Sell-Narrative as Meaning Construction: The Dynamics ol Sell-lovestigation

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1 Sell-Narrative as Meaning Construction: The Dynamics ol Sell-lovestigation Hubert J. M. Hermans University of Nijmegen Starting from the metaphor of the person as a motivated storyteller, a theory of meaning construction and reconstruction is presented. Two motives are assumed to be particularly influential in the process of meaning construction: The striving for self-enhancement and the longing for contact and union with somebody or something else. A self-confrontation method is discussed and illustrated, enabling clients to perform, in close cooperation with the psychotherapist, a self-investigation on the content and organization of their personal meaning units. The method represents a gradual transition between assessment and change. Three functions of the method are discussed: assessment, process promotion, and evaluation. These functions are illustrated with a diversity of clinical phenomena: the finding of a central theme in the client's self-narrative, the experience of hopelessness and helplessness, the organized nature of depression, and the construction of a scenario for emerging from a depressive state. Finally, the multivoiced and dialogical nature of the self is illustrated by the dream of a murderer who was perceived by the client as both inside and outside the self. Special attention is given to the shifting boundaries between self and nonself John Wiley & Sons. Inc. J Clin Psychol 55: , The person is not simply a storyteller, but a passionate storyteller. Therapists are used to seeing clients who are strongly and affectively involved in their stories, or in significant parts of it. Typically, clients do not tell their stories as though they are exploring a free space, but focus on those parts that arouse affect or even strong emotions. In his groundbreaking book Principles of Psychology, James (189, p. 319) was well aware of this I thank Els Hermans-Jansen for placing the data of several cases at my disposal and Sue Houston for her editorial remarks. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Hubert J. M. Hermans, University of Nijmegen, Department of Psychology, P.O. Box 914, 65 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands; HHermans@psych. kun.nl; JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, VoL 55(1), (1999) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC /99/

2 1194 ' Journal of Clinical Psychology, October 1999 when he talked about "self-feelings": "The words 'me'... and 'self, so far as they arouse feelings and connote emotional worth, are objective designations, meaning all the things which have the power to produce in a stream of consciousness excitement of a certain peculiar sort." This insight about the close relationship between self and affect was, however, not sufficient for James to understand the workings ofthe self. This insight did not answer the question why particular things evoke more affect than others do. In order to solve that problem, James supposed that selves are organized and directed by needs or motives. Particular events receive emotional value when certain basic motives are fulfilled or frustrated in the encounters with the world. This theoretical idea was the starting point for a narrative theory of the self based on the metaphor of the person as a "motivated storyteller." The work derived from this metaphor contributes to the broader literature of constructivism in psychotherapy (Neimeyer & Mahoney, 1995; Neimeyer, Hagans, & Anderson, 1998). Self as a Motivated Storyteller: Valuation Theory The metaphor guiding the present theory comprises three components: story, motivation, and telling. Together they form an adequate basis for understanding the client's selfnarrative and the emotional problems that are part of it. One of the main advocates of a narrative approach, Sarbin (1986) views story or narrative as a way of organizing episodes, actions, and accounts of actions in time and space. He explains, moreover, that narrative organizes our fantasies and daydreams, our unvoiced stories and our plans, memories, even our loving and hating. Central elements in a narrative are real or fictive events, which can only be understood when they are located in the context of time and space. Multiple, spatially located agents, who as intentional beings, engage in a variety of actions populate stories. Not only are the actors in the told stories intentionally oriented and motivated, but the storytellers themselves are motivated, too. A classic example of a motivational theory in early narrative psychology is Murray's (1938) system of needs and his use of the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). Ambiguous pictures invite subjects to express in their stories a variety of themes (e.g., achievement, affiliation, dominance, sex, etc.). The underlying assumption is that the themes expressed in the stories reflect the subject's more or less unconscious needs. Murray's work instigated later investigators to use TAT procedures to assess people's motives or needs: achievement motive (McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, & Lowell, 1953), power (Winter, 1973), affiliation (Boyatzis, 1973), and the opposition of power and intimacy (McAdams, 1985). On the basis of a review of the literature on the duality of human experience, Hermans and Hermans-Jansen (1995) concluded that many philosophers and psychologists agreed on the existence of two basic motives: the striving for self-enhancement (self-maintenance and self-expansion) and the longing for contact/union with somebody or something else (see also Bakan, 1966). All this literature suggests that people's stories be organized by psychological motives or needs. When there is a story, a teller and a listener are always assumed. The reciprocity between teller and listener makes storytelling a highly dynamic interactional phenomenon, or, using another term, a highly dialogieal process. The literary scholar Mikhail Bakhtin makes a sharp distinction between logical and dialogieal relationships in his book. Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics [1973 (originally written in Russian in 1929)]. He gives the example of two phrases that are completely identical, "life is good" and again "life is good." From the perspective of Aristotelian logic, these phrases are connected by a relationship of identity. They are, in fact, one and the same statement. From

