DREIER, Ole Subjectivity and Social Practices

Subjectivity and Social Practice
3

Subjectivity and Social Practice

Ole Dreier

Center for Health, Humanity, and Culture,
University of Aarhus, Denmark

Published in 2003 by
Center Ior Health, Humanity, and Culture, Department oI Philosophy,
University oI Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark.
Printed by
HF-trykkeriet
Hovedbygningen
Aarhus Universitet
DK 8000 Aarhus C
Copyright 2003 by Ole Dreier

2
nd
edition 2003
1
st
edition 1997

ISSN: 1398-8573
5
Contents

Preface 7

1. Personal Locations and Perspectives -
Psychological Aspects of Social Practice
9
The psychology oI subjects in social practice 10
The concept oI action in psychology 11
Towards a psychology oI the subject 12
Subjects on Location 13
Subjects in contexts oI action 14
Subjects as participants 15
Subjects in constellations oI action 16
Subjective action potency 17
Cross-contextual structures oI social practice 19
Multiple participation across contexts 20
Mediations oI subjects' local practice 21
Socially mediated subjective complexity 23
Subjective standpoints 25
Socially mediated subjective conIlicts 27
Socially mediated subjective trajectories 28
Analysis oI psycho-social practice 29
Therapeutic modes oI operation 29
Decentered analysis oI practice 30
Therapeutic analysis 32
Positioned concepts oI mental illness 35
Positioned research practice 35
ReIerences 38

6
2. Client Perspectives and Uses of Psychotherapy 39
Approach 39
Design 46
Results 50
ReIerences 57

3. Subjectivity and the Practice of Psychotherapy 59
ReIerences 68

4. Psychotherapy in Clients` Trajectories across
Contexts
71
Subjects in social practice 71
A study oI psychotherapy 76
Sessions as part oI clients` social practice 77
Therapy in subjects` social practice 83
Personal social practice and narratives 88
ReIerences 93

5. Personal Trajectories of Participation
across Contexts of Social Practice
95
Personal participation in structures oI social practice 95
Social structures oI practice 98
A complex subjectivity in a complex social practice 103
The personal conduct oI liIe and liIe-trajectory 113
The LiIe-trajectory, structure oI personality and
identity
119
ReIerences 132

Acknowledgments 141
7
Preface

The Iive papers in this volume deal with issues which I have pursued Ior
a long time in my research, and they document an intermediary step in
my work between a book I published in 1993 and another book that I am
in the midst oI writing.
The papers were all written Ior publication in journals or books.
They are placed in an almost chronological order based on when I Iirst
wrote them. The second paper in this edition replaces another non-pub-
lished paper in the Iirst edition, and the Iourth and IiIth paper were both
extended and revised.
I collected this volume because these Iive papers are published in
scattered places so that it is hard Ior anyone interested in Iollowing my
work closely to get hold oI them all. It also gives me the opportunity to
pass them on as a whole to colleagues whom I would like to read them.
The second and Iourth paper hold preliminary analyses oI some oI
the empirical materials which will be analyzed at length in the book I am
writing.
All Iive papers were written during my ongoing association with the
research group oI the Center Ior Health, Humanity, and Culture, and I
prepared the publication oI the Iirst edition while I had the great luck to
be employed and welcomed as an associate research proIessor at the
center at the Department oI Philosophy in Aarhus. I want to thank the -
present and Iormer - members oI the center Ior years oI a very inspiring
collaboration.

Copenhagen, April 2003 Ole Dreier

8

9
1. Personal Locations and Perspectives
Psychological Aspects of Social Practice
1

