and intentions are not unilaterally imposed by the therapist but are co-constructed in the psychotherapeutic space. A successful therapeutic process involves moving from separate "I-positions" toward a “we-mode” of shared intentionality. The project proposes that alignment of intentions is a critical common factor in psychotherapy. When a therapist’s meta-intentions succeed, the client does not merely follow instructions but internalizes the therapeutic goals as their own. This shift from extrinsic compliance to intrinsic motivation is essential for fostering sustainable, longterm therapeutic outcomes. Utilizing a cultural-psychological framework and an idiographic approach, this project explores the nuances of these intentional structures and how they are negotiated within the clinical encounter. By illuminating how therapists may guide clients toward insights, allowing them to arrive at and integrate goals in their own time, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of the dialogical nature of human change and the professional development of practitioners.

Persisting/recurring symptoms of pain/discomfort are often brought to therapy with the request to make meaning. Studies have shown that making meaning can benefit the immune system. Some type of inner dialogue is involved in this process. The present study sought to monitor the way clients talked of their persisting or recurring pain/discomfort symptoms and explore the process of meaning making as dialogic. Ten clients in various therapy approaches participated in the study. Information was collected through an interview and participants were then asked to write an externalization of the problem exercise as well as draw a picture of their pain symptom. A narrative analysis revealed common themes horizontally and vertically. Symptoms were viewed as metaphors of inner struggles appearing in stressful transition periods and having transgenerational meaning. Voices of pain were seen as motivating them to “move on” (promoters), in variety of voice tones (e.g. strict, soft). Findings indicate that clients can reflect on the notion of self as polyphonic, an idea that can help them make sense of pain symptoms. In terms of clinical implications, incorporating externalization of symptom, writing and drawing in therapy can help clients toward meaning making. Therapists should help clients match the caring content of pain voices with an accepting tone of voice.

This presentation introduces the Relational Family Therapy model, grounded in contemporary findings from developmental neuropsychology and systemic psychotherapy, which places affects and their regulation at the center of human experience and relational functioning. Early affective and relational experiences with primary caregivers shape brain development and influence patterns of emotional regulation that often manifest in couple and family relationships.

The model will be demonstrated through a live role-play, providing participants with a practical view of key therapeutic concepts and interventions. The role-play will illustrate unconscious affective processes, interpersonal dynamics, and mutual emotional regulation within family systems. Special attention will be given to the therapist’s role as an active co-creator of a safe relational space, enabling recognition, slowing down, and regulation of intense affective states.

Participants will also observe how families function as self-regulating relational systems, in which affects are continuously experienced, communicated, and managed. The demonstration will include examples of dysfunctional affect regulation, such as when children take on the role of emotional regulators, and show therapeutic strategies for transforming these patterns.

The presentation will integrate relevant neuroscientific insights, including the role of the right hemisphere, emotional attunement, and affect regulation, to provide a framework for understanding the clinical rationale behind these interventions.

This interactive session offers participants an observable and practical experience of the Relational Family Therapy approach, emphasizing its application in understanding relational dynamics, supporting affect regulation, and facilitating therapeutic change in family systems.

*The authors would like to acknowledge the financial contribution of the research program ARIS P6-0262 Values in Judeo-Christian Sources and Tradition and Possibilities for Dialogue

This presentation draws on a clinical family therapy case conducted behind a one-way mirror with the involvement of a co-therapy team. It focuses on how specific inner voices emerged and shifted through the supervisory dialogue, and how these voices interacted with those evoked during a complex family therapy process marked by gendered dynamics. Through reflexive processes, the presentation examines how the family’s narratives, relational patterns and gendered positions elicited internal responses in the therapist. These internal responses influenced the therapist’s curiosity and emotional reactivity, and interacted with the outer voices emerging from the co-therapy team and the family.

During the sessions, family-emergent voices elicited protective, moral and gender related responses that at times constrained therapeutic neutrality and shaped the therapist’s stance. In supervision, new inner voices were identified, or previously suppressed ones became more pronounced, allowing the therapist to examine how these positions resonated with or confronted the family’s stories. The supervisory dialogue provided space to differentiate between immediate emotional reactions and therapeutically useful responsiveness, supporting a clearer understanding of how the therapist’s stance was formed within the interaction.

This analysis highlights therapeutic stance as a dynamic, dialogical outcome rather than a fixed role. The convergence of family-evoked and supervision-evoked voices, opened possibilities for therapeutic repositioning, enhanced reflexivity and a more anchored engagement with the clinical material. The implications for supervision emphasize its role in helping therapists navigate internal polyphony and maintain relational curiosity in demanding family therapy contexts.

Systemic family psychotherapy can be conceptualized as an open dialogue space that facilitates both intrapsychic and interpersonal processes of meaning-making, relational transformation, and identity development. Drawing on dialogical self-theory and systemic epistemology, family therapy provides a structured yet flexible context in which multiple internal and relational voices can emerge, interact, and be integrated (Bakhtin, 1981; Hermans & Dimaggio, 2004; Seikkula & Olson, 2003). Within this space, individuals are supported in accessing diverse positions of the self, enhancing reflexivity, emotional awareness, and narrative coherence. Simultaneously, therapeutic dialogue fosters relational polyphony among family members, enabling mutual recognition, emotional attunement, and collaborative re-authoring of dominant problem narratives (Anderson, 1997; Rober, 2005; White & Epston, 1990). Through dialogical processes, rigid interactional patterns may be transformed into more flexible and responsive relational configurations. These therapeutic dynamics unfold within a broader socio-economic and cultural milieu characterized by uncertainty, rapid social change, and shifting family structures, which significantly shape identity formation and relational expectations (McGoldrick, Carter, & Garcia-Preto, 2016; Walsh, 2016). Family psychotherapy thus operates as a socially embedded dialogical practice, supporting individuals and families in navigating complexity, fostering resilience, and co-constructing shared meaning within contemporary contexts. Family psychotherapy can serve as an adjunct in individual long-term therapy, supporting the primary client’s mental health, promoting adaptive coping, and enhancing relational well-being across the family system. The present paper illustrates these dynamics through a clinical vignette, highlighting how family therapy fosters resilience, intrapsychic wellbeing, relational flexibility, and shared meaning-making.