3 Self-Narrative as Meaning Construction 1195 a dialogical perspective, however, they function as two sequential remarks following each other in time and coming from two spatially separated people in communication, who in this case entertain a relationship of agreement. The two phrases are identical from a logical perspective, but different as utterances: the first is a statement, the second a confirmation. Similarly, one may compare the statements "life is good" and "life is not good." From a logical perspective one is a negation of the other. However, as utterances from two different speakers, a dialogical relation of disagreement between the two phrases exists. In Bakhtin's view, the relationships of agreement and disagreement are, like question and answer, dialogical forms. When people tell their stories, inside or outside psychotherapy, two (or more) spatially located individuals are involved in a process of intersubjective interchange. It is assumed that a manifold of processes, like turn taking, question and answer, agreement and disagreement, paraphrasing, and reflection of feelings, are all expressions of dialogical interchange that have a significant organizing influence on the stories to be told. Two forms of dialogue organize, often in their combination, our daily experiences: imaginal and real dialogues. Side by side and interwoven they structure the process of intersubjective exchange. In her book. Invisible Guests, Watkins (1986) vividly demonstrates that imaginal dialogues constitute an essential part of our narrative construction of the world. People find themselves communicating with their critics, their parents, their therapists, their consciences, their gods, their reflection in the mirror, with the photograph of someone they miss, with a figure from a movie or a dream, with their babies, or with their pets. Imaginal dialogues certainly have a pervasive influence on real dialogues. When I prepare a lecture for my students, not only do I imagine myself in the lecture room, I use the imagination of my audience and the nature of possible questions, to help prepare myself efficiently and enhance the quality of my lecture in vivo. In sum, whereas stories combine fact and fiction (Sarbin, 1986), the telling of stories runs through real and imaginal dialogues (Watkins, 1986). Second, space and time are basic components of storytelling. Stories always imply a temporal organization of events and are organized around intentional actors who, as protagonist and antagonist, have opposite positions in a real or imaginal space. Third, the person who is telling a story is always a motivated storyteller. In their self-narratives people organize, in contact with their interlocutors and on the basis of guiding motives or themes, the events of their own lives. Valuation Theory: Organizing and Reorganizing One's Meaning Structure In valuation theory (Hermans & Hermans-Jansen, 1995) it is assumed that self-narrative is considered an organized process of valuation. The theory assumes that (a) people, in telling the events of their lives to another person, organize the events of their lives in terms of units of meaning, or "valuations;" (b) valuations and their organization are influenced by basic motives; and (c) the basic motives are expressed in the affective component of a valuation. An illustrative example of somebody who organizes his self-narrative in the form of three valuations is presented in Table 1. On the left side of this table are three temporally ordered valuations referring to important events and circumstances that have positive or negative value in the eyes of the person. On the right side are four indices that indicate how the basic motives (self-enhancement and contact/union) are expressed in the affective component of the valuations. The indices S (affect referring to self enhancement) and O (affect referring to the other) indicate which motive predominates in a particular

4 1196 Journal of Clinical Psychology, October 1999 Table 1 Example of Valuations and Affective Indices Valuation Past: Last year I lost my wife in an accident. Present: I am now involved in a project which necessitates all my attention. Future: In the future I hope to find a mutually stimulating relationship with a partner Affect Note. S = affect referring to.self enhancement; = affect referring to contact with the other, P = /positive affect; N = negative affect. Each index (5, O, P, and N)'\s SL sumscore of four affect terms that are rated by the client on a -5 rating scale in relation to the specific valuation. The affect terms for S are: strength, pride, self-confidence, and self-esteem; the affect terms for O are: caring, intimacy, love, and tendemess; P affect terms are: joy, etijoyment, happiness, and inner calm; N affect terms are: disappointment, unhappiness, worry, and despondency. The client applies the same set of 16 randomly ordered affect terms (four affect terms for each of the four indices 5, O, P, and N) successively to each of the valuations P ;v valuation, and the indices P (positive affect) and A^ (negative affect) reflect the predominance of affect that the person experiences when he succeeds or fails in his attempts to overcome the obstacles on his way to fulfilling his basic motives. As the example suggests, there are a wide variety of valuations referring to a multiplicity of events in the past, present, and future. The valuations reflect an ongoing story that is expressed in an unlimited number of valuations that differ for different individuals and can vary across time within the same individual. On the latent level, however, we assume a limited number of motives that are similar for different people and that are constantly present across the life span of the same individual. Whereas the valuations are on the manifest level of self-functioning, the basic motives are on the latent level. The valuations as manifest meaning units are rooted in a latent motivational base. This model poses Chomsky's problem of generativity: How can humans generate, from a finite base of experience, an infinite set of realizable surface expressions? Both Chomsky and Freud have answered this problem, each in their own theoretical terms, by proposing two levels of expression: deep/surface structure in Chomsky's case and manifest/latent level in Freud's case. The deeper (latent) level is characterized by a relatively small set of basic motives or operations (Foulkes, 1978). The two-level model enables the psychotherapist to assess the valuations from two different perspectives. On the manifest level a person may tell ever-changing stories dependent on the passing of time, the change of situation, and, more specifically, the nature of the encounters with significant others such as parents, friends, and the psychotherapist. From the perspective of the latent level, however, the focus is on the organization of these changes from a limited number of basic motives. Valuations may change whereas the basic motive may remain the same. For example, an extremely achievementoriented client may give up her favorite sport in which she is over demanding of herself and decides to join a meditation course. After some time, however, she shows psychotic symptoms as a result of "trying to be the best" in the act of meditation and over demanding of herself in practicing. In this case we might see a change on the manifest level (change of valuation from sport to meditation) but constancy on the latent level (persistence of an exaggerated self enhancement motive). In other words, where the manifest level shows the more superficial changes, the latent level allows us to assess the deeper changes in the self-narratives.