I have been asked to give a brieI presentation oI the argument oI my re-
cent book (Dreier, 1993). It is a study oI a particular area oI social prac-
tice: the psycho-social practice oI psychological therapy and counseling.
Prevailing notions about the relationship between theory and practice
and about proIessional expertise are problematic. Hence it can come as
no surprise that the construction oI analytic tools suitable Ior grounding
and developing current practice is oIten neglected. All too oIten, the
relevant literature is narrowed down, so as to present only a collection oI
examples surrounded by sketchy notions. This state oI aIIairs has devas-
tating consequences Ior our reIlection on and development oI practice. In
order to be able to reconsider and develop our practice in a collaborative
and thorough way, we must have an appropriate multilayered conceptual
Iramework at our disposal. ThereIore, my primary aim is an analytic one:
to develop a set oI concepts, a suitable theoretical Irame oI analysis.
The particular conceptual approach I have elaborated is based on the
Iundamental work oI "critical psychology" (Holzkamp, 1983). It has
served as my analytic means to uncover problems and possibilities in
current practice and has also paved the way to introduce more speciIic
and concrete concepts about this particular practice. Moreover, my ana-
lytic approach is intended to be relevant Ior the study oI problems and
possibilities in other areas oI practice as well.
It is diIIicult to present so wide-ranging a topic within the bounda-
ries oI a paper. Those interested may consult the English summary in my
book (ibid., 309-350). It is divided into nine chapters each oI which ex-
amines a particular aspect oI psycho-social practice Irom a particular
perspective. Analytic concepts are introduced and elaborated when
needed along the way. ThereIore, I have decided to Iocus this paper on

1
I would like to thank Jean Lave Ior constructive comments on an earlier version oI this article
and Ior numerous inspiring discussions on its issues and standpoints.
Subfectivitv and Social Practice
10
the basic Iramework I developed and applied. In the end, I shall brieIly
indicate what kind oI analysis oI psycho-social practice it is geared to
open up.
I chose the inIormal genre oI an essay Ior my presentation in order
to avoid a style overburdened with reIerences, comparisons, and cri-
tiques, especially since this paper can only provide a sketchy outline oI
my theoretical Iramework.

The psychology of subjects in social practice
Psychic processes take place in individual subjects or persons. Hence a
key task Ior psychology is to study persons. When psychologists study
more encompassing societal practices, they must include the subjective
personal aspects oI those practices, so that what they study may remain
part oI psychology. This throws critical light on dominant research tradi-
tions: On the one hand groups, institutions, and other complex social
practices are mostly studied without adequate conceptions oI their sub-
jective aspects; on the other hand the abstract, Iunctionalist general psy-
chology brackets the place oI psychic processes in personal social prac-
tice. One might say that the psychology oI personality should combine
the theoretical disciplines oI general psychology and social analysis and,
Iurthermore, build a bridge to the various areas oI applied psychology.
But research on the psychology oI personality is Iraught with recur-
ring crises. They arise because theories are based on a conceptional gap
between internal and external determinants. Internal individual proper-
ties (mostly personality traits and needs) are placed on one side, and ex-
ternal situational Iactors (conditions, stimuli, constraints) in the envi-
ronment on the other. The only escape, it seems to many, would be to
combine the two sides oI the gap in ungainly mixtures oI, say, internal
properties exposed to external inIluences, etc.. In psychology and related
disciplines such methodologies and ensuing reductionisms are known
under various names: Individualism and subjectivism versus social de-
terminism and objectivism, to name but a Iew.
They all suIIer Irom a common diIIiculty and deIicit: How are we to
grasp the ways in which persons develop their "properties", what they do
in relation to their "external determinants", how they inIluence them,
Personal Locations and Perspectives
11
change them, and thus change their lives? When addressing such issues,
they either Iall back into objectivism and determinism, into endogenous
subjectivism, or into pseudo-solutions which mix abstractions Irom the
two sides, claiming that these Iactors "interact".

