Conference Agenda

Indigenous philosophies of mind and self converge deeply with dialogical self theory (DST) while also extending it beyond its usual psychological frame. From an Indigenous perspective, the mind is not an interior container located in the head but a relational, collective process that emerges between people, land, and more‑than‑human beings. Selfhood likewise arises “between our bodies” in webs of kinship, story, and ceremony rather than as a bounded, private individual. DST resonates with this view by rejecting a singular, essential self and instead portraying persons as a multiplicity of I‑positions in dialogue, including internal, interpersonal, and collective voices. Indigenous thought shows that many of these positions are inherently communal and transpersonal: ancestors, spirits, places, and community roles all “speak” through people’s stories and actions. Where Western psychology often treats such experiences as intrapsychic or pathological, Indigenous frameworks grant ontological status to these voices and see health as restoring balance among them. Indigenous relational mind offers a critical corrective to DST’s lingering individualism by insisting that healing never occurs outside community and shared narrative. Story becomes the bridge: people are “storied into” existence, and therapeutic change involves re‑storying within circles where others witness and endorse emerging identities. This aligns with DST’s emphasis on narrative reorganization of I‑positions but situates that reorganization in ceremony, ritual, and collective responsibility rather than the consulting room alone. Using a Two‑Eyed Seeing approach, DST can serve as a contemporary European‑language parallel to Indigenous self‑theory, enabling explanatory pluralism without subordinating Indigenous knowledge. Indigenous philosophies radicalize DST by pushing it to fully include land, ancestors, spirits, and community as co‑authors of mind, while DST offers conceptual tools for describing these polyphonic processes in ways legible to mainstream psychology and neuroscience.

Talking circles can be conceptualized as living laboratories of community mind in which dialogical processes give rise to a shared field of meaning that both holds and transforms individual experience. Building on work with Indigenous-derived talking circles in mental health and community settings, this presentation recognizes dialogical self theory (DST) as a generative lens for understanding how such circles cultivate a communal mind composed of multiple, interacting I-positions. DST understands the self as a dynamic multiplicity of relatively autonomous I-positions engaged in ongoing internal and external dialogue, blurring rigid boundaries between "inner" and "outer" voices. Within a talking circle, participants speak in turn from personally situated I-positions (for example, clinician, carer, survivor, community member) that are simultaneously shaped by collective narratives, cultural traditions, and spiritual frames carried by the circle itself. Through practices of intentional speaking, deep listening, and non-interruption central to many First Nations- and Native American–inspired circle models, these positions are invited into open, polyphonic dialogue rather than silenced by dominant voices or problem-saturated stories. Over time, the circle functions as a microsociety in which individual and shared positions continually co-create a communal mind—an emergent, relational configuration of meaning that no single participant owns, yet each helps author. Drawing on applied work with talking circles in the field of moral injury, a condition which drives the neglect of certain I-positions in favour of others, this presentation explores how communal mind processes may reduce isolation, enhance mutual recognition, and support more "psychodiverse" and democratic inner worlds. It is argued that framing each participant as an I-position within a larger dialogical community offers a theoretically robust and clinically useful account of how talking circles can enhance wellbeing, foster belonging, and gently shift dominant mental health paradigms toward more relational, community-anchored understandings of distress and healing.

Drama therapy, the six-part story process, narrative and community therapies, and dialogical self theory (DST) converge around a shared commitment to embodied story as the primary medium of healing and transformation. These approaches all work by externalizing and reshaping the polyphony of voices that constitute people’s lives, allowing new I‑positions and plots to emerge in relationship with others. Drama therapy and creative arts methods bring stories into movement, gesture, image, and role, making visible the often‑implicit characters and conflicts that organize subjective experience. The six-part story process provides a simple but powerful narrative scaffold—character, task, obstacle, helpers, climax, and resolution—through which clients can project and experiment with preferred identities. Puppets, roles, and enacted scenes function as “safe distance” containers for intense affect and for stigmatized or disowned voices. Within a DST frame, these characters can be understood as I‑positions in a dialogical self, whose shifting relationships can be observed, questioned, and reconfigured through dramatic play and guided reflection. Narrative and community therapies extend this work by locating stories within wider social, cultural, and historical conversations and by recruiting audiences who can witness and sustain alternative plots. Community groups, circles, and group medical visits become stages where personal and collective stories interanimate, creating richer repertoires of possible positions and futures. This collective dimension is essential: healing is less about insight into a solitary interior and more about co‑authoring new stories in community that the body can inhabit and enact. DST and dialogical therapies offer conceptual language and structure for what drama and narrative practitioners already do intuitively: fostering polyphony, promoting meta‑positions, and supporting more flexible, compassionate internal dialogue. Integrating DST with drama, six‑part story, and community‑based narrative practices yields a theoretically grounded, culturally sensitive, and neurologically plausible approach to psychotherapy that honors art, relationship, and story as central to human change.