5 Self-Narrative as Meaning Construction 1197 A Multivoiced Self-Narrative: The Shifting Boundaries between Self and Nonself Psychotherapy can be conceived of as a multivoiced construction, that is, a coconstruction of therapist and client that is the product of at least two voices in dialogical communication: the voice of the psychotherapist and that of the client. When the client leaves the psychotherapy room, the client includes the imaginal voice of the therapist in his or her choir of voices as they take part in the communications of the client's everyday life. Typically, the therapist plays an important role not only in the therapy room but also later in the client's imaginal conversations with the therapist, who may be an important guide or advisor in particular situations and in a particular period in thei client's life. A closer look at the concept of multivoicedness can be taken by considering akhtin's analysis of Dostoyevsky's oeuvre and its implications for psychotherapy. In his elucidatory discussion of Dostoyevsky's novels, Bakhtin (1929/1973) developed the thesis that this great author created a new form of artistic thought, the "polyphonic novel." In Bakhtin's view such a novel is composed of a number of independent and mutually opposing viewpoints embodied by characters involved in dialogical relationships. In playing their part in the novel, each character is perceived as the author of his or her own view of the world, not as an object of Dostoyevsky's all-encompassing artistic vision. The characters are not "obedient slaves" in the service of Dostoyevsky's intentions, but capable of standing beside their creator, disagreeing with the author, even rebelling against him. In different works Dostoyevsky presents himself in the form of different characters, each with their own ideology. It is as if he enters his novels wearing different masks, enabling him to present different and even opposing views of self and world, representing a multiplicity of voices of the "same" Dostoyevsky. As Bakhtin describes, Dostoyevsky's characters enter into dialogical relations of question and answer, agreement and disagreement, so that new constructions may emerge. As in a polyphonic composition, the several voices or instruments have different spatial positions, and accompany and oppose each other in a dialogical relationship. The metaphor of the polyphonic novel can be seen as the beginning of a period in novelistic literature that is characterized, as Spencer (1971) would have it, by the retreat of the omniscient author in the literary tradition. This development finds its parallel in the doubts that some psychologists have expressed on the centralized self and the notion of centralized self knowledge (e.g., Hermans & Kempen, 1993; Sampson, 1993). The Dialogical Self: Meaning as Movement Drawing on Bakhtin's polyphonic metaphor and its implication of spatialized dialogue, the notion of the dialogical self is proposed (Hermans, 1996; Hermans, Kempen, & Van Loon, 1992) and defined as a dynamic multiplicity of relatively autonomous I positions. In this conception, the / has the ability to move, as in a space, from one position to the other in accordance with changes in situation and time. For example, in actual or imaginal conversations I can move back and forth between my own position and the position of my actual or imaginal interlocutor. In the case of imaginal conversations, the / has, moreover, the capacity to endow imaginatively each position with a voice so that dialogical relations between positions can be established (e.g., I converse with my sister whom I'm planning to visit, with the critic of my work, or with myself who is writing a paper). The voices function like interacting characters in a story, involved in a process of question and answer, agreement and disagreement. Each of them has a story to tell about their own experiences from their own standpoint. In healthy functioning these characters are

6 1198 Journal of Clinical Psychology, October 1999 able, as different voices, to exchatige information about their respective Me's, resulting in a complex, narratively structured self. (For a more detailed discussion of the relationships between I positions see Hermans, 1996; Hermans & Kempen, 1993; for another view on the spatial characteristics of the self, see Jaynes, 1976). It is my thesis that the dialogical self has significant implications for narrative psychotherapy. One of the implications is that a client may tell different self narratives and may construct different valuations from divergent, even opposed / positions so that different stories emerge that may extend and deepen the self. As will be demonstrated in one of the case studies, such opposed or contradictory narratives are not to be seen as expressions of a fragmented self, but rather as "unity in multiplicity" or "multiplicity in unity." The Self-Confrontation Method: Assessment and Change of One's Self-Narrative The self-confrontation method (SCM) is an idiographic method for self-investigation based on valuation theory (for a detailed description see Hermans & Hermans-Jansen, 1995). Because the method is characterized by a gradual transition between assessment and change, it functions at the same time as a form of narrative psychotherapy. The method is designed as a cycle of Investigation-Validation-Investigation (IVI). That is, it starts with a first self-investigation that results in an organized system of valuations, providing the psychotherapist and the client with an overview of the meaning system as it is relevant to the client at some point in time. The method instigates a process of self exploration and change (Validation), which then leads, typically after a few months, to a second self-investigation. This IVI cycle reflects three functions of the SCM: an assessment function (Investigation 1), a process-promoting function (Validation), and an evaluation function (Investigation 2). Assessment Function of the Self-Confrontation Method The assessment function of the self-confrontation method is designed to study the relation between valuations and types of affect and the way in which these variables become organized (Hermans & Hermans-Jansen, 1995). The procedure involves elicitation of a set of valuations and then association of these valuations with a standardized set of affect terms. The content and the organization of the valuations are then studied by the psychotherapist and discussed with the client. Valuation Construction. The valuations are elicited using a series of open-ended questions. The main questions, outlined in Table 2, are intended to bring out important units of meaning for the past, the present, and the future. The psychotherapist reads the questions aloud, psychotherapist and client sitting side by side (symbolizing a cooperative relationship). The questions invite clients to reflect on their life situations in such a way that they feel free to mention those concerns that are most relevant from the perspective of the present situation. Some questions may bring out more than one valuation and clients are free to interpret the questions in any way that they want. After the client has given some associations as a first response to one of the questions, the psychotherapist helps the client to formulate a final answer that comprises the central meaning elements that the client attempts to convey. Clients are encouraged to phrase the valuations in their own terms so that the formulations are as much as possible in agreement with what they intend to say. The typical form of expression is the sentence (i.e., the basic unit of text). At the end of the procedure the number of valuations can vary greatly, but in