The concept of action in psychology
Following A. N. Leont'ev (1978), we may say that proponents oI these
views, strictly speaking, do not study living creatures. Evidently, at least
to a Marxist, they must be studied in practice, activity - or action, as I
preIer, Iollowing the work oI "critical psychology" (Holzkamp, 1983).
The concept oI action, then, must be our key concept in the study oI per-
sons. Action is the third term, the missing link through which the two
sides always are combined in practice. Within psychology several at-
tempts have been made to give action a crucial role. To take action as
our key concept, one might hope, should imply that psychology moves
Irom considering Iorm or structure as primary to the primacy oI practi-
cal, relational contents. Nevertheless, two one-sided and mutually op-
posed, abstract approaches to the study oI human action dominate which
are unable to accomplish the change we need:
1. Almost all approaches within psychology consider the actions oI a
single individual in an immediate environment. Most do not even char-
acterize the environment more precisely, but Iocus one-sidedly on the
individual in the individual-environment relationship. They regard an
isolated individual's detached actions, goals, intentions, plans, motives,
thoughts, emotions, etc. and propose "laws" about this. Yet, such laws
are about an abstraction - a ghost. Nobody lives and Iunctions like that.
Individuals are part oI encompassing societal structures oI re-production.
2. The opposite approach does include social structure, but in the
guise oI some conception oI the actions oI the individual in relation to
the society. This is just another abstraction. It assumes a uniIorm rela-
tionship between two uniIorm entities which purportedly exists every-
where, and thus nowhere in particular. Since the impact oI the society on
the individual must be impressive, not to say overwhelming, according
to such a view, it emphasizes constraining social determinants and con-
strues the individual Irom outside and above. Nonetheless, individuals do
12
not act Irom outside and above, uniIormly in relation to the social struc-
ture. They are located in particular, concrete places, and they act and ex-
perience the world diIIerently Irom those locations.

Towards a psychology of the subject
We must conceive oI individual subjects in social practice Irom the
standpoint and perspective oI local agents. "Critical psychology" es-
pouses such a general science oI the subject Irom a Iirst person stand-
point. This approach has developed in parallel with other more or less
similar positions in psychology and neighboring disciplines. My research
contributes to its expansion, in part by drawing upon such related work.
Some believe that to include a subfective perspective necessarily
leads to methodological individualism. This is not the case. The "science
oI the subject", as developed in critical psychology, allows us to break
out oI that unIortunate trap by combining the subjective perspective oI
individuals with conceptions about the encompassing social practice in
which subjects participate. However, the idea is not to avoid one trap
only to Iall into another. We must also insist that there is no such thing
as a supra-individual psychological process. To study psychological
processes, psychology must locate them at the level oI individuals. The
particular subject matter oI the discipline oI psychology unIolds at this
level. Further, we must be careIul not to conIuse analytic distinctions,
concerning "the human psyche", with the real connections in which these
analytically distinguished aspects invariably exist. We must not turn
analytic units, which cannot exist on their own, into "real things". We
shouldn't imbue them with an existence oI their own in concrete practice
or consider them to be underlying "essences" which determine concrete
practice. Psychological phenomena must be interpreted and integrated
within an encompassing interdisciplinary approach to research on human
social practice. Indeed, we can only really combine the study oI psychic
processes and social practice Irom a Iirst person standpoint and perspec-
tive in social practice since that is how they are combined in practice by
subjects. In short, we must conceptualize psychic processes as aspects oI
the actions oI located subjects in ongoing social practice.
13
This point oI view on individual psychological processes takes us
beyond the prevailing, anonymous general psychology oI psychological
Iunctions into a personal psychology, one that articulates each subject's
Iirst person perspective on the social context in which the subject is lo-
cated and on that subject's actions, thoughts, emotions, etc. in it. Indeed,
the world is given to every subject in "my Iirst person perspective". So
theoretical research must adopt a generalized Iirst person standpoint in
order to develop concepts suitable Ior each oI us to use to make sense oI
our local practice Irom our perspective. This is not only so Ior the vari-
ous areas oI "individual psychology", but also Ior, say, social psychol-
ogy. Here too the issue is whether we adopt the third person standpoint
oI a social psychology "Irom outside and above" or a Iirst person social
psychology in the plural. We should not lose sight oI the constellations
oI Iirst person psychological processes in interrelated, interacting, co-
thinking and -Ieeling subjects. Nor should we regard these processes as
Iree-Iloating, that is as bracketing the signiIicance oI their concrete loca-
tions in social practice. These conclusions also hold Ior the social psy-
chology oI groups, institutions, etc..
Evidently, theoretical conceptions about the individual (in some
cases supplemented by the activity) in relation to the society are dislo-
cated, decontextualized, deinstitutionalized abstractions. They are em-
bedded in a container metaphor oI society which regards society primar-
ily as a structure and, above that, as a totality beyond concrete space and
time.