Sexual abuse is a form of trauma that profoundly marks an individual across multiple domains of life and experience, including emotional, bodily, relational, and cognitive functioning. This presentation is grounded in the author’s extensive experience in clinical and scientific research. It presents the role of the therapist in the processing of emotions in psychotherapy with individuals who have experienced sexual abuse. The central focus is on working with flashbacks as one of the core manifestations of traumatic experience. Flashbacks appear as sudden, intense, and often somatically charged re-experiencing of traumatic events, overwhelming the individual’s capacity for emotional regulation and disrupting their sense of safety in the present moment.

The aim of the contribution is to highlight how, within relational family therapy, the therapist can, through presence, the therapeutic relationship, and specific interventions, create a space in which emotions related to traumatic memories can be processed safely. In this context, clinical case examples will be presented, with particular emphasis on the therapeutic relationship as a key healing factor. The presentation addresses essential factors in recognizing signs of dissociation, emotional overwhelm, and bodily responses, as well as the use of interventions such as dual awareness, grounding, slowing down the therapeutic process, and reflecting on emotional content. The therapist’s role is to function as an affect regulator, supporting the client in maintaining contact with the present moment and gradually integrating traumatic experiences into their personal narrative.

In conclusion, the presentation also emphasizes the importance of the therapist’s own emotional regulation, reflection on countertransference responses, and regular supervision. Clinical implications for working with survivors of sexual abuse are presented, contributing to the safe and effective treatment of flashbacks.

*The author would like to acknowledge the financial contribution of the research program ARIS P6-0262 Values in Judeo-Christian Sources and Tradition and Possibilities for Dialogue

The advice not to talk about politics in an attempt to preserve social harmony appears increasingly contradictory given the overlapping and accelerating political, humanitarian, and ecological crises of our present moment. 'Once in a lifetime' catastrophic events, such as pandemics, wars, genocides and natural disasters have become everyday normalities, mirroring the quote attributed to Lenin in reference to the Russian Bolshevik revolution (1917): “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen” (Haass, 2022, p. 25; Simpson, 2025). Mikhail Bakhtin, who lived during the dangerous and uncertain times of the Bolsheviks, Soviet Union, and Stalin's black night, contradicts sentiments of "don't talk" to preserve niceties. In spite of, perhaps because of, challenging times, he contends everyday dialogues between self and other are filled with possibilities that create the nature of existence and the acquisition of knowledge.

Employing Bakhtinian dialogism, this presentation troubles the advice "don't talk about politics" by tracing what is forfeited when political dialogue is silenced. Bakhtin's early philosophical work on answerability and the non alibi in being is brought into conversation with his later ideas of polyphony, to explore the spaces in between the self and other within political dialogue encounters. Rather than seeking resolution, this presentation dwells in the tensions of political dialogues and its pedagogical implications. It contemplates what possibilities emerge when remaining answerable to voices different from our own, beyond attempting to assimilate their world view.

References

Haass, R. (2022, September 6). The Dangerous Decade. Foreign Affairs, 101(5). https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/dangerous-decade-foreign-policy-world-crisis-richard-haass

Simpson, J. (2025, December 29). John Simpson on wars: ‘Why I’ve never seen a year like 2025’. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj4qp17e1lqo

The present study focuses on perspectives on activism and activist identity within queer/LGBTQI* individuals and examines the ways in which political engagement is approached within this population. Queer individuals are all directly or indirectly confronted with politicisation and discrimination, but may show highly varied experiences of identity, social positioning, access to resources, and political opinion.

As part of this study design and to represent this complex tension field, this project employs a custom sentence completion method derived from Katrin Kullasepps double direction theme completion (DDTC) method to explore individuals inner conflicts, role negotiations and overall meaning construction surrounding activism and queer community.

Through the analysis of a first set of qualitative data gathered using this method, we can explore how participants construct “activist” and “queer” identity categories, define role attributes and state expectations associated with these labels. This initial deep dive into the dialogicality of these central identity categories forms the base for any future analysis of the data and enables the creation of an initial map of the “queer activism” field as constructed by members of the community.

Eventually, this understanding may not only be built on to better understand activism and political engagement within complex social and identity networks, but also may provide a base for future initiatives to offer tailored practical support fostering agency and access to political work for members of politicised communities.

Young refugees are often described either as passive victims or as future agents of national reconstruction. Such framings tend to overlook the complex dialogical processes through which young people negotiate their legitimacy to speak, imagine, and position themselves in relation to reconstruction at all. Drawing on Dialogical Self Theory, this study examines how Ukrainian refugee students in Japan construct and navigate multiple I-positions when talking about reconstruction of their homeland.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 Ukrainian students who relocated to Japan after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Interviews focused on participants’ images of reconstruction and their perceived roles in relation to Ukraine’s future. The analysis focuses on how voices about reconstruction become supported, weakened, or remain underdeveloped through shifting I-positionings within the dialogical self.

The analysis suggests that forced migration distorts dialogical space in multiple ways, with participants’ accounts are organized across multiple, often conflicting I-positions. These include, for example, I-as-a-refugee-who-left, I-as-a-future-bridge-between-countries, and I-as-someone-struggling-to-rebuild-my-own-life. These positions are shaped by moral tensions such as guilt related to evacuation, relational dynamics with those who remained in Ukraine, and the negotiation of dominant public and political narratives surrounding responsibility, contribution, and legitimacy. Importantly, these positions do not converge into a coherent or unified standpoint.

These I-positions are further shaped and negotiated within external dialogical contexts, such as relationships where discussing Ukraine feels constrained, and digital spaces that are accessible for information on reconstruction yet remain emotionally demanding. Reconstruction emerges not as a clearly defined future goal, but as a contested dialogical space where multiple voices are continuously negotiated. This study highlights the importance of attending to dialogical positioning in understanding refugee students’ perspectives on reconstruction under conditions of forced migration.

All procedures were approved by the institutional ethics committee, and written informed consent was obtained from participants prior to data collection.

This study investigates how the refugee experience shapes the cultural identity of Syrian children residing in Jordan, drawing on Hubert Hermans' Dialogical Self-Theory (DST). Syrian children were forced to flee their country years ago, and grew up in protracted displacement, either in camps or within the host community, negotiating their cultural identity.

