Self and Other in Dialogue

Abstract

Inner conversations are a natural state of activity for all of us. We constantly chatter ‘in our heads’ with our partners, our parents and with significant others about matters relating to daily life. These imagined conversations help us deal with the environment in which we live. The significance of these dialogues for the development of a sense of self is the cornerstone of dialogical self theory, which has been created and developed in the last two decades by the Dutch psychologist, Hubert Hermans (Hermans and Kempen 1993). While the folk one converses with ‘in one’s head’ are real people — i.e. one’s parents, partners, teachers, children etc. — the conversations are virtual and may not necessarily involve sound. We need not necessarily speak actual words, but the dialogues are nevertheless very real to us. Charles Taylor suggests that we never really outgrow our parents. We remain in dialogue with them in our heads — even after they have died — ‘the conversation with them continues within us as long as we live’ (Taylor 1994: 33). ‘Even at the moment when you let fly an expletive, you may almost simultaneously find a voice in your head saying that you shouldn’t really have said that, and that you should check that nobody has heard you.’ (Thompson 2009: 33).