Dialogical Self Theory posits that individuals hold various positions or identities simultaneously in dialogue with each other. This dialogical self engages both internal and external voices to contribute to a sense of identity. DST is especially useful in helping to understand the I-positions adolescents hold that influence their engagement in learning, especially when it comes to learning about language –or grammar.

Prior learning of grammar as “right/wrong” dichotomies, situations that stigmatize certain uses of language, and social constraints to use language in meaningful ways with peers might present conflicting internal dialogues in adolescents, contributing to a reluctance to even take up learning about language or grammar—or, even worse, contribute to an antagonistic attitude: “I hate grammar!” and a mental, if not physical, folding arms across the chest, daring teachers to try to shift language attitudes and I-positions.

In this presentation, a former secondary teacher shares two classroom practices as types of activities that encourage students to engage in both internal and external dialogues to encourage shifts toward more positive I-positions. The first activity explores a written exercise that asks student to entertain a prior personal experience, move it to a position where it can be examined from multiple perspectives and then come to a conclusion that can shift I-positions. The second example looks at analyzing published texts that seem to “break rules,” analyze the purposes of such usages, and consider them as purposeful for the students’ telling of their own stories. The purposeful exploration of contradictions of prior experience then applied to learning to achieve their own purposes puts I-positions in dialogue with one another that students might not have considered before.

Fluency is a main component of the science of reading, but a lack of research about fluency exists at the secondary level–especially the relationship between fluency and reader identity. This presentation explores the relationship between fluency and reader identity using dialogical self theory (DST), focusing on how explicit fluency instruction in the secondary classroom affects a student’s reader identity.

The data examined represents a slice of data from a larger multiple case study of 11th grade students at a US high school. The data reflects the experiences of three students, represented through a series of self-reflections collected throughout the year, each one completed after explicit fluency instruction and practice. The self-reflections were then analyzed using DST as a lens and coded for the various I-positions referenced throughout the students’ work.

The presence of different I-positions identified in each self-reflection reflect shifts in the students’ reader identities throughout the year and show interesting trends that are helpful for educators to be aware of. Specifically, students showed the development and transformation among a range of positive and negative I-positions such as I-as-strategic reader, I-as-reader who feels intimidated by peers, I-as-reader who lacks confidence, and I-as-person who enjoys reading out loud. The I-positions also show what students at the secondary level value when it comes to their reader identity, and provide insight into what educators should be aware of when considering fluency instruction.

This presentation will focus on the value of teaching fluency at the secondary level and the importance of educators being aware of how students’ reader identities are shaped in the classroom. Using DST when evaluating data from the classroom gives educators the vocabulary to clearly discuss and focus on important shifts that are taking place with the reader's identities as a result of fluency instruction.

One of the most recognizable elements of reading instruction is vocabulary. Though many educators and researchers emphasize the value of intentional vocabulary instruction and practice in the classroom, little research examines the role of students’ experiences and positioning when making meaning out of words and texts. This presentation examines the ways students’ lived experiences and funds of knowledge impact their understanding of vocabulary, and ways in which teachers can intentionally tap this existing knowledge and positioning through reflective practices to help prepare students for deeper reading experiences.