Although Jordan and Syria share many cultural similarities, it remains unclear how these children navigate and negotiate their identities in displacement. The study examines how they perceive themselves in both camp and host community settings and the role of schools in shaping cultural identity.

The study aims to (1) explore how Syrian refugee children construct their cultural identities through self-narratives, (2) compare the experiences and identities of those living in host communities and refugee camps, and (3) examine the role of the school environment in identity formation.

A qualitative narrative approach was employed, including semi-structured in-depth interviews (n=20 children, ages 12–17). Data were analyzed thematically and dialogically using Atlas.ti software. Ethical guidelines were followed, ensuring informed consent, confidentiality, and participant well-being.

Refugee children maintain multiple internal voices reflecting both Syrian heritage and adaptation to the host culture. Identity is not fragmented; rather, it is multilayered. Participants maintain a repertoire of I-positions that shift situationally across school, peer, and family contexts. While camp residents often cling to original cultural positions due to restricted movement, those in host communities navigate more complex cultural negotiations. Schools emerged as vital "dialogical spaces" for cultural identity development.

DST provides a framework for understanding the internal dialogues shaping identity in displacement. Given the school’s critical role, interventions and educational strategies should support refugee well-being, identity development, and integration.

Dialogical Self Theory (DST) conceives the self as a composite of multiple voices. Hermans (1992,1993,2010) drawing upon Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of dialogue, assigned distinct voices to each I-positions. Bakhtin's concept of voice denotes not merely physical vocalization, but rather a personhood or consciousness inhabiting the subject within dialogue with others. Meaning emerges through encountering, reacting to, and responding with the “voice” of another. In dialogue, the “voice” is always unfinished, unfixed, existing within an open relationship. This symposium will focus on the musical metaphor of voice within DST. Polyphony refers to a structure where multiple autonomous “voices” coexist and resonate with one another. Living dialogue fosters a rich relationality where multiple independent “voices” intersect, resisting reduction to a single conclusion. However, at life’s turning points, the voice of the self becomes unsettled. How does one recover oneself through setbacks and loss at such junctures? This symposium examines the phases of voice recovery and acceptance based on concrete materials.

Polyphony is music composed of multiple independent voices, the antithesis of homophony, which consists of a main melody and accompaniment. Polyphony lacks the distinction between main melody and accompaniment found in homophony; all voices are treated equally. Even if composed of multiple voices, it is not considered polyphony unless the rhythms move independently. ‘The one thing to be mindful of is: ’Listen to the sounds around you." (Seiji Ozawa, 2019). Such words from a conductor can be directly applied in support settings to harness polyphony and lead to the recovery of lost voices. How does it come about that individuals harbor multiple independent themes, which coexist synchronously, each possessing its own distinct voice, across various facets of life? And how does the resonance and intersection of these many voices contribute to the restoration of the self? This symposium will explore these questions.

Dialogical Self Theory (DST) has influenced psychotherapy theory and practice in several ways. However, there are few clinical interventions that directly derive from DST and that apply it in therapeutic practice. In a recent state-of-the-art review of applications of DST in psychotherapy, we identified a few published papers documenting concrete interventions that may be utilized in the context of therapeutic practice. These consist of interventions that facilitate dialogical changes in clients as well as therapeutic activities enhancing the development of dialogue among I-positions. These interventions were mostly published after 2018, indicating an emerging trend in the field. This trend is in need of further development through developing intervention protocols, implementing them to various settings and client groups and evaluating the process of their implementation as well as their effectiveness in bringing about client change. Moreover, we identified emerging applications to psychotherapy of interventions developed in other fields or initiated as research tools.

This extended symposium aims to showcase and boost this emerging trend. The first part includes clinical interventions and therapeutic exercises that have already been documented in published papers. Specifically, we present an extension of the Internal Multi-Actor Performance (IMAP) method, the application of Composition Work to address issues of gender and sexuality, the steps and applications of the Guided Imagery Therapy Activity “Inner Dialogue-Child Adult Meeting” (ID-CAM), and the “Enriching My Inner Dialogue” activity to explore compassionate voices. The second part of the symposium presents not-yet-published attempts to extend to psychotherapy dialogical activities that were developed in other fields, such as the Model of the Agonistic Self (MAS) and the Writing the Self model of therapeutic writing. It also includes an application of Innovative Moments to group CBT for social anxiety disorder and the use of Positioning Microanalysis to facilitate dialogical innovation in couples therapy.

Dialogical Self Theory (DST) is not an isolated theory, separate from other theories and concepts. On the contrary, it is an open theory that explicitly seeks contact and connection with other concepts and theories, resulting in “happy coalitions.”

To illustrate this thesis, I will explore the connection between DST and two advancements in psychology: (a) the concept of psychological richness as a recent development in the psychology of well-being; and (b) Self-Categorization Theory, which has produced a multi-dimensional identity concept in social psychology.

Recently, three forms of well-being have been distinguished: happiness, meaning, and psychological richness. A happy life is characterized by comfort, joy, and security. The main qualities of a meaningful life are purpose, coherence, and productive social relationships. A psychologically rich life is marked by diversity, curiosity, and wisdom. I will demonstrate that the latter form of well-being is directly relevant to the dialogical self as a multiplicity and diversity of I-positions.

Self-Categorization Theory was developed in social psychology in the last decades of the previous century and has been advanced in isolation from DST. It has distinguished three levels of identity: individual, group, and human. I will argue that in our present era, a third level is required: the ecological level. Moreover, I will demonstrate that these identities are linked by dialogical relationships, in agreement with DST’s principle that identity positions can be connected and organized through such relationships.

My central argument is that both psychological richness and Self-Categorization Theory, as separate developments in psychology, can be meaningfully linked and incorporated into DST. In its exploration of these and other theories and concepts, DST functions as a theory that explicitly looks for relationships and connections with other theoretical and conceptual developments in the service of their mutual enrichment.

