Introduction

Abstract

At the beginning of the twenty-first century narrative psychology has emerged as a force to be reckoned with on par with psychoanalytic, cognitive and family approaches. As a distinct field of inquiry, narrative psychology is characterized by the elaboration of models of personality and self based on narrative principles. Representing a reaction against the cognitive-behaviour paradigm with its strong focus on information-processing, which has dominated academic psychology for nearly half a century, narrative psychology puts self-experience at the core of inquiry and therapy. As such, the valorizing of self-experience by narrative psychology corresponds to the growing trend of theorizing explicitly the place of selfhood and identity within politics and culture. As Anthony Elliott notes in his critical monograph, Concepts of the Self: ‘In contemporary social theory the cultures and conflicts of identity loom large, with the fragilities of personal experience and the self viewed as central to critical conversation concerning social practice and political transformation’(Elliott 2005: 15).