Subjects on location
To adopt the standpoint and perspective oI the subject the way we pro-
pose, requires, instead, to introduce a concept oI location. We cannot
combine the study oI subjects with the study oI social practice in any ro-
bust way iI we conceive oI subjective perspectives as Iree-Iloating im-
ages. Invariably they are subjective perspectives Irom concrete locations
in social practice. They are anchored in social space and time. My per-
spective is always Irom a location where I presently Iind myselI. It is
embodied Irom the place where I am now. In talk, thought, and imagina-
tion I may, oI course, transpose my perspective into other times and
14
places, but that presupposes its present location in the Iirst place. To ap-
proach the study oI human subjectivity and social practice through the
concept oI action, then, requires more than that we study them as phe-
nomena in time, as, Ior instance, in narrative theories. Time does not ex-
ist by itselI, but as spaces oI time in time-space. And so does action. It
takes place in social space and time as we move around and Irom one lo-
cation to another.
To particular locations belong particular structures oI relevance. The
latter are particular, locally structured parts oI encompassing social
structures. The meaning oI being at particular locations, then, diIIers, in-
cluding the meaning oI what can be done with particular local possibili-
ties and which goals and interests are at stake in them. Local subjective
perspectives relate to these particular local structures of meaning. They
are subjective perspectives on structures oI relevance Ior the located
subject.

Subjects in contexts of action
Locations are incorporated in particular contexts oI action. A context of
action stands in particular relations to more encompassing societal
structures oI social practice. It is a common set oI conditions and the lo-
cus Ior its participants' actions which re-produce and change it.
The concept oI context oI action is a preliminary common denomi-
nator Ior a set oI more diIIerentiated concepts about ongoing social
practice. I preIer it to concepts such as situation, setting, Iield, or sector
because it explicitly points to the basic role oI action in my theoretical
perspective. Social structures, social conditions, indeed, societies do not
exist independently oI, but, precisely, by virtue oI their participants' ac-
tions to re-produce and change them. In coming to understand social
practice, I contend, actions must lie at the basis oI what we address and
conIront. Until recently, social theory neglected to unIold a more diIIer-
entiated conception oI societal practice, oI the inIrastructures oI ongoing
practice in concrete social times and places.
Clearly, contexts oI action may exist more or less in passing; they
may be, or become, institutionalized in a variety oI ways. In any case,
they are brought into practice by a greater or lesser number oI partici-
15
pants. Their goals and stakes are realized in plural, by inter-acting par-
ticipants.
For its participants an action context is characterized by a particular,
more or less limited scope oI action possibilities. Basically we regard
social conditions not as external determinants or constraints, but as the,
more or less restricted, objective scope oI action possibilities. This holds
Ior the re-production oI action contexts as well as their change. Further-
more, the notion oI "scope" directs our attention to issues concerning
which possibilities are at hand Ior changing and developing participants'
scopes, depending upon participants' degree oI disposal over their con-
text oI action.
As stated earlier, every person participates in a context oI action
Irom his or her location. In practice these locations may constitute a set
oI prestructured, interrelated positions. Positions are a sub-category or
speciIication oI locations in the sense that we proceed Irom a quasi-
physical deIinition oI space and time to the level oI a societally organ-
ized and institutionalized space and time and its implications Ior sub-
jects' practice. A set oI possible, more or less clearly interrelated posi-
tions may belong to an existing social context oI action. To varying de-
grees, participants may select among them, neglect, and change them.
From their particular locations and positions, participants have particular
scopes oI personal action possibilities, optional contributions, interests,
and perspectives in relation to the present context. This applies to the re-
production and change oI the context as well as to their lives, and the
lives oI some or all other participants, in relation to it. So participant in-
terests and optional contributions depend upon their particular part in
disposing over the context.