The present exposition is a step-by-step analysis of the axiomatic backgrounds of traditional personality theories (using the example of the “Big Five”) and DST. The move to DST has accomplished a major axiomatic shift that leads new ways of the study of the Self. It is shown how traditional personality analyses are in principle incapable of reflecting the dynamics of the human Self. In order to use the inductively derived five general parameters of the “Big Five” in the DST, an effort is made to map them into the set of elementary constituents of I-positions (“voices”). Thus the DST is a versatile theoretical framework that can emulate the highest abstracted features of the “Big Five” perspective in its lowest theoretically posited structural units of the DST. The use of each of the five parameters is predicated upon their change from a linear opposition continuum into a cyclical structure of unified opposites in accordance with the dialogical axiomatics of DST.

This experiential workshop introduces an Indigenous Narrative Therapy approach to trauma that integrates concepts of the embodied mind with dialogical self‑therapy. Grounded in Indigenous relational worldviews, Lewis Mehl‑Madrona and Barbara Mainguy will present trauma not as an individual, intrapsychic defect, but as disruption in networks of story, body, land, and community. Participants will learn how stories “live” in the body—through posture, movement, voice, and symptom—and how changing stories requires working with these embodied expressions, not language alone. The workshop will emphasize how to do this work in practice. Through live demonstration with volunteers, the presenters will show step‑by‑step methods for eliciting problem‑saturated stories, tracking somatic cues, and inviting alternative narratives that are culturally grounded and community‑connected. Participants will see how dramatic methods, drawing, and positional work can externalize inner voices and characters, locating them as I‑positions in a dialogical self rather than fixed traits or diagnoses. Teaching segments will alternate with guided practice in small groups. Clinicians will experiment with specific interviewing sequences, embodied awareness exercises, and simple forms of enactment (such as positioning chairs or using objects to represent voices, ancestors, or community roles). Particular attention will be given to working safely with traumatic material: pacing, titration, the use of ceremony and ritual elements, and the importance of collective witnessing. Throughout, Mehl‑Madrona and Mainguy will highlight points of convergence between Indigenous self‑theory and dialogical self‑therapy, offering a language practitioners can use in mainstream settings without losing Indigenous philosophical integrity. By the end of the workshop, participants should be able to: describe the embodied and relational nature of narrative in trauma; map stories as interacting I‑positions; and apply a basic sequence of Indigenous Narrative Therapy and dialogical self‑therapy techniques in their own clinical or community practice.

Dialogical Self Theory draws from Bakhtin’s (1984) concept of dialogism, positioning the self as composed of multiple I-positions engaged in ongoing dialogue (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010). Within this dialogic approach, Bakhtin’s notion of polyphony, developed in relation to the novel, offers a useful metaphor for understanding how relatively independent I-positions can coexist without being finalized by a single authoritative perspective. However, accessing how individuals experience this polyphonic complexity presents methodological challenges. When asked directly about identity or relationships, participants often provide verbally coherent responses in which one position becomes dominant, potentially masking the multiplicity that is subjectively experienced.

This workshop demonstrates how arts-based approaches can create conditions in which multiple I-positions become expressible on equal footing during explanation of visual compositions, allowing contradictory voices to be articulated without premature subordination of one position to another (Leavy, 2015).

We present case studies in which high school students and their parents each created collages exploring their parent-child relationships. Through explaining their visual compositions, multiple relatively independent positions emerged without participants being explicitly prompted toward synthesis or resolution. By acknowledging these coexisting voices rather than imposing a singular, integrated narrative, participants demonstrated expanded dialogical awareness of themselves and their relationships (Hermans, 2001). These examples suggest that non-verbal creation followed by verbal explanation can provide access to polyphonic experience that direct verbal inquiry may flatten into a more monologic response.

Workshop participants engage in guided visual mapping addressing questions such as, “What feels complex in your life right now?” Through partner-based explanation of their compositions, participants experience how multiple I-positions can emerge in dialogue without requiring final resolution. Structured reflection supports identification of which I-positions spoke and consideration of how recognizing polyphonic self-experience, in which no single I-position is treated as fully authoritative, can support dialogical understanding across clinical, educational, research, and community contexts.

This presentation proposes a theoretical and experiential workshop grounded in the Dialogical Self Theory of Hubert Hermans and Els Hermans-Konopka, aiming to strengthen the competencies of mental health professionals working with parents in contexts of transition, crisis, or “deadness”—that is, periods of psychological stagnation, disorganization, or existential discontinuity.

Dialogical Self Theory conceptualizes identity as a dynamic, polyphonic system of “I-positions” that engage in dialogue, conflict, or mutual support. Within the field of parenthood, internal voices (“the adequate parent,” “the guilty parent,” “the child I once was,” “the voice of society”) are often intensified during times of crisis (adolescence of a child, diagnosis, loss, divorce, migration experience). “Deadness” here is understood as the suspension of internal dialogue or the dominance of rigid, monological narratives that restrict the capacity for transition and transformation.

The aims of the workshop are:

• To understand parental identity as polyphonic and evolving.

• To develop skills in reflective listening and dialogical intervention.

• To enhance professionals’ ability to identify dominant and marginalized “voices” in parents’ discourse.

• To cultivate practices that facilitate the transition from monological to dialogical narratives.

Methodologically, the workshop includes brief experiential exercises in mapping I-positions, reflective group processes, case studies, and the application of dialogical questioning in scenarios of parental difficulty. Particular emphasis is placed on the concepts of the “meta-position” and the “third position” as spaces of internal mediation and creative re-authoring.

The proposed framework responds to contemporary needs in community and family mental health by fostering a culture of dialogue, polyphony, and inclusion. Empowering professionals to work within the “meeting of worlds”—those of the parent, the child, and the therapist—constitutes a critical factor for sustainable interventions and for promoting family resilience.