This data was collected as a part of a larger case study of 11th and 9th grade US high school students. It includes student and teacher reflections collected at the conclusion of learning stations activities students completed during their study of whole class texts. Using Dialogical Self Theory (DST), these were coded for I-positions and the ways these positions contributed to students’ meaning-making. This analysis showed that I-positions represented pieces of students’ identities formed through their lived experiences that were used to make meaning of the world around them. Sometimes this occurred in the broader practices of studying a text, but also in the more minute practice of unpacking the meaning of a single word. That is, the personal “definition” or meaning ascribed to a word revealed how students pulled meaning from not only the texts they studied, but also their own identities (and the experiences that built those identities).

This presentation emphasizes the value of teaching vocabulary in ways that invite students’ identities and experiences into the classroom to allow for greater meaning-making and overall learning. The DST lens makes it possible for educators to craft experiences for students to tap into their I-positions and draw from their unique perspectives to enhance vocabulary instruction beyond the standard word-and-definition” model they often utilize.

Presented is a psychobiographical study of the British painter Gwen John (1876- 1939), who worked in France for most of her career. A narrative-dialogical and attachment framework was adopted to explore the way that Gwen John constructed her life story. An adjusted version of the “Life-Story Interview” (McAdams & Bowman, 2001) was used that distinguishes between redemption versus contamination narratives. The narrative analysis of autobiographical materials revealed turning points and a central life theme as dictated by the method. The painter appeared to construct her life story around the theme: “In search of secure inner and outer spaces”. (i) The origin of the theme and its supporting voices can be found in her traumatic attachment pattern related to her mother’s early death. (ii) The theme showed unique developments throughout her life, as evident in autobiographical documents and self-portraits. (iii) Turning points appear to emerge out of a dialogical process, all of which mark successive shifts in her life narrative and her ongoing search for secure inner and outer spaces. The importance of making meaning of life stories within a narrative-dialogical and attachment framework is discussed. Trauma histories can be shaped in later life and safety sought in ways that reflect continuous inner and outer dialogues.

Pina Bausch (1940-2009), a pioneer in 20th century’s dance and founder of “dancetheatre”, was born and raised in Germany through and post World War II. In an autobiographical speech when awarded Kyoto Prize (2007), she emphasizes that her childhood experiences - marked by war, lived and carried through senses – are represented on stage. Dance training was a positive self-empowering experience for her. She later forms major innovations establishing Tanztheater Wuppertal. In this autobiographical study, focus turns on the procedure of on-stage narratives that seem as a path of unfolding, understanding, giving meaning, sharing and reframing painful, traumatic human experiences, thus creating artistic and collective experiences of catharsis and resilience, leading to a position of control and making choices. Pina would start rehearsals posing open questions to explore the dancers’ perspectives, worked in a “collage” method putting together childhood memories with adult themes, emphasized the importance of group polyphony and human connection. We discuss how such a creative pace may be seen as a model of healing and resilience. Clinical implications are discussed.

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), founder of the “talking cure,” is approached not only as a theoretical innovator but as a dialogical subject whose life narrative bears the imprint of transgenerational trauma. The study focuses on Freud’s 1936 letter to Romain Rolland, in which he revisits a derealization experience during his 1904 visit to the Acropolis—an event described as the fulfillment of a lifelong and “forbidden” dream. Drawing on Dialogical Self Theory, the letter is analyzed as a polyphonic text in which multiple self-positions interact. Three dominant voices are identified: a vulnerable self, marked by guilt, non-belonging, and derealization; a heroic self, associated with achievement, desire, and conquest; and a punitive self that restricts pleasure and success. These voices are further traced across Freud’s childhood memory of his father’s humiliation, linked to his Jewish identity, and his final dream of arriving at Pevensey during exile, as recorded by Ernest Jones. Across these narrative fragments, the figure of the vulnerable hero emerges—not as a resolution of paternal rivalry, but as a dialogical integration of rejection and heroism shaped by collective and generational trauma. In dialogue with other symposium case studies (Darwin, Gwen John, Pina Bausch), Freud’s experience is reframed as part of a wider pattern in which resilience is forged through reflective, narrative, and embodied voices. The presentation concludes by proposing vulnerability as a central dialogical position of the self and by inviting reflection on dreams—both nocturnal and waking—as privileged spaces for dialogue, transformation, and meaning-making.