Subjects as participants
To unIold concepts which basically regard the subject or person as a
participant, implies to study closely a person's particular way to partici-
pate in, to be a particular part oI, to partake oI a context in a particular
and only partial way in relation to the practice oI that context, the reali-
zation oI its goals, its re-production and change, etc.. It propels us to
16
consider both personal modes oI Iunctioning and the meaning oI per-
sonal participation to be partial and particular in relation to a context.
AIter all, the goals oI a context oI action are not realized solely by
one participant, but by a plurality oI participants in a particular, located,
and positioned interrelationship. What happens in the context, even the
consequences oI my own actions, do not depend directly and exclusively
upon my individual actions and intentions. It is not only up to me. This
claim implies a Iundamental critique oI any abstract-individual concep-
tion oI individual action, goals, plans, intentions, etc.. A person is no
"autonomous unit" in the sense that its Iunctioning and structure can be
conceived oI by itselI. Every person is a participant. As a participant, a
person must direct his or her actions and intentions according to the
scope oI his or her particular, anticipated part in the practice oI the con-
text and the consequences he or she may aim to realize or, conversely,
Iear to come true.
As a subject, I speciIy and articulate my particular goals, interests,
etc. in relation to the overall goals, etc. oI the context. From my particu-
lar position, I have particular possibilities, interests, and reasons to par-
ticipate in it. Out oI this particularity I conIigure my particular stakes in
the context. Individual possibilities, interests, perspectives, knowledge,
and stances become particular ones. Individual action and awareness are
not omnipotent and all-encompassing. They are particular and partial
phenomena. So iI we want to assess the consciousness, meaning, knowl-
edge, reasons, and abilities which subjects actually bring to bear, we
need to approach them Irom their local position in relation to the context.
We cannot merely attribute knowledge and reasons to them Irom some
position outside or above them - say, some researcher's position. That
would not tell us in which partial ways particular participants conIigure
their particular perspectives and actions Irom their local positions in re-
lation to the context.
Subjects in constellations of action
In order, among other things, to grasp how subjects conIigure their rela-
tionship to the contexts in which they take part, we must distinguish
analytically between a context oI action and a constellation of action.
Every participating subject considers and evaluates his or her relation-
17
ship to the context, to other participants in it, and to the events which
may come to pass or which they may bring about, by relating their own
actions to the actions oI others during their course oI action. We each
weigh, evaluate, and direct our actions with and against each other in
some emerging constellation oI actions. In addition, a constellation oI
actions is but one among several possible concrete realizations oI the
given scope oI the context. Any context is realized and changed in par-
ticular and partial ways in the constellation which emerges out oI the
particular relationship between participants' actions. Indeed, constella-
tions oI action may be composed oI actions which are more or less well-
integrated, conjoined, coordinated, heterogeneous, even mutually op-
posed, conIlicting, and contradicting.

Subjective action potency
The set oI personal preconditions to participation in my position in the
context oI action is my personal action potencv. While an action context
deIines the scope oI objectively possible action Ior participants, the ac-
tion potency deIines the scope oI subjectively possible action. But this is
a relational deIinition. Indeed, only when taken together do we arrive at
the practical scope of action. Subjective potencies are only so in relation
to what is objectively possible in an action context. The subjective action
potency is deIined locally in relation to what it requires oI me to be able
to participate in the action context Irom my position and in relation to
what other participants are able to do in our constellation oI actions. It is
deIined concretely, relationally, contextually, and positionally. What
psychology ordinarily designates as "properties" oI the person, are as-
pects oI the action potency. They develop as aspects oI it and may con-
tribute to its Iurther development. Potentiality and modiIiability are cru-
cial Ieatures oI properties, capacities, and abilities. As a subject, I may
develop my action potency in order to extend my participation in the
context and in our disposal over it, in order to Iollow changing demands
and possibilities in it, and to take part in developing it and my scope oI
participation. Just as objective possibilities are characterized by a par-
ticular dual pattern through which participants both act within and dis-
pose over and extend them, so my subjective action potency is charac-
18
terized by a particular pattern oI ways to act within and take part in ex-
tending present objective scopes.
To make action potency the core concept in characterizing subjec-
tive preconditions, emphasizes the practical nature oI subjectivity. The
conditions oI possibility Ior human consciousness are rooted in personal
participation in social practice. Basically a person is not deIined by some
stipulated ability Ior reIlection, selI-consciousness, identity, a selI, sec-
ond order desires, or whatever, but by those properties necessary to be
able to participate in complex societal practice. ReIlexive consciousness,
then, is conceived as the necessary Iirst person perspective and stand-
point on my context oI action (in its encompassing connections), my po-
sition and participation in it, our constellation oI actions, and the mean-
ing oI all this Ior each oI us, including me.
We may pursue this approach into the study oI the particular psvchic
functional aspects oI personal action potency. Personal thinking consists
oI directed, hopeIully mutually related and coordinated, thought proc-
esses Irom participants' particular positions in the constellation oI actions
in the context. My analytic aims oI thinking and the signiIicance oI my
thoughts depend upon what other participants do and think, and upon the
kind oI context we are in. My thinking depends upon the kind oI analytic
aims we set ourselves in that context, and upon the way we distribute
and coordinate them. Our thinking and knowledge, then, are not merely
individual, nor merely distributed among us. They are interrelated, ne-
gotiated, disputed, and contested in a particular constellation. Likewise,
our personal thinking and knowledge are partial and located. Further-
more, the relationship between my personal observation and thinking is
mediated by what is immediately at hand, but also by things not directly
available Irom my particular position and perspective in my particular
context. In my thinking I include those aspects oI social practice which
are not immediately observable and available to me in my present time
and space, and I relate them to my ongoing observations and actions.
The same holds Ior emotions. My present, complex emotional state
is a particular, concretely located, subjective evaluation oI how I am
where I am now. It emanates Irom my present location in relation to oth-
ers in a particular context and expresses my evaluation oI its particular
relevance structure to me. In a more or less encompassing way, then, my
emotional state reIlects my overall evaluation oI the context, my possible
19
meaning Ior it, and its possible meaning Ior me Irom my present location
in it. In so doing, my emotions reach selectively and re-constructively
into my past and stretch anticipatingly into the Iuture as my motivation
or coercion to act in particular ways. As in the case oI thinking, when I
transpose my Irame oI evaluation in time and space, my emotional proc-
esses do, oI course, rest on and incorporate my present location.