In recent years, Dialogical Self Theory (DST) has increasingly informed counselling and psychotherapy, yet evidence that DST-oriented training translates into routine practice remains limited. This study assessed perceived impact, transfer to practice, and implementation conditions following a three-day DST summer school held in Preveza, Greece (17–19 July 2025). The programme combined foundational DST teaching, training in mapping internal dialogicality, and parallel experiential workshops using arts-based counselling or therapeutic methods (enactment of inner dialogues, group dialogical process, photographic “snapshots”, and CompositionWork). Application modules addressed individual, couple, family, and group therapy; identity construction (including LGBTQ+ identities); and career/athletic counselling. Sessions on philosophical and cultural-historical roots of dialogicality (e.g., Plato; Greek antiquity), alongside structured reflection, scaffolded dialogical thinking. All attendees (N = 40) were invited to complete an online follow-up survey six months later; 24 responded. Open-ended items explored sustained learning; changes in case formulation and therapeutic stance; techniques used; professional identity shifts; barriers and facilitators; unexpected outcomes; support needs; and the most important perceived change. Responses were analysed using framework analysis. Participants reported strong sustained conceptual uptake, describing a shift toward multi-voiced understandings of clients and reinterpreting ambivalence and conflict as dialogical processes. Many also noted stance changes, including greater curiosity, higher tolerance of complexity, and a less corrective, more exploratory relational posture. Transfer to practice was evident but uneven: mapping internal voices and structured inner-dialogue work were most frequently used, whereas arts-based methods were adopted more selectively. Barriers included time constraints, limited supervision, and setting-related restrictions; facilitators included fit with existing orientations, experiential learning, and access to materials and peers. Respondents highlighted booster sessions and ongoing case-based supervision as key supports for deeper and sustained implementation. Overall, DST training appears to produce durable shifts in formulation and stance, while sustained technique integration depends on post-training supports and practice context.

This presentation outlines qualitative and quantitative strategies for assessing narrative therapy and dialogical self‑therapy in ways that respect their relational, context‑sensitive nature. Formal quantitative assessment anchors changes in symptom and functioning domains using routinely collected measures such as the Behavior and Symptom Identification Scale (BASIS‑32), the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, and standard mood and anxiety scales. Pre–post and longitudinal designs compare trajectories for people engaged in intensive narrative/dialogical work with those receiving treatment‑as‑usual, allowing estimation of statistically and clinically significant changes in psychosis, depression, anxiety, interpersonal functioning, and hospitalization rates. These approaches have demonstrated greater improvement on BASIS‑32 scores for inpatient units implementing daily narrative groups and broad symptom reductions and fewer rehospitalizations in narrative psychotherapy compared with conventional CBT for psychosis. Complementing these metrics, qualitative methodologies—narrative inquiry, phenomenology, and case‑based analysis—document how people re‑author identity, reframe voices or anomalous experiences, and reconstruct relationships and community participation. Data sources include in‑depth interviews, participant and therapist field notes, and longitudinal case narratives that trace changes in meaning, agency, and preferred stories over months to years. Informal, practice‑proximal indicators such as session attendance, voluntary engagement, reduction in crisis contacts, and spontaneous reports of restored roles (parenting, education, employment, cultural responsibilities) are tracked as markers of “recovery of function in the ordinary world.” Mixed‑methods designs integrate these strands within individuals and cohorts, using qualitative data to interpret quantitative shifts and to capture transformations that cannot be reduced to symptom scores. We argue that such multi‑layered assessment preserves the dialogical, culturally grounded character of these therapies while still producing rigorous, communicable evidence of effectiveness for clinicians, systems, and policymakers.

The psychotherapeutic relationship is a central determinant of therapeutic engagement and outcome, shaped both by technique and by how clients and therapists perceive one another and imagine they are perceived in return. Drawing on Dialogical Self Theory and theories of intersubjectivity and perspective-taking (Hermans, 2001; Marková, 2003; Gillespie, 2010), this study conceptualises therapy as an encounter in which multiple voices and social perspectives are brought into relation. Using semi-structured interviews with LGBTQ+ clients (N = 11) and therapists (N = 15), the study employs dialogical analysis to examine how participants view one and another (perspectives) and think they are viewed by the other (meta-perspectives); focusing on how sexual orientation identity is viewed and managed in the therapeutic context. Findings illustrate the therapeutic relationship as shaped by a polyphony of voices through which clients and therapists position one another and negotiate meaning around sexual orientation identity. First, clients’ perspectives on therapists depict therapists through a range of relational positions, including as supportive and affirming, directive or authoritative, uncertain yet willing to learn, or as providing guidance and explanation. Second, therapists’ perspectives on clients foreground client voices marked by stigma, anxiety, and uncertainty, presenting clients as engaged in processes of searching, questioning, and negotiating sexual orientation identity. Third, clients’ meta-perspectives articulate perceptions of being seen as recognised or misunderstood, accepted or judged, and positioned as competent, vulnerable, or legitimate in relation to their sexual orientation identity. Finally, therapists’ meta-perspectives reflect perceptions of being seen as knowledgeable or insufficiently equipped, trustworthy or potentially misrecognising.Together, these perspectives and meta-perspectives reveal relational attunement but also tensions and asymmetries that shape safety, disclosure, and engagement in therapy. By tracing these dialogical dynamics, the study extends dialogical theory into LGBTQ+ therapeutic contexts, highlighting how communication and understanding are actively negotiated in practice.

Affiliation / Role: Dialogical/Systemic Psychotherapist

Abstract: This paper explores the transition from traditional systemic thinking to a dialogical/systemic approach, positioning the therapeutic relationship as a field of polyphonic dialogue. Central to this transition is the concept of dialogical reflexivity, defined not as solitary introspection but as a living practice connecting the therapist's inner dialogues with the external dialogues of the session.

Drawing on the intersection of systemic practice and Dialogical Self Theory (incorporating perspectives from Mikhail Bakhtin, Hubert Hermans, Harlene Anderson, Paolo Bertrando, and Peter Rober), we examine how the therapist’s self acts as a landscape of internal polyphony where personal, professional, and cultural voices interact. A key focus is placed on social power and dominance within the therapeutic exchange. We argue that dialogical reflexivity is inextricably linked to relational responsibility, serving as a crucial ethical safeguard against reproducing oppressive power dynamics. By critically reflecting on "who is speaking" and "which voices are marginalized," the therapist can navigate the inevitable asymmetries of the therapeutic relationship.

Furthermore, the paper addresses the conference theme of "contradictions" by analyzing how therapists manage conflicting internal voices—such as the tension between the "expert" position and the stance of "not-knowing." Instead of seeking to resolve these contradictions through a monological consensus, we propose a relational reflexivity that embraces and simultaneously transcends them. This approach allows for a "generative dialogue" where new meanings emerge not from the imposition of truth, but from the interplay of differences.