7 Self-Narrative as Meaning Construction 1199 Table 2 Questions ofthe Self-Confrontation Method Set 1: The Past These questions are intended to guide you in reviewing one or more aspects of your life that may have been of great importance to you. Has there been anything of major significance in your past life that still continues to exert a strong influence on you? Was there in the past any person or persons, experience, or circumstance that greatly influenced your life and still appreciably affects your present existence? Set 2: The Present This set again consists of two questions that will lead you, after a certain amount of reflection, to formulate a response: Is there anything in your present existence that is of major importance to you or exerts a significant influence on you? Is there in your present existence any person, persons, or circumstance that exerts a significant influence on you? Set 3: The Future The following questions will again guide you to a response: Do you foresee anything that will be of great importance for, or exert a major influence on your future life? Do you feel that a certain person, persons, or circumstance will exert a significant influence on your future life? Is there any future goal or object that you expect to play an important role in your life? You are free to look as far ahead as you wish. most cases it is between 2 and 4. Each valuation is written by the psychotherapist on a separate card, and in this form it is available for the second part of the investigation. Affective Rating. The client, now working alone, receives a list of affect terms (see the bottom of Table 1 for an example of such a list). After the psychotherapist has checked if the client understands the affect terms, the client concentrates on the first valuation and indicates on a -5 scale to what extent he or she experiences each affect in relation to this specific valuation ( = not at all, 1 = a little bit, 2 = to some extent, 3 = rather much, 4 = much, and 5 = very much). This results in an affective profile representing the affective connotation of the valuation. The first valuation in Table 1, for example, may be characterized by a score of for happiness, 4 for love, 2 for pride (the client feels some pride as he has managed his life alone), 5 for tenderness, 2 for enjoyment (he sometimes thinks about the good moments he'd had with his wife), etc. The profile belonging to this valuation is represented by the numbers, 4, 2, 5, 2, etc. and refiects its affective meaning. Such numbers representing the intensity or frequency levels of the affect provides significant clinical information to the client and psychotherapist. Typically, the different affect terms function as "spotlights" on meaning aspects of a valuation, which are often hidden or even suppressed. Studying the profile in detail helps to make these aspects explicit and use them as relevant material in the dialogue between therapist and client. Particularly, in their combination the different affects give information about the valuation that the separate affects cannot give (e.g., love in combination with pride is different

8 12 Journal of Clinical Psychology, October 1999 from love in combination with disappointment; or anger in combination with strength is different from anger in combination with powerlessness). After the first valuation the client concentrates on the second valuation and rates it using the same list of affect terms. The resulting affective profile characterizes the affective connotation of the second valuation. In this way, all Valuations are successively characterized with the same list of affect terms, and each valuation can be associated with a particular affective profile. This rating process can be done using paper and pencil or on-line, as helpful computer programs are now available. The computer program computes, moreover, a series of indices reflecting the organization of the valuation system. Some of them are the sumscores S, O, P, and A^, which are calculated for each valuation separately (each sum score consists of 4 affect terms; for an example of sum scores see Table 1). Another important index is the correlation (r) between the profiles of two different valuations (not mentioned in Table 1). The correlation may refiect a common affective meaning or an underlying motivational base for the two valuations. (Note that for clinical use of the method a more extended list of affect terms is recommended; Hermans & Hermans-Jansen, 1995, p. 277.) Discussion with the Client. Usually one week after the self-investigation, the results are discussed with the client. As a preparation the psychotherapist performs a qualitative analysis (studying the formulation of the valuations, with proper attention to their mutual relation) and a quantitative analysis (calculation and interpretation of the indices in their combination). The discussion aims towards a deepening of the self-exploration by the client stimulated by a profound dialogue with the psychotherapist. Their discussion is based on the overall picture provided by the system as an integrative whole. In this system divergent valuations are contracted into one moment in time so that new relations, hitherto hidden, can become apparent. This overall view is very characteristic of a selfinvestigation. Whereas short talks and interviews are usually spread out over time, and therefore may have a momentary quality, the total picture of a self-investigation provides a "bird's-eye view" permitting a perspective on the self-narrative and its boundaries. Clients see what they value and what they do not value. Moreover, they become aware of the lacunae in their valuation system. This confrontation with the content and organization of the valuation system benefits further from the explanation of the basic motives. The client can see in what valuations they are manifest and in what valuations they are lacking. When psychotherapist and client decide to perform a self-investigation from the perspective of more than one position in the self (e.g., "I as an open person" vs. "I as a closed person"), the described procedure is followed separately for each position. The client starts with the position that is most accessible (e.g., "I as an open person") and formulates a specific set of valuations with their affective properties from the specific outlook of this position. Then the client probes a separate set of valuations and rates the associated affect from the perspective of the second position that is less accessible (e.g., "I as a closed person"). The discussion is focused on the different sets of valuations separately and on their mutual relationships (for an example see the dream of the murderer in one of the following sections). Process Promoting Function ofthe Self-Confrontation Method At the end of the assessment phase there is a crucial moment that, in particular, reflects the gradual transition between assessment and change: the formulation of a main story