Cross-contextual structures of social practice
At this point we must extend our analytic Iramework Ior subjects' social
practice one step Iurther. We talked about the action context as iI there
were but one. Or, to put it diIIerently, as iI the context were an isolated
island. That, oI course, is yet another abstraction. In reality, action con-
texts are part oI more encompassing structures of social practice. This is
the case in any complex societal structure oI ongoing practice. In Iact,
only when we cease to consider action contexts one at a time, do we
move beyond "container" notions oI contexts.
At issue here are particular notions oI social structure. More and less
institutionalized and transitory contexts oI action are objectively related
in particular ways, thus making up particular social structures. Particular
connections and disconnections exist among them and allow us to elabo-
rate notions oI societal infrastructures oI ongoing social practice. We
need to work out which connections and disconnections exist between
which contexts among a multitude oI social contexts. To do so, we must
Iocus not only on existing connections and intersections, but on particu-
lar separations and barriers among them. And we must work out their
diversitv, heterogeneitv, and contradictions.
This argument rests on the contention that social structures do not
exist independently oI social practice. They are structures oI social prac-
tice which are re-produced and changed through human social action.
We need a concept oI structure that does not depict it as external to
practice, but as the structure oI social practice. Structural conditions,
constraints, and demands are not external to practice, but rather aspects
oI ongoing practice. A theory oI society can only distinguish structure
and action analytically.
20
In complex structures oI societal practice, particular contexts oI ac-
tion may be organized to take care oI particular goals and affairs and as-
signed paricular tasks Ior a particular society, particular members and
participants. Members diIIerentiate and structure their societal practice
across space and time in relation to such arrangements.
All this has multiple implications Ior subjects' actions, not only Ior
the present participants in a particular context oI action, but Ior potential
and more or less passing participants as well. To what degree, Irom
where, Ior whom, and Ior which purposes contexts are open or closed,
deIines - more or less modiIiable - particular scopes oI action and modes
oI access and sequestration, inclusion and exclusion. These deIine which
personal action possibilities are available and which personal action po-
tencies are necessary Ior pursuing particular interests, stakes, and goals
in and across particular contexts.
To put it diIIerently, power over contexts and inter-contextual rela-
tions as well as influence upon them are exercised by organizing these
contexts and inter-contextual relations in particular ways. Power restricts
inIluence over contexts to particular parties and particular ends while
closing them oII, keeping them separate, keeping other potential partici-
pants out, constraining their access and the ends they are able to pursue.
In this way, participation in contexts and the optional use thereoI in the
pursuit oI one's interests are controlled and unevenly distributed; also
contradictory interests are accentuated among involved parties. On the
other hand, inIluence over contexts may be democrati:ed by extending
connections among them, common access to them, scopes in them, and
disposal over them in the pursuit oI common goods. Along these lines,
we may pursue a democratic perspective on social practices and their de-
velopment.