Darwin is probably one of the most intriguing personalities and prolific scientist of the late 19th century, having shaped decisively our understanding of human nature and descend. Using a narrative and dialogical prism, we sought to explore how Darwin constructed his self from childhood (marked by the early death of his mother) to adulthood (marked by his famous travels, but also from illness and suffering. We analyzed his early memories, as described in his autobiography, and a letter to his wife. We identified two antithetical themes and the corresponding voices that sustained them: the theme of his ordinary and timid nature (the voices speaking of "an ordinary boy", a “future shame” for his family), but also the curiosity and zeal theme (the voices speaking of "a naturalist from cradle"). Despite the antithesis, in the process of writing his autobiography, Darwin managed to produce a coherent, evolving story of who he was with the help of a self-reflective voice that was encompassed even in his early memories. Three specific self-reflective processes were identified: “connecting voices”, “exploring mind diversity”, “owning his position”. The study’s results are in line with Herman’s understanding of a reflective voice’s functions as unifying, executing, and liberating. We discuss how psychobiography can serve as a theory-building case study and can contribute to support, specify or widen a theoretical approach.

As a Bakhtinian scholar, in languages and literacies education, who found DST theory afterwards, I have been from the onset intrigued by the relationship, contradiction or potential tension between these theorists. Embarking this quest in dilemma and doubt, I was keen to explore their meta-positioning, as complementary, contradictory or extension of each other.

I was drawn deeply to the notion of positioning and counter position in Herman’s work which informed this query as well, hence I explored unfolding of both theories in my personal, professional and academic life. The more I engaged with Herman’s subsequent works, and concepts of society of the self, democratic and harmonious self and recently exploring contradictions within the self, the more it resonates with what I was experiencing in my life journey at different levels, which was not immediately accessible to me through mere Bakhtinian lens.

In this talk, I bring to the fore how I traversed my journey of becoming at personal, academic and professional levels through both Bakhtin and DST lens and how my sense of the theories turned from a moral obligation to an inevitably entangled pieces through which I am able to make sense of my experience. I bring examples of how these entangled concepts deepened my awareness of self as an immigrant and transnational academic, navigating different languages, cultures and how they eventually informed my teaching, assessment design, literacy practices and leadership practice.

This entanglement was particularly significant in bringing together concepts of trans-positioning with heteroglossic voices, as well as exploring internally persuasive discourse versus authoritative both from within and without and how each chronotopic experience reveal new ‘I’ position or conflicted positions. Thus, my meta-positioning query led me to a more transpositioning of these theories for a holistic exploration of self in, out and in-between.

At the conclusion of her memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran (2004), Azar Nafisi, a beloved literature professor fleeing Iran in the late 1990s, recounts wisdom shared by a wise mentor. As Nafisi expressed her desire to write about the home she loved and literature, her mentor explained “You will not be able to write about Austen without writing about us, about this place where you rediscovered Austen….The Austen you know is so irretrievably linked to this place, this land and these trees” (p. 338). Although my work isn’t situated in Iran or Austen, this passage articulates my own experience coming to Bakhtin and Dialogical Self Theory. That is, I am not able to write about Dialogical Self Theory without writing about Bakhtin. Although my reading and understandings of these theories continues to evolve, Bakhtinian Theory and Dialogical Self theory evoke the people and the places where I discovered these theories, as well as the theories themselves, intricately interwoven into my understandings and what I know of these ideas and irretrievably linked to that time, that place, and those colleagues.

This session explores how discovering Bakhtinian Theory and Dialogical Self Theory in a doctoral Bakhtin course provided a lens for me to make sense of my own perpetual professional and personal becoming, as well as my research during my graduate school experience. Guided by a series of excerpts from papers written during this time, I share how the theories themselves, as well as dialogues with external others and internal I-positions, provided a catalyst for the development of meta positions and third positions that proved formative to my professional and personal becoming. These theories not only shaped the way I conceptualized my research, but they also helped me make sense of my own religious, scholarly, and learner identities.