9 Self-Narrative as Meaning Construction 121 theme. Suppose that psychotherapist and client, after some discussion on the importance of the various valuations, decide to select the following valuation as pivotal in the organized system as a whole: 1. "I'm dependent on my mother; I sometimes feel I need a push in order to take a decision." This valuation is then correlated with all the other valuations; that is, the affective profile associated with this particular valuation is correlated with the affective profiles of every other valuation of the system. In this case the highest correlation (.77) was found with this valuation: 2. "I think that I never needed to make choices because my mother was the one who decided for me." The client is now invited to consider the two valuations (1 and 2) in their combination and to indicate what is seen as the common meaning. The client gave this interpretation: "I think that I never had to take risks or to make choices because my mother always did this for me." With this interpretation the two valuations are interconnected and the commonality phrased in the client's own terms. Then, the next highest correlating valuation (.75) is compared with the first, pivotal valuation: 3. "I tend to look for the bad things in men, and I'm afraid that this will annoy me in the future." The client is now invited to compare valuations 1 and 3 and to interpret their commonality: "I don't know if I should continue with a man or not: I'm afraid that I'll make the wrong choice;... that I will behave towards this man in the same way as my mother towards my father." After some other valuations with next-highest correlations were compared with the first pivotal one, the client was invited to reread all the interpretations and to phrase what was seen as the basic theme underlying all of them. The theme is formulated in the client's own words in this way: "I've never learned from my mother how to do things myself; as a consequence I've become dependent and don't have the courage to take risks." Note that the story theme reflects the theoretical distinction between the manifest and latent level. The various valuations are different on the manifest level, but in their affective commonality, reflecting the underlying motivational structure, they are highly similar. The correlation analysis (called "modality analysis" in SCM terms) helps clients to get into contact with the deeper, often less-conscious levels of their valuations. The formulation of the theme is crucial because the client has the feeling that she has something significant in hand that is underlying a diversity of valuations and situations that can be perceived as variations on the same theme. At the same time the theme is a starting point for making concrete plans for its invalidation: Making plans and taking initiatives for bending the valuation process into a new direction. The present client learned to give special attention to situations in which she showed dependent behavior and to situations in which she did not. In a later stage she learned to take small risks in situations in which she experimented with new behavior (e.g., to take the initiative to call a friend, or to collect information about a course). Her observations and new initiatives were then discussed and evaluated in the following sessions with the psychotherapist. The process-promotion function has the form of a cycle of Attending-Creating- Anchoring (ACA) and this cycle corresponds with the validation phase of the encompassing cycle of Investigation-Validation-Investigation (IVI). In the Attending phase the psychotherapist invites clients to attend to the events and experiences in their everyday lives in the light of the theme that they have formulated at the end of the self-

10 122 Journal of Clinical Psychology, October 1999 investigation. The aim of this phase is to stimulate self observation and to enhance the clients' sensitivity to their feelings and behaviors. In this phase the main strategy for the psychotherapist is to enhance the client's awareness of exceptions. As Sluzki (1992) has convincingly argued, a heightened sensitivity to exceptions from the dominant theme is crucial to any narrative form of psychotherapy. For our client this means that she tries to attend to those situations in which she does not behave dependently. Often the attending phase develops gradually into the creating phase in which clients experiment with new behaviors and new initiatives in the line of their story theme. When clients do not make a spontaneous transition from the attending to the creating phase, the psychotherapist has a variety of suggestions available to stimulate and facilitate the creating phase, taking the difficulty level of the new behaviors into account (see Hermans & Hermans-Jansen, 1995, pp , and pp ). Finally, the client moves on to the anchoring phase. Whereas in the creating phase the client has experimented with alternative narrative elements by creating new events, behaviors, and valuations, it is the intention behind the anchoring phase to get these changes rooted as acquired and established parts of the valuation system. Because the new actions are not yet incorporated as stabilized parts of the valuation system, the client may fall back into earlier modes of experience and action. Therefore, the main activity in the third phase is practice, which is done by repeating actions in different situations long enough to transform them into "new habits." Evaluation Function of the Self-Confrontation Method After several months a second investigation is performed as the last phase of the IVI cycle. This self-investigation is performed in order to document and evaluate any changes in the valuation system as the result of extended self-reflection and practice in the preceding phases. In this second investigation, however, the subjects do not start "from scratch." Instead, they are confronted with the statements they have constructed in the first investigation. The psychotherapist reads the original question and then produces the statements provided in the first investigation. For each separate statement, clients are instructed to indicate whether they still agree with it. When this is not the case, the psychotherapist explains, there are various options available: an old valuation may be reformulated (modification); replaced (substitution); discarded altogether (elimination); or a completely new statement added (supplementation). In the case of our client, for example, there is modification if she changes her first valuation in this way: "I'm less dependent on my mother; sometimes I simply do something without asking her advice." This procedure gives the clients considerable freedom to point to both the constant and the changing parts of their valuation system, and the changes can be evaluated in the context of the developing system as a whole. This investigation, which is the last phase of the first IVI cycle, may, in some cases, function as the beginning of a second cycle in which the same procedure as in the first is followed. The psychotherapist examines the constants and changes in the valuation system not only quantitatively in an analysis of the indices, but also qualitatively through a content analysis of the individual formulations. The two types of analyses usually give complementary information; together they contribute to an overall understanding of the person's self-narrative. Inspection of the individual valuations shows how clients tell and retell their stories from the perspective of the manifest level; inspection of the indices reveals how these systems become organized and reorganized from the perspective of the latent level of self-functioning.

11 Self-Narrative as Meaning Construction 123 Self-Investigation and Clinical Practice The self-confrontation method, as based on valuation theory, can be applied to a variety of clinical topics and problem areas. An important topic is the difference between functional and dysfunctional valuations. The Difference between Functional and Dysfunctional Valuations Valuation theory distinguishes a number of valuation types (see Figure 1) that can be found in clinical practice and can be assessed by using the affective indices (5, O, P, and A'). Whereas the outer circle refers to dysfunctional valuations, the middle circle indicates the types that characterize normal, healthy functioning. The two types left in the middle circle (autonomy and aggression) refer to a predominance of the self enhancement motive, the two types at the right of the circle (unity and unfulfilled longing) indicate a predominance of the contact and union motive, and the types highest and lowest on the circle refer to the fulfillment of both motives (strength and unity) and to their unfulfillment (powerlessness and isolation), respectively. The corresponding types on the outer circle can be considered as dysfunctional exaggerations of the functional types on the middle circle. This thesis needs a discussion of the difference between functional and dysfunctional valuations. Table 1 gives an example of a well-functioning valuation system. Whereas the first valuation has an affective pattern that refers to unfulfilled longing, the second valuation limitlessness grandiosity over-dependence hostility powerlessness and isolation prolonged grieving hopelessness and helplessness Figure 1. Summary of types of valuations.