Multiple participation across contexts
The extension oI our analytic Iramework to encompass a plurality oI
contexts calls Ior a similar extension oI the study oI subjects in social
practice. Literally speaking, it is misleading to conceive oI subjects as
merely being in a location, or position, even in a particular context oI
action. So they are, some oI the time, while standing, sitting, lying
21
around, etc.. But, clearly, acting subjects oIten move around in and
across contexts. They participate in more than one. There is a striking
silence about this in psychology. Personal practice is not studied as con-
crete movement in social space and time. Concepts oI the person are oI
creatures seemingly immobile in social space. According to some con-
ceptions, persons do move in time, through the span oI their liIe-histo-
ries. But these conceptions conceive oI time without social space, an ab-
straction oI time, an abstract trajectory in time. Still, it is a basic practical
condition oI being a human subject to participate in complex and en-
compassing re-productive structures oI social practice. In relation to
these objective structures oI practice, persons structure their possibilities,
actions, and the subjective meaning oI participation in diverse contexts.
OI course, this does not eliminate the local and positioned character oI
personal practice. It merely sets it on the move.
As mentioned earlier, various contexts oI action typically play diI-
Ierent parts in attending to particular societal goals and aIIairs. They are
diverse and heterogeneous. Facing them, subjects conIront diIIerent
stakes, interests, and scopes oI participation. Their access to action con-
texts and their inIluence upon them diIIer as do their positions and po-
tencies Ior participating in them. So contexts have diIIerent meanings to
subjects, and their goals and subjective reasons to participate in them diI-
Ier. To put it brieIly, (aside Irom variations in the ways diIIerent subjects
participate in the same context which we dealt with above) the same
subject participates in diIIerent ways in diverse contexts. As a subject
moves across contexts, he or she varies his or her mode oI participation,
according to the particular nature oI the present context, the subject's po-
sition in it, and the stakes he or she pursues. Indeed, a subject oIten has
good reasons to participate in diIIerent ways in diIIerent contexts. All oI
this, creates a high degree oI complexity and heterogeneity in the prac-
tice oI every subject.
Mediations of subjects' local practice
Any subject moves more or less routinely and deliberately Irom one
context to another. Subjects pursue their conIigurations oI goals and in-
terests across contexts. Sometimes they pursue a particular goal and in-
terest across contexts. These moves are incorporated in more or less re-
22
current patterns oI the everyday time-space oI our personal practice, to
which persons add moves into particular, less Irequent, occasional, or
one-time-only places. Indeed, we oIten participate in a particular context
mainly Ior reasons that are aimed at realizing goals and interests which
primarily originate in and "belong" to another context. In so doing, we
make use oI particular connections that exist between these contexts, or
that we and others create and extend, and that make it possible to pursue
goals and interests in one context by taking part in another in a particular
way. In Iact, this is another neglected Ieature in theories oI subjects' so-
cial practice. Human action has a potential and varying cross-contextual
scope, scale, or reach.
On the one hand, then, participant actions, goals, and intentions are
localized phenomena. I always am in a local position with its perspective
on current relations and events, including my part in them. My actions,
goals, and intentions unIold in particular ways in particular contexts, oI-
ten Ior good reasons. On the other hand, we do not bring about these
subjective variations by operating, so to speak, a switchboard oI contex-
tual roles. There are particular subjective connections at play in our pur-
suit oI a subjective conIiguration oI goals and interests or a particular
goal and interest across time and space. The subjective meaning oI par-
ticipating in a particular way and the subjective reasons Ior doing so, do
not exclusively originate in and "belong" to the present location. They
include concerns oI a cross-contextual nature, stretching into social
space and time. Hence a subject's current action in the present context is
partial in yet another sense beyond those discussed earlier: It is part oI
his or her more encompassing participation in interrelated societal con-
texts. It is incorporated in his or her short- and long-term trajectories
across contexts.
Due to the cross-contextual nature oI individual existence, subjects
are bound to take direct as well as indirect relationships into account in
their local action. In order to conIigure their local reasons Ior action and
to direct their local action in their present context, subjects compose lo-
cal constellations oI direct and indirect concerns. Thus subjects' direct,
immediate relationships and actions are mediated by indirect ones in lo-
calized ways. Subjects include indirect relationships in particular ways in
order to achieve particular ends in their present context. For the same
reasons they may tell about and account Ior aspects oI their lives in other
23
times and places in particular ways. Moreover, in the present context
they may pursue ends which reach beyond its boundaries aiming at par-
ticular eIIects they wish to achieve or seek to avoid in other times and
places. Indeed, the inclusion oI indirect relationships is essential to the
way subjects, with more or less deliberate intentions, bring about indirect
eIIects in some other time and place. Subjects allow indirect relation-
ships to inIluence their immediate action in a way they hold necessary
and suitable to bring about the spreading indirect eIIects they seek to
propel. This cross-contextual mediation oI individual action is another
Iamiliar Ieature oI everyday personal practice and oI the Iunctioning oI
many social institutions. It is oIten neglected in studies oI the practice oI
subjects and institutions. Subjects' present action is inIluenced by and
also may inIluence relationships in other times and places. In allowing
Ior this, subjects link the goals, stakes, and interests they pursue as par-
ticipants in diIIerent contexts oI action. Indeed, the other contexts Irom
which they include concerns or into which they seek to bring about eI-
Iects may be ones in which they themselves participate or in which only
other participants in the present context take part.
We may pursue this line oI analysis into the study oI psychic Iunc-
tions. Individual subjects conIigure and deIine their thought processes
inter-contextually. They negotiate, coordinate, and contest them inter-
subjectively. And their thoughts unIold in an ongoing constellation oI
actions in a local context. Likewise, a participant's emotional state is a
complex evaluation, composed oI mediations between his or her present
location and his or her indirect relations in time and space. Indeed, the
potentialities oI complex human thinking and emotionality unIold along
the dimensions oI locally evaluated, anticipated, and remembered trajec-
tories in social time and space.

