Abstract
This chapter is a theoretical engagement with dimensions of subjectivity specifically represented in the research question. Drawing on relevant theories, the psychophysical and the psychosocial constitution of the research subject is discussed, laying the groundwork for an existential-psychosocial reading of the narrative accounts. The author frames the discussion within different theoretical perspectives leaning on psychoanalytic theory, existential and ontological philosophy, cultural anthropology, and relational psychoanalytic thinking. Besides, the chapter discusses the relation between the narrative self and the experiential self. The case is made that there can be discrepancies between life experienced and life told, how encounters with death, at the very center of the present study, can be catalysts for deep reflection and self-knowledge, but can also provide experiences that are suppressed and defended against, and therefore not integrated parts of the health professional’s narrative self.
Leave your theory, as Joseph his coat in the hand of the harlot, and flee
Ralph Waldo Emerson (in Self-Reliance)
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Moen, K. (2018). The Narrative Subject—A Theoretical Positioning. In: Death at Work. Studies in the Psychosocial. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90326-2_2
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