12 124 Journal of Clinical Psychology, October 1999 refers to autonomy and success, and the third to the combination of strength and unity. The experience of unfulfilled longing associated with the death of his wife colors the way this client looks at his past. A quite different type of valuation, however, represents his experience of the present, and his view of the future is, again, of a different quality. This means that the death of his wife has received a place in his self-narrative but is not governing his system as a whole. This simple example refiects three characteristics of a well-functioning valuation system: (a) there is an affective differentiation between the different valuations; (b) the system is integrated as far as the different valuations show meaningful interconnections, one valuation being an adequate response to the other; and (c) the different types of valuations suggest a certain degree of fiexibility of the system: The person is able to move from one valuation type to another. In the present theoretical framework it is assumed that the dysfunctional quality of a valuation is not primarily in its content (formulation) but in its organization as part of a system. It is the organization of the system that gives insight into the differentiation, integration, and fiexibility of the valuations. An important criterion for assessing a valuation as dysfunctional is its persistence across time and situation. When a particular type of valuation persists, irrespective of the nature and change of the situation, there is an increased risk of a dysfunctional valuation system. This can be illustrated by referring to the phenomenon of depression. Hopelessness and Helplessness: A Form of Depression Valuation theory distinguished three types of depression: depression characterized by prolonged grieving, depression characterized by inward aggression, and depression characterized by hopelessness and helplessness (the lower three types of Figure 1). For illustrative purposes an example of the last type is given in Table 3. The valuations in Table 3 are from a 45-year-old man who was in a period of divorce and had a tendency to evaluate everything from the perspective of his religious education. There are several indications of helplessness: Feeling suppressed by institutional norms (no. 1), overruled by significant others (no. 4), and over dependence on the infiuence of other people (nos. 3 and 4). There are also indications of hopelessness clearly expressed in connection with the future in valuation 8 and repeated again in highly generalizing terms in valuation 9. A person with such over-generalizing valuations in his system has the greatest difficulty in being open to positive experiences. Such experiences can too easily be overshadowed by dark expectations or simply reinterpreted to fit in with preexisting negative valuations. In sum, valuations characterized by hopelessness and powerlessness are over generalizing in this system and greatly decrease its flexibility. However, not all valuations are associated with negative affect: The client is aware of the support of his friends, which is positively experienced and gives him not only a feeling of contact with others, but also some strength (no. 7). It is important to note that, although the system as a whole refiects a depressive self organization, there is an exception that may give way to alternative constructions. From a theoretical perspective there is an important difference between helplessness and hopelessness. Where helplessness refers to lack of fulfillment of the contact motive, hopelessness indicates a lack of fulfillment of the self-esteem motive. Helplessness and hopelessness are the dysfunctional correlates of isolation and powerlessness in the healthy functioning valuation system (Figure 1). The latter two terms suppose a differentiated and integrated valuation system that permits a person to move from one type of valuation to the other. A person, however, who does not occasionally feel isolated but, instead.

13 Self-Narrative as Meaning Construction 125 Table 3 Valuations and Affective Indices from a Client in a Depressive State (Hopelessness and Helplessness) Affect Valuation S O P N 1. I have a norm awareness 'It ought to be so' that has been forced on me 1 5 by my mother and the Catholic church. It still plays a role in my life. 2. I was especially scared when I was in third grade: Someone threatened to 3 put me in the basement and chain me up; I got stomach aches from this. 3. I cannot talk things through with Gwyn [wife]: She says that discussion 1 14 is of little use. 4. I let her persuade me to have children. 5. The threat that hangs over the whole world: Any number of things can happen, and you can't do anything about them. 6. Thinking about myself: I find that I think too much about myself. 7. I have received a great deal of support from my friends in this situation. 8. I don't think about the future; I just want to stop. 9. I feel hopeless and have no outlook. Note. S = affect referring to self-enhancement; O = affect referring to contact; P = positive affect, and N = negative affect. Minimum score =. Maximum score = 2 for ail four indices. From: Hermans, H. J. M., & Hermans-Jansen, E. (1995). Self-narratives: The construction of meaning in psychotherapy. New York: Guilford Press (pp ) persistently feels isolated becomes helpless, and someone who persistently feels powerless will eventually feel hopeless. A Scenario for Coming Out of a Depressive State The client presented was almost continuously in psychotherapy for four years, which ended when he remarried. One year after the finish of psychotherapy, I proposed that he undertake an additional self-investigation with the following question included: "Do you sometimes have depressive feelings and, if so, how do you get out of them?" As a response he formulated, according to the usual procedure of the self-confrontation method, six successive sentences in which he described in detail how he now coped with his depressive feelings (Table 4). Strikingly, the client was really the "inventor" of this procedure. He certainly had learned from psychotherapy to attend carefully to his emotional reactions, to look for specific causal events, and then spell out an appropriate response. Yet, the procedure was a creation of his own based on his own experiences. Additionally, although the psychologist asked for a situation where the client had depressive feelings, the affective pattern of valuation no. 1 (Table 4) was quite different from the affective pattern of the valuations present at the beginning of therapy (see Table 3). At that time they were, as we have seen, predominantly referring to helplessness and hopelessness. Now, several years later, the high level of self-enhancement (S) affect in valuation 1 (Table 4) is particularly relevant in his response to his depression. This high lpvel suggests that the client now feels able to stand up to his mother, an oppositional attitude that was absent completely at the outset of therapy. Although the client was able to resist his mother, he was not fixated