Socially mediated subjective complexity
Evidently, the complex social mediation oI individual phenomena does
not undo and replace a Iirst person standpoint. It remains a necessary
grounding and perspective Ior individual subjects' located participation
in social practice. But the meaning oI a present context to its participants
varies, in part because the other contexts in which they participate, or the
24
ways they participate in them, diIIer. There is a distinct unIolding struc-
ture to particular subjects' overall participation in social practice which
gives the present context a speciIic status and meaning in their practice.
Each subject must identiIy its relative signiIicance Ior his or her particu-
lar purposes, or Ior the mode oI liIe he or she takes part in sustaining and
developing through his or her practice in and across contexts. In some
contexts, then, some subjects participate in ways which must primarily
be understood Irom their other contexts. There is a structure oI relevance
at play here, based upon the meaning oI a subject's particular participa-
tion Ior the way he or she sustains, unIolds, and develops his or her so-
cial practice. And this individual structure oI relevance is part oI the par-
ticular, local, and cross-contextual (but socio-structurally mediated) Iorm
oI liIe in which that individual is a particular participant.
To the person, the complex, cross-contextual, diverse, even con-
tested nature oI his or her participation accentuates the issue oI which
inter-connections among his or her activities are relevant in order to
sustain, unIold, and develop his or her practice: How do I avoid acting at
cross-purposes with some oI my own goals, acting disconnectedly, act-
ing in total selI-contradiction, or stumbling over my own Ieet in pursuit
oI my interests and goals? In a particular context, how do I keep my
stakes together, connect my actions, interests, and goals, separate what I
believe needs separating, structure my aIIairs as I see Iit, also in relation
to others' activities and stances across space and time? This amounts to a
personal endeavor to a) sustain a suIIicient measure oI interconnection
among my complex activities, b) in so doing, to consider the objective
interrelations oI contextual activities, and c) to secure a suIIicient meas-
ure oI overall integration oI individual sustenance and development in
my changing scopes, activities, and potencies. In doing all this, I relate
subjective and objective aspects oI my practice.
However, it would be mistaken to believe that these issues oI sub-
jective complexity, integration, and development turn an individual sub-
ject into a "multiple personality", a chameleon, or a Iully integrated unