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Article published In: Narrative Construction of Emotional Life
[Journal of Narrative and Life History 5:3] 1995
► pp. 269–283

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If a Self Is a Narrative: Social Constructionism in the Clinic

 | Scotland, Connecticut
Published online: 4 August 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jnlh.5.3.08sel
Abstract The articles in this special issue indicate that the self is best understood not as an empirical and transhistorical entity, but as a narrative, inextricable from its location in history and culture. This view has significant implications for psy-chotherapy. It suggests that therapy is a moral discourse, that its claim to authority is better understood as ideological than as scientific. But because it generally takes a reificationist stance on such matters as emotions, therapy is currently ill-equipped to take account of the self as a social construction and of itself as a moral practice. (Clinical Psychology)
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2010. A narrative research of Taiwan clinical social worker's professional self in the helping process. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 5 ► pp. 235 ff. DOI logo
Kendall, Marilyn & Scott A. Murray
2005. Tales of the Unexpected: Patients’ Poetic Accounts of the Journey to a Diagnosis of Lung Cancer: A Prospective Serial Qualitative Interview Study. Qualitative Inquiry 11:5 ► pp. 733 ff. DOI logo
Kendall, Marilyn & Scott Murray
2004. Poems from the Heart: Living with Heart Failure. In Narrative Research in Health and Illness, ► pp. 52 ff. DOI logo
Wilson, Fiona
2000. The Social Construction of Sexual Harassment and Assault of University Students. Journal of Gender Studies 9:2 ► pp. 171 ff. DOI logo
Greenberg, Gary
1997. Right Answers, Wrong Reasons: Revisiting the Deletion of Homosexuality from the DSM. Review of General Psychology 1:3 ► pp. 256 ff. DOI logo
Singer, Jefferson A.
1996. The story of Your Life. In Handbook of Emotion, Adult Development, and Aging, ► pp. 443 ff. DOI logo

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