14 126 Journal of Clinical Psychology, October 1999 Table 4 Valuations Referring to a Scenario for Coping with a Depression Affect Valuation S O P N 1. Sometimes I awake from a dream in which I felt I was being watched by my mother. 2. I then think that I am worrying about negative things in my current life (for example, unpleasant experiences at school). 3. I then try to localize the cause of the unpleasant feelings. 4. If the unpleasant feelings don't go away after a while, then I get up and go drink some water; I drink the water slowly, sip by sip. 5. I then go back to bed and try to relax as much as possible. 6. Falling asleep means for me the disappearance of the negative feelings. Note. S = affect referring to self-enhancement; O = affect referring to contact; P = positive affect, and N = negative affect. Minimum score = ; Maximum score = 2 for all four indices g 6 5 on opposition. Rather, he was able to return to a relaxed state of mind (falling asleep again) as expressed in valuation 6. The six valuations presented in Table 4 can be considered as a scenario for coming out of a depression: The client has created a new system of valuations that allow him to move flexibly from negative to positive feelings. In general, the best scenario seems to be the one that contains different types of valuations and enables the client to apply it to a wide variety of situations. The Dream ofthe Murderer In line with the theoretical arguments in the beginning of this article, the multivoicedness and dialogicality of the self can be addressed by studying the content and organization of the valuation system. The guiding idea is that a person is able to phrase different self narratives and to formulate different valuations from different or even opposed / positions. The process of positioning and valuation is at the manifest level and is supposed to be under the infiuence of the same basic motives on the latent level. Paul, a 5-year-old man, performed a self-investigation during a period of confiict with his partner, a woman who was 1 years older and tended to dominate him. His partner proposed that he perform a self-investigation, which she had already done in an earlier period. Paul consented in the expectation that it would help him to clarify his present situation and the relationship with his partner in particular. As part of his self-investigation Paul told of a dream in which he saw himself acting as a priest who was confronted with a dangerous opponent that had the double identity of priest and murderer: I'm in a village that seems to be threatened by a murderer. Vaguely I remember two dead bodies, one in the neighborhood of the confessional and one in or near the church. I take care of the people coming to the church as well as possible, a consoling center of safety and trust... Outside, high above the village, a murderer is climbing up to the spires of the tower. I'm close on his heels. The only things with which we can pull ourselves up are small pointed projections with ornaments. At any moment they could crumble under my feet. This is mad-

15 Self-Narrative as Meaning Construction 127 ness, I decide. I stop... Down in the village, I find myself among the people again. Out of a group an older woman approaches me, and says: "Thanks for what you have done for me." I understand that she means a kind of priestlike help. I feel a vague sense of surprise. However, in the back of my head I think or, better, I observe, hesitatingly and not without compassion: "Yes, but you will be the next victim." Puzzled by this intriguing dream, Paul asked himself the question how the pursuer, not being the murderer, could know that the woman (representing his own partner, as he suspected) would be the next victim. When only the murderer could know who would be the next victim, how could he himself, in the position of the pursuer, have this knowledge which was only accessible to the murderer? For Paul and his psychotherapist this was reason to include the dream as part of the self-investigation and to explore the role of the different actors involved. It was decided to perform two self-investigations from two positions: The protagonist (the pursuer) and the antagonist (the murderer). Paul was invited to give his valuations and affective reactions from each position separately. In the case of the murderer this implied that he formulated not only the valuations but also gave the associated affect from this specific position (see Table 5). Table 5 Valuations from the Pursuer and the Murderer in Paul's Dream and Paul's Own Responses to the Dream S O Valuations from the Pursuer in Paul's Dream 1. There is a village community threatened by a murderer. 2. I chase him to the pinnacles of the tower. 3. I stop; it is becoming too dangerous. 4. I am down again among the people. 5. An older woman comes to me and says: "Thanks for the help you gave me" (as a clergyman gives). 6. In the back of my head I notice: "You will be the next victim." Valuations from the Murderer in Paul's Dream 7. I hate them; I kill them all. 8. They don't yet know me; I'm simply going to join them. 9. What does he want, the guy who follows me? 1. I will not fall down. 11. I'm fed up with it (being spiritual); what is left of me? 12. It didn't work up to anything. 13. I don't care anymore II Valuations Expressing Paul's Own Response to His Dream 14. There are a lot of situations in which I have harmed myself by not defending myself. 15. I don't know very well where the limit is between accepting and not accepting. 16. The feelings that are associated with my experiences, I'm not very well aware of them. From: Hermans, H. J. M.. & Hermans-Jansen, E. (1995). Self-narratives: The construction of meaning in psychotherapy. New York: Guilford Press. Table 5.2., p. 135.

