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‘So you did what you wanted then’: Discourse analysis, personal agency, and psychotherapy
Author(s) -
Madill Anna,
Doherty Kathy
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
journal of community and applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.042
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1099-1298
pISSN - 1052-9284
DOI - 10.1002/casp.2450040406
Subject(s) - discursive psychology , subjectivity , agency (philosophy) , consistency (knowledge bases) , determinism , subject (documents) , discourse analysis , psychology , epistemology , identity (music) , reading (process) , relation (database) , sense of agency , personal identity , social psychology , sociology , essentialism , self , linguistics , social science , philosophy , physics , geometry , mathematics , database , library science , computer science , acoustics
This paper explores issues concerning personal agency in discursive psychology and discourse analysis, with a particular emphasis on agency in terms of motivational accounts of the person. Issues are discussed in relation to the efficacy, acceptability, and accessibility of discourse analytic research for the practising psychotherapist. We suggest that such an approach may raise problems in four areas. First, we argue that without explicit theorization of the subject as language user, discourse analysis may be vulnerable to the charge of determinism. Second, theorization of the subject as language user may be required to account successfully for individual consistency and continuity of identity. Third, although claiming to critique commonsense notions of subjectivity, implicit dualist assumptions facilitate a reading of discursive psychology that is compatible with a motivational model of the person. Finally, we argue that discursive psychology itself implies a particular model of the strategically motivated language user. We conclude that, although these issues require clarification, discursive psychology and discourse analysis have much to offer psychotherapy research.