Finally, we discuss practical applications of this framework, demonstrating how dialogical reflexivity transforms the therapist from a distant observer into an embodied participant, co-creating a space where the "being" of both therapist and client finds meaning through their shared "between", as this is experienced in the relational field.

This contribution aims to fill a gap in the literature on sex trafficking by shifting the focus from trauma to resilience, protective factors, and personal growth. Within a social constructionist perspective, Dialogic Self Theory is adopted with the aim of exploring narrative and dialogic spaces for the various positions of the self that express narratives about strengths and the ability to transform adverse experiences into growth and positive outcomes. A qualitative survey was conducted on eight women who survived sex trafficking. Through reflective thematic analysis, four main themes were co-generated: general distrust of others, (re)building trust through social support, coping strategies, and relationship with the body. These findings represent an innovative contribution that aims to fill a significant gap in this field, amplifying survivors' ego positions and narratives, providing valuable insights into key aspects such as trust restoration, personal strengths, coping strategies, body narratives, including self-acceptance, self-care, and the centrality of motherhood. This knowledge can support psychotherapists and social workers working with survivors and lay the groundwork for future research.

Identity remains a foundational construct in organizational research, yet dominant theories continue to draw primarily on modernist and postmodernist assumptions. In response to the enduring tension between these paradigms, metamodernism has emerged as a worldview that oscillates between their underlying logics. Despite its growing relevance, little is known about how metamodernism informs identity construction. The paper examines how metamodern identity construction differs from modern and postmodern identity constructions. How are stories told differently in modernism, postmodernism, and metamodernism? What do these forms of storytelling reveal about how humans are currently making sense of the world and thus their identities? Consequently, the paper advances a metamodern perspective on identity by theorizing two constitutive features: oscillation between multiplicities, which transcends the distinction between identity work and identity play, and informed naïveté, a stance that blends sincerity with reflexive irony. These features illuminate how individuals navigate conflicting values through a “structure of feeling” oriented toward an unattainable yet generative utopia. The paper critiques the limitations of existing identity theories, draws on dialogical self theory, and argues that metamodern identity is best studied through a dialogic approach, one that captures the tensions, ambivalences, and oscillations inherent in identity construction. Traditional narrative approaches, while valuable for exploring coherence and continuity, often struggle to account for the dynamic interplay between sincerity and irony, stability and flux. The paper also identifies authenticity and power relations as central concerns. Finally, the paper elaborates on modernism’s striving for utopia and relational being as two implicit elements of metamodernism that can generate tension, underscoring a key leadership role in managing this potential conflict.Together, these insights open new directions for theorizing identity in the metamodern era.

This study examines the self-reconfiguration process of a young adult with refugee background, using Dialogical Self Theory (DST) as the analytic framework. The dataset consists of anonymized interview dialogues and verbatim excerpts, edited with minimal correction to preserve meaning and integrated into a single narrative text. The narrative was segmented into meaning units and coded for I-positions (self-positions), voices (internalized social, institutional, and relational “voices”), dominance (patterns of positional dominance and marginalization), and the functions of meta-position and promoter positions. Findings indicate that in the middle-school period, a dominant coalition of I-positions—I-as-adapter, I-as-achiever, I-as-responsible-one, I-as-recognition-seeker, and I-as-insecure-self—was supported by an internalized school institutional voice emphasizing conformity and self-responsibility. During this period, I-as-needing-care was marginalized, and distress was communicated through indirect means (e.g., intensified physical/psychological unwellness) rather than direct help-seeking. From the first year of university onward, a counselor’s feedback, family dialogue (especially with a sibling), and a practice of growth-visibility through self-recording functioned as promoter positions, enabling a meta-position and a reorganization of dominance toward I-as-self-authored, I-as-boundary-setter, and a repertoire of reasoned responses to stereotypes. In the present, the participant describes ongoing exposure to discrimination, yet with reduced depletion due to strengthened boundary-setting and explanatory responding, and resistance to being positioned as a “representative” of refugeehood or religion. Implications emphasize (a) designing educational and support environments that expand dialogical space rather than intensify conformity demands, (b) avoiding representational pressure (allowing “to speak” or “not to speak”), and (c) supporting growth-visibility beyond grades and test scores.

In Japanese educational settings, learners with refugee or forced-migration backgrounds are increasingly present; however, outward “successful adaptation” does not necessarily imply internal integration or recovery. This presentation introduces a methodological approach for translating a Dialogical Self Theory (DST) analysis into a pattern language tailored to educational and support contexts in Japan.

The study is based on an in-depth narrative analysis of a young adult living in Japan with forced-migration experience, including an application for refugee status within the Japanese institutional context. Anonymized interview dialogues were minimally edited into a coherent, time-ordered narrative and segmented into 25 meaning units. These segments were coded using DST constructs, including I-positions (self-positions), internalized voices (institutional, societal, familial, and support-related), patterns of dominance and marginalization, and the functions of meta-position and promoter positions. Rather than foregrounding detailed analytic findings, this presentation focuses on how these analytic components were translated into a pattern language.

A pattern language is a structured collection of reusable descriptions that link recurring problems in practice with effective ways of addressing them in context. In this study, each analytic insight was translated into an actionable “pattern” using a consistent context–problem–solution–conclusion format and anchored with traceable evidence to maintain transparency between qualitative analysis and practice-oriented guidance. Through iterative refinement, the patterns were organized into an interconnected system of 30 patterns structured around three core patterns: (1) Expanding Dialogical Space, (2) Triggering Self-Reconfiguration, and (3) Protecting Autonomy from Positioning. These core patterns connect three categories addressing environmental design in Japanese schools and support institutions, promoter- and meta-position-driven change, and responses to representational pressure.

The resulting pattern language offers educators and support practitioners a shared, transferable vocabulary for expanding dialogical space, legitimizing help-seeking, reducing representational demands(including the option to speak or not to speak), and supporting forms of growth visibility beyond grades and test scores.

Hubert Hermans's Dialogical Self Theory (DST,2010) conceives the self as a collection of multiple voices. Hermans has presented a model and methodology that structures the diverse voices within the self through I-positioning and captures the dynamism of multiple selves. Chapter 3 of DST states as follows: The method of positioning, which formulates positions more dynamically, requires specific sites where they can become sufficiently expressive. These can be understood as sites of “concentrations of energy”.’