My aim here considers dialogical theorists alongside critical race theorists and queer scholars to unearth how authoritative and internally persuasive discourse create structures of discourse power. Inspired by the Bakhtinian circle, I imagine these thinkers in active drawing room debates and discussions.

Bakhtin identified and distinguished two crucial modes of discourse, authoritative and internally persuasive discourse (IPD). For Bakhtin, authoritative discourse remains fixed, unquestioned, and often institutionalized in political, religious, or moral spheres. Internally Persuasive Discourse (IPD) emerges from the voices and opinions of others that assimilate into consciousness.

Freire aims to liberate education from authoritative discourse by locating dialogical relations between teacher and learner. To materialize this relationship, he coined the term dodiscência, or teach-learn. To understand is not transitive, but to be acted upon by another. This discourse dynamic becomes internalized into the psyche.

Dialogical Self Theory contends with this vocal polyphony as a salon of Identity Positions of the mind. Identity Positions (I-Positions) are varied identity markers, such as age, race, religion, sexuality, gender identity. I-Positions, which shift over time, may act in conflict or concert with one another. We make or avoid decisions based on the cooperation or stagnation of internalized voices.

In dialogue with these three, I add two scholars on race, sexuality, and gender identity. Crenshaw has notably coined the term “intersectionality” to identify how the intersections of identity markers, such as gender and race, can, amid racism and sexism, be felt like a fraught intersection. Queer scholar Halberstam notes how queer and trans* discourses are indirect and access to the lived experience of such individuals requires a scavenged method of knowledge production. This discourse salon aims to reveal how minoritized discourse patterns express and internalize oppression and second, how double-voiced, queered discourse patterns provide a means of liberatory expression.

This presentation examines live therapy session observation as a spatial form of thirdness that transforms observation into an active dialogical process. Drawing on trainees’ narratives, it explores processes of emotional activation, ethical tension, and embodied reflexivity. Live session observation is conceptualized as a form of external thirdness, supporting the emergence of a meta-position, from which trainees can reflect on their responses, identifications, and internal dialogues without intervening in the tharapeutic process.

Through this observational position, trainees develop increased awareness of their emotional, cognitive, and ethical reactions while witnessing therapy in action, cultivating the capacity to tolerate ambiguity and complexity within relational dynamics. The observational setting enables trainees to experience closeness and distance simultaneously, fostering reflexivity, ethical sensitivity, and dialogical presence. In this way, live session observation functions not as a neutral or detached stance but as a generative dialogical space that contributes to the development of professional identity

The genogram constitutes a core tool in systemic psychotherapy, particularly within the training of therapists, as it facilitates the exploration of family relationships, transgenerational patterns, and narrative meanings. Conceptualized as a temporal form of thirdness, the genogram activates internal and external voices, internalized others, and transgenerational meaning inviting trainees to re-author family narratives and to navigate tensions between multiple self – positions, fostering reflective, flexible and polyphonic therapeutic identities. Through this dialogical process, trainees move toward more reflective , flexible and polyphonic configurations of therapeutic identity, enhancing their capacity to tolerate complexity and intergenerational resonance .

Τhis presentation highlights the central role of the training group in the development of therapist trainee identity conseptualized as a community of practice within which trainees apprentice in the art of the therapist .Over time the group is experienced as a safe and reflective space of experience, thought, and meaning-making, one that remains open and continuously co-constructed by its participants, and within which what takes place actively shapes and transforms who trainees are becoming. Within the group, trainees engage in a collective reflective space that supports observation, dialogue, and experiential learning. The group setting allows participants to navigate ethical and relational tensions, integrate personal and professional experiences, and cultivate meta-positions, reflexivity, and relational presence.

This study presents a psychobiography approach to the life of the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama (1929– ). Born in Matsumoto, Japan, Kusama developed an influential international career, living and working in New York from the late 1950s until early 1970s, where she gained recognition for her avant-garde art. From early childhood, she experienced psychotic symptoms, which eventually led to her voluntary residence in a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo from 1977 to the present. Drawing on an adapted version of McAdams’ Life Story Interview, the study examines how Yayoi Kusama constructs her life story based on autobiographical

material. Kusama’s narrative identity appeared to emerge from an ongoing negotiation of antithetical positions, between chaos and control, self-obliteration and unity. Experiences of fragmentation of the self and psychological struggle are reorganized through artistic practice into sources of meaning, agency, and survival. Artistic creation serves as a medium for reframing her experiences of mental struggle into a redemptive life story.

