How Does Narrative-act Constitute the Self?

Critic and expansion of Gergen's self-narrative theory

Abstract

This paper focuses on the self-narrative theory proposed by K. J. Gergen and M. M. Gergen. This theory can be considered to be very insightful in explaining self, in that (1) it understands self as a product of self-narrative-acts, in other words, the reflexivity and historicity of self and (2) it understands self as a communicative and relational phenomenon, not an isolated entity, which means social constructedness of self. But it is considered to be still insufficient, because it fails to grasp fully the reflexivity of self, that is to say the relation to oneself. So extending their theory to cover this reflexivity fully makes possible a comparative sociology of self.