A position requires both an actual, physically fitting space and a corresponding space within the self for expression and development. Put another way, the theory of I-positions states that there is not only diversity in positions, but also diversity in the corresponding spaces.

It is only natural that many voices are heard in support settings and clinical practice. However, power dynamics often come into play, leading to adaptation to dominant forces and, not infrequently, the dominance of a single voice. Japanese culture, in particular, is often described as a culture of the “ba” (場, space/place), where pressure to refrain from disruptive words or actions is readily felt. Of course, the concept of “ba” (場) in Japanese language and culture carries rich connotations, and maintaining the harmony of the space does not solely entail passively imposing self-restraint and conformity upon the individual.

In contemporary psychosocial support, dialogue-based collaboration and team support form the foundation. Within this contemporary context, what approaches are being employed to ensure diverse voices resonate within the field? This can be described as the practice of “listening to the unheard voice” in response to the dominant voices of therapists and workers. We pursue and explore the theme of creating spatial diversity to prevent voices from being fused into a single narrative. This constitutes the purpose of this symposium.

Dialogical Self Theory (DST) has influenced psychotherapy theory and practice in several ways. However, there are few clinical interventions that directly derive from DST and that apply it in therapeutic practice. In a recent state-of-the-art review of applications of DST in psychotherapy, we identified a few published papers documenting concrete interventions that may be utilized in the context of therapeutic practice. These consist of interventions that facilitate dialogical changes in clients as well as therapeutic activities enhancing the development of dialogue among I-positions. These interventions were mostly published after 2018, indicating an emerging trend in the field. This trend is in need of further development through developing intervention protocols, implementing them to various settings and client groups and evaluating the process of their implementation as well as their effectiveness in bringing about client change. Moreover, we identified emerging applications to psychotherapy of interventions developed in other fields or initiated as research tools.

This extended symposium aims to showcase and boost this emerging trend. The first part includes clinical interventions and therapeutic exercises that have already been documented in published papers. Specifically, we present an extension of the Internal Multi-Actor Performance (IMAP) method, the application of Composition Work to address issues of gender and sexuality, the steps and applications of the Guided Imagery Therapy Activity “Inner Dialogue-Child Adult Meeting” (ID-CAM), and the “Enriching My Inner Dialogue” activity to explore compassionate voices. The second part of the symposium presents not-yet-published attempts to extend to psychotherapy dialogical activities that were developed in other fields, such as the Model of the Agonistic Self (MAS) and the Writing the Self model of therapeutic writing. It also includes an application of Innovative Moments to group CBT for social anxiety disorder and the use of Positioning Microanalysis to facilitate dialogical innovation in couples therapy.

This study explores career development among Japanese business professionals by examining how they experience internal conflict and internal dialogue while learning and working in different linguistic and cultural environments. The focus is on how such experiences are described and understood over time. The participants had no overseas upbringing or special foreign language backgrounds. All began their careers in Japan and later encountered turning points through which they voluntarily moved into overseas or intercultural work contexts.

Multiple in-depth interviews were conducted with four Japanese business professionals. Based on their narratives, Trajectory Equifinality Modeling (TEM) was used to describe their career development processes over time, identifying bifurcation points, obligatory passage points, and relevant social forces. Dialogical Self Theory (DST) as proposed by Hermans was then employed to examine how internal dialogues unfolded across different phases of these processes, with attention to experiences of movement and tension in intercultural contexts.

The analysis showed that participants repeatedly experienced internal conflicts—understood here as lived contradictions—such as tensions between seeking challenges and desiring stability, between responding to others’ expectations and following their own orientations, and between cultural understanding and professional competence. These contradictions became salient at moments of cultural friction, linguistic difficulty, and career transition. Rather than being resolved, they were experienced as ongoing tensions that were negotiated through internal dialogue among multiple I-positions, through which participants reconsidered their values, working styles, and positioning over time.

By using TEM and DST in combination, this study offers a way of understanding career development in intercultural contexts as a non-linear process characterized by polyphony and equifinality. The findings highlight career development not only as adaptation or achievement, but also as an ongoing re-positioning of the self-shaped through internal dialogue among Japanese business professionals working across linguistic and cultural boundaries.

This autoethnographic study explores the construction of professional identity as a cultural and dialogical process within the experience of a Black university student navigating higher education. Grounded in Cultural Psychology andin Dialogical Self Theory the work examines how symbolic mediations, narrative meaning-making, and internal dialogues shape the ongoing formation of the self in academic contexts marked by racialization. Drawing on systematic self-reflection, memory work, field notes, and narrative reconstruction, the analysis follows autoethnographic principles that position lived experience as both data and interpretative lens.

The narrative traces critical moments of tension between multiple I-positions such as I as a student, I as a future professional, and I as a Black subject revealing how encounters with institutional expectations, racial dynamics, and professional aspirations triggered processes of rupture, reflection, and symbolic reorganization. These dialogical tensions functioned not as obstacles but as developmental catalysts, fostering new self-understandings and reconfigurations of professional belonging through new I positions emergences.

Through this cultural-psychological and dialogical self-theory perspective, professional identity emerges as a dynamic narrative continuously negotiated across educational spaces and in interactions between I-positions. The autoethnographic account highlights how becoming a professional intertwines with becoming racially conscious, demonstrating that identity development is deeply embedded in sociocultural experience and mediated by meaning-making practices. By situating personal experience within broader cultural processes, this study contributes to understanding how racialized trajectories in higher education shape the formation of professional selves and underscores the value of autoethnography as a rigorous methodological approach for investigating developmental phenomena.

This study proposes a methodological approach for examining how a creative vision emerging in long-term creative practice becomes recognized, questioned, and embodied through developmental processes. Particular attention is given to intra-personal dialogue involving non-verbal creative artifacts, which remains underexplored within dialogical self research.

The study applies Auto-TEM (Autobiographical Trajectory Equifinality Modeling) to the author’s creative life from early childhood (age 5) to adulthood (age 40). By focusing on negotiations with contradictions at key turning points, the trajectory is divided into phases. Transitions of the dialogical self are analyzed through TEM diagrams to explore how I-positions and voices emerge, interact, and reorganize across time.

