Conference Agenda

This presentation explores a clinical practice of listening to the multiple “voices” of parents, who have experienced perinatal loss, drawing on the concept of polyphony in Dialogical Self Theory (DST). Working as a clinical psychologist within a multidisciplinary healthcare team, engaging with diverse professional perspectives is central to the approach. In Japan, there is a cultural emphasis on "wa" (harmony) and collective unity, which can influence individuals to suppress their inner voices in the interest of maintaining social harmony. For example, physicians often convey messages like "your decision is respected" and "you do not need to blame yourself," which help many mothers adopt a more positive outlook. However, alongside the voice of self-acceptance, there may also be suppressed voices of self-blame, such as "I am at fault" or "I have never told anyone this before. "While psychosocial support aims to promote a positive mindset, there is a risk of unintentionally merging these conflicting voices into a single, harmonious narrative. This can marginalize the voice of self-blame, preventing the coexistence of conflicting positions within the self.

Rather than prematurely resolving or unifying these voices, clinical support should focus on recognizing and holding the simultaneous presence of conflicting voices. Understanding the self as polyphonic, composed of multiple, equally valid voices—allows for a more ethically sensitive approach to care. The presentation also emphasizes the significance of polyphony in multidisciplinary collaboration. By recognizing that different professionals may resonate with different voices of the client, healthcare teams can offer more inclusive support without imposing a dominant narrative of recovery. Embracing polyphony, rather than striving for harmony, creates a therapeutic space where unspoken or marginalized voices can be heard, fostering deeper psychological containment and self-acceptance.

This presentation examines how selves are generated and lived through narratives at the life turning point of taking sick leave. Focusing on workers who took long-term sick leave due to work-related mental illness, this study explores how multiple, coexisting narrative voices reveal the polyphonic nature of the self. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five workers and analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Four themes were identified: the liberated self, the denied self, the questioning self, and the self holding “the self before sick leave.” These themes did not converge into a single developmental process but coexisted as interacting phases within the inner world of the worker. Alongside the self narrated as “who I am,” different voices of the self emerge through fragmented expressions, silences, and the difficulty of narration itself, forming a polyphonic sense of self.

As workers attempt to recover “the self before sick leave,” the familiar sense of that self often falls silent during the period of not working, and the self that once spoke as “who I am” becomes difficult, or even impossible, to narrate. This loss of voice is experienced as an encounter with a self in the process of change, leaving workers unable to grasp who they are becoming. The questioning self does not disappear, but continues to be lived over time, accompanied by confusion and vulnerability. These findings suggest that recovery does not involve integrating painful experiences into a stable, coherent sense of self, but living with multiple, sometimes conflicting voices over time. This perspective calls for support that attends to diverse self-experiences beyond workplace adaptation.

In contemporary society, where voice adjustment is demanded both by the proliferation of voice AI and as an interpersonal skill, voices have become homogenized. Everyone experientially understands the discrepancy that arises between “my ‘voice’” and “myself” – that is, the fluctuation inherent in “my ‘voice’”. Particularly for voice actors, whose profession demands adapting their voice to desired roles, the challenge lies in realizing the ideal model while maintaining the subjectivity of “my voice”. This study examined how “my voice” is experienced and given meaning through the narratives of young people aspiring to be voice actors, aiming to outline the contours of this elusive vocal issue. The research method employed unstructured interviews, drawing on the conversational method (Ōkura, 2011), where participants were invited to freely discuss experiences related to voice. Collected data were analyzed using the methodology of dialogical self-theory (Mizokami, 2001). Through examining the dialogue between multiple I- positions and shifts in meaning, the study identified the fluctuations in voice faced by aspiring voice actors and their processes of acceptance and recovery.

As a result, the research participants were unsettled by feelings such as ‘I cannot express what I wish to say’ or ‘I cannot become the person I aspire to be, even though my voice alone.” Four factors contributing to resolving these fluctuations were identified: ① Experiences where realizing the voice's usefulness led to self-efficacy; ② Experiences facing the threat of losing one's voice; ③ Experiences where one's voice, used without strain, was acknowledged; ④ Experiences where discomfort accumulated from forcing the voice. In conclusion, it became clear that the sudden sense of relief brought about by ‘the me who seeks to cherish my past voice’ led to the recovery of ‘my “voice”’, prompting new actions aimed at revising the ideal model into a realistic and achievable one.