This study explores Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG) following psychosis through the lens of narrative identity theory. Specifically, it explores how individuals reconstruct their selves and derive meaning from psychotic experiences. While PTG is well-documented in various trauma contexts, its exploration within the spectrum of psychosis remains significantly limited, despite recent studies that link psychosis to trauma. Following a qualitative design, the study involved five participants (3 males, 2 females) receiving psychiatric care at the General Hospital of Athens “G. Gennimatas”. Data collection utilized McAdams’ ''Life Story Interview'' to capture narrative structures, complemented by the projective tool ''Draw a Person in the Rain''; to monitor a sense of resilience at a non-verbal level. The data were processed using narrative analysis, focusing on redemptive and contaminated sequences. Analysis revealed diverse life themes across participants. Regarding narrative structure in each participant, a gradual positive progression, following numerous highs and lows, was observed in the verbal accounts, aligning with the characteristics of a redemptive narrative. The projective tool brought to light more burdensome and less integrated aspects of the traumatic experience, a limited sense of resilience. This discrepancy suggests a notable differentiation between verbal narrative reconstruction and ‘underlying’, non- verbal processes. The findings suggest that while individuals may strive for redemptive storytelling, PTG in psychosis is a long process. The study highlights the need to triangulate data using a variety of tools to explore the construction of narrative identity. There is also a critical need for long-term psychotherapeutic interventions focused on meaning-making as essential prerequisites for facilitating PTG in this population.

Ronald Hayman, in his work Nietzsche’s Voices, describes Nietzsche (1844–1900) as a man who heard “voices.” In his view, polyphony lies at the heart of Nietzsche’s work: as a philosopher, he did not speak with one voice but through masks, personas, contradictions, sayings, and characters. In the present psychobiography study, we adopted a Dialogical Self Theory prism to explore this idea further. We chronologically analyzed published personal letters before and after Nietzsche’s mental breakdown. Like Heyman, we recorded at least two voices: a critical voice, associated with self-doubt, and a didactic, balancing voice. In addition, before his breakdown, we recorded a self-reflective voice or metaposition that prevented Nietzsche from losing a sense of reality and balance his various voices: He could speak with many voices, but could also reflect on these voices as external voices of

people distinct from himself. Closer to the breakdown, we recorded the gradual loss of polyphony along with the gradual loss of a self-reflective voice or metaposition. As

polyphony turned into monophony, Nietzsche ''became'' Zarathustra, his principal hero, with no other voices to mentally balance him. The prism of Dialogical Self Theory is discussed as a useful framework for understanding mental illness.

Dialogical self-theory conceptualizes psychosis as the collapse of the dialogical self,

the absence of agency and the disruption of narrative coherence. Previous case

studies have shown that brief fragments of self or I-position emerge in consequent

tellings of a person’s experiences as signs of emotional content. To make meaning of these tellings and enhance empathy in practitioners, literature and other forms of art have been used by practitioners themselves in rehabilitation phases, but not in

admission. The present study explored and combined ways of making meaning of

psychotic speech using a narrative case study methodology. In phase one, we

analyzed the narrative form of a total of 13 short messages and letters of a 46-year-

old male patient (‘Paul’), written prior to and on the day of involuntary

hospitalization. Setting the context of the story aside, and focusing on emotional signs in first person only, we found that Paul’s tellings evolved around the theme of

“seeking help in vain”. In phase two, we compared the narrative content of his

tellings to the novel/film “The Bourne Identity”. This comparison highlighted the

power of narrative as a vehicle for expressing themes of survival, identity

fragmentation, and the search for meaning. We discuss the implications of our method for identifying fragments of I-position that can be further strengthened in therapy, to gradually re-establish agency and narrative coherence. In addition, using literature and the arts can help practitioners make meaning of persons’ psychotic experiences by noticing thematic similarities, pointing to identity and relationship struggles.