Building on Konopka et al.’s composition-work research—including efforts to access implicit and “unspeakable” I-positions through material composition—this study introduces a methodological variation in which creative artifacts themselves are treated analytically as symbolic voices. Rather than externalizing inner states, creative works are approached as mediating elements that participate in dialogical positioning processes.

The analysis suggests that pre-conceptual creative experiences received with strong affective impact sustain dialogical tension across temporal and contextual shifts. Such experiences sediment as enduring questions that reappear through subsequent creative practice, shaping the emergence and activation of I-positions while contributing to the ongoing individuation of creative vision.

Overall, the study demonstrates how combining dialogical self theory with Auto-TEM makes it possible to investigate creative vision formation as an ongoing process of embodied positioning and dialogical individuation.

The project focuses on the English language use of first-generation, Spanish-speaking college students in the New York City area. The students are enrolled in an additive bilingual program designed to support academic work in Spanish during the first years of college while developing English for academic purposes.

The bilingual students participated in a daily, check-in survey over several weeks, reporting where they used English (speaking, listening, reading, writing, etc.) across diverse contexts, including home environments, peer interactions, community spaces, digital activities, workplaces, and educational settings. For each context, participants indicate with whom they used English, what communicative activities they engaged in, how long these interactions lasted, and how English was positioned relative to Spanish (English-only, mixed use, Spanglish, or primarily non-English). Throughout the study, students were engaged as co-researchers by regularly reviewing summaries of their own weekly language use (e.g., time spent using English across contexts and activities) and, in follow-up interviews, reflecting on and discussing patterns in their language use.

This ecological methodology maps how English use is distributed across the full range of students’ everyday lives over time. Extending dialogical self research on I-positions and it-positions, the project examines how patterns of English use relate both to students’ embodied, personally meaningful stances in everyday life – e.g., positioning oneself as changing one’s life circumstances, becoming financially stable, building a different future from one’s parents, or striving for independence and self-direction – and to generic institutional and cultural it-positions -- e.g., framing college, work, or mobility as something one simply “has to do” in order to succeed, follow the expected path, or meet expectations. By tracing English use across these positions, the study reveals how English becomes differentially associated with particular existential life projects and socially available narratives about success, social mobility, obligation, belonging, and enjoyment of English use itself.

The symposium “Dialogical approaches across contexts: Working with voices, identity, and agency” presents studies that adopt a dialogical approach grounded in Dialogical Self Theory. The first study through the case of a hospitalized adolescent diagnosed with anorexia nervosa illustrates the Internal Multi-Actor Performance (IMAP), a dialogical, narrative approach grounded in Dialogical Self Theory, particularly the metaphor of the “self as a theater of voices”. The second study illustrates also the Internal Multi-Actor Performance (IMAP) through a case example of a client engaged in therapy. The third study presents The River of Life, a method that conceptualizes identity/ self as an evolving life story integrating the remembered past and anticipated future to organize experience and construct meaning—a method that links memories to internal voices and I-positions, drawing on Dialogical Self Theory. The fourth study draws on sport psychology and is informed by Dialogical Self Theory and Foucauldian perspectives, to examine athletes’ experiences of self-regulation, obedience, and embodiment in high-performance sport contexts.

This symposium examines East Asian American educational experiences through Dialogical Self Theory (DST). Four interconnected presentations explore how East Asian American identities navigate educational spaces—from historical curriculum representation to classroom participation patterns, AI relationships, and academic vulnerability. Using narrative inquiry and autoethnography grounded in DST, presenters reveal how multiple I-positions shape educational experiences across generational and institutional contexts.

Educational spaces in the U.S. function as contact zones (Pratt, 1991) where diverse cultural identities intersect and negotiate meaning. For East Asian and East Asian American students and scholars, these spaces require constant navigation between heritage cultures and American educational expectations. Such cultural transactions create complex identity negotiations that warrant examination through DST’s framework of multiple, dialoguing I-positions (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010).

This symposium advances DST scholarship by applying the theory across diverse educational contexts: curriculum, classroom interaction, technology relationships, and academic culture. Our objectives include: (1) examining how historical exclusion from curricula impacts identities development, (2) understanding factors influencing classroom participation among East Asian American students, (3) exploring how emerging technologies intersect with cultural identities, and (4) investigating vulnerability as both methodological stance and lived experience in academic spaces.

By centering East Asian perspectives often marginalized in academic discourses, this symposium contributes to unforgetting histories of exclusion while imagining more inclusive educational futures. Collectively, these studies demonstrate how understanding dialogical identities negotiations can inform transformative educational practices that honor diverse ways of knowing and being in academic spaces. The symposium directly addresses conference themes of self and education, culture and self, and dialogue and minorities.

At the time of multiple wars and conflicts across the world, climate crisis, and geopolitical uncertainties, people experience contested feelings and positions regarding their responsibilities and actions. In this symposium, we explore such tensions and contradictions in the dialogical narratives of transnational scholars across different educational, professional, and career stages, as they deal with such poly crisis. Informed by Dialogical Self Theory (Hermans and Hermans-Konopka, 2010) and Herman’s latest book on contradictions of self (2025), presenters will explore their conflicted selves as they encounter compelling scenarios in personal or professional lives. In the spirit of Dialogic Methodology (White & Janfada, 2025), they explore their responses to these or in what Bakhtin calls as ‘moral answerability’ to such situations.

The symposium begins with Rashida’s account of her multiple ‘I’ positions as a Palestinian academic in USA, watching Israel’s attack in Gaza and how the world, including her university (dis) engaged with the crisis and how it impacted her ‘I’ positions to arrive at a meta-position as dialogical breakthrough.

Mahtab expands the issue of contested and conflicted selves at the time of war and unrest, as she witnessed political upheaval in Middle East and national grief on thousand deaths in Iran. She unpacks diverse chronotopic experiences through which she strives to navigate contradictions and find the harmonious self. She argues for translating these contradictions to a meaningful action in her academic endeavour to plant peace literacies within self, in academia and her communities.

Reinekke shares her account of navigating conflicted feelings, as an activist, scholar and someone who inherited war memories from childhood. She shows us how the “writing the self” method allows us to give voice to the I-positions we choose to mobilize in this polycrisis, while not silencing contradictory ones.