16 128 Joumal of Clinical Psychology, October 1999 Finally, two weeks after this investigation, when Paul had taken the opportunity to digest the results of the investigation and to attend to his reactions to it, the psychotherapist asked him what he had learned from his dream investigation. He answered this question by phrasing three new valuations that are presented in the lower part of Table 5. As can be seen in Table 5, there is a clear difference between the valuations of the pursuer and the murderer, both in content and associated affect. The murderer vents his "blind" aggression very directly and vehemently (no. 7), acts as an anonymous power (no. 8), and expresses an attitude of animosity and crude indifference (nos. 11 and 13). Most of the valuations are associated with a high S, low O, low P, high A' pattern, which in a study of a larger group of clients has been found to be characteristic of opposition and aggression (Hermans, 1992). The valuations from the murderer show a striking similarity to Murray's (1962) description of the "satanic personality." They contrast with the more moderate valuations from the pursuer (nos. 1-6) that are not very articulated in S- differences and less extreme in P-N differences. After his confrontation with the valuations from the pursuer and the murderer, Paul became even more aware than before that the murderer was part of himself. He noticed that he did feel a great deal of aggression towards his partner (the older woman in the dream), but, moreover, that he was "murdering" himself by not defending himself. More and more he became convinced that he was complying too much to the demands of his partner, saying: "I'm my own murderer, by demanding too much of myself and reaching too high." The three valuations in the lowest part of Table 5 express how he responded from his usual position as "Paul" to the valuations of the murderer. As the content of these valuations suggest, Paul has certainly learned from this investigation: He has become more aware of how he relates to himself (Valuation 14), he poses limits to the intrusions of others (Valuation 15), and he realizes that he is not very well aware of his own feelings (Valuation 16). However, the affective indices indicate that these valuations were associated with low levels of 5, O, and P affect and high levels of A^ affect. What could be the reason for phrasing such negative, and rather "weak" valuations? Why would Paul not include strong, aggressive valuations in his own (waking) system after he had admitted that the murderer was part of himself? As an answer to these questions Paul said: "I keep this far from me; I see this as something bad and it is not in this way that I have organized my life." In other words, although Paul admitted that the murderer was within himself, he kept the aggression of the murderer at a distance by not including it in his own self narrative. This way of organizing his experiences suggests that Paul kept his aggression at a certain distance, giving it a rather peripheral place in his self space. What is the meaning of these results from a theoretical point of view? Shifting Boundaries Between Self and Nonself The dream of the murderer touches the broader theoretical issue of the boundaries of the self. As Gregg (1991) has argued, people generally make a distinction between self and nonself, dividing the world into two parts: that with which one identifies and that with which one does not identify. This distinction may be sharpened by the workings of psychological defenses. In psychoanalytic circles it is commonplace to observe clients splitting off impulses from the self that confiict with superego moral demands. As we have seen, the dialogieal self is conceived of in terms of a multiplicity of possible positions in an imaginal space, in which the / can move from one position to

17 Self-Narrative as Meaning Construction 129 another and back. In Paul's case, at least three positions were significant in his selfnarrative, each with their specific system of valuations: (a) the position of Paul himself, as expressed in his ordinary valuations; (b) the position of the pursuer, as expressed in a series of dream valuations; and (c) the position of the murderer, associated with another series of valuations. When Paul uses the word "I," this / is located at the center of his ordinary (waking) valuation system, for which he feels fully responsible. The / positioned in the pursuer (the good guy) is already at some psychological distance from Paul's ordinary position. The position of the murderer is even further removed, although Paul admits that the murderer is "somewhere in himself." As we have seen, Paul is reluctant to accept the valuations from the murderer as part of his usual valuation system, although he does not go so far as to split them off entirely from his ordinary self. Paul's case is an example of what Gregg (1991) has described as "identity-indifference." Paul perceives the intentions of the murderer as identical to his self (they belong to it), and as different from his self (they do not belong to it) at the same time. Paradoxically, the valuations of the murderer are experienced as inside and outside of the self. When the self exists of a multiplicity of positions some more central, others more peripheral one may observe that the one position is more familiar and safe than the other position. However, when particular positions, less familiar, and perhaps more threatening, enter the realm of the self (as the murderer in Paul's case), these positions may be suppressed or even split off from one's usual self definition. Sharp boundaries, perhaps of a defensive nature, are drawn very close around one highly centralized position, and any dialogieal interaction with other positions is precluded. In contrast, when the person succeeds in extending the self by including the less familiar positions as part of a broader multivoiced self, the widening of the self-nonself boundaries allows for a multivoiced self of a more decentralized nature. Certainly, this decentralization has its limits. Typically, the several positions are not simply equivalent because the individual identifies more with one position than with another, even if fiuctuations in situation and time permit the / to fluctuate among diverse or even opposite positions. The identity-in-difference organization ofthe self typically applies to those positions that are included in the self but at the same time receive a rather peripheral place in its spatial organization. From a psychotherapeutic point of view, the identity-in-difference is of quintessential importance because it refiects the dynamic nature of the self. Neglected or even suppressed parts ofthe self may be explored by conceiving them as 1 positions and giving the client the opportunity to formulate valuations and give their specific affective connotations from each position separately. In a certain sense, psychotherapy can be understood as a process of positioning and repositioning with an extension of the boundaries of the self as a consequence. This extension serves as a necessary condition for a deepening of the client's self knowledge. (For a more extensive discussion of Paul's dream and the identity-in-difference issue, see Hermans & Hermans-Jansen, 1995, pp ). The identity-in-difference phenomenon also serves as a criterion for identifying / positions that are sufficiently distinctive to be considered different voices. The greater the distance between the usual centralized position and any decentralized position in the spatial realm of the self, the more distinctive the voice and associated narrative of this latter position will be. When the self is understood as a spatial realm in which the / may position and reposition itself, it is the spatial distance between the position that is felt as "usual" or "ordinary," and any other less usual or frequently available position that can be used as a criterion for a "different voice." Finally, the term / position and, more dynamically, the process of positioning and repositioning recognizes the simultaneous existence of unity and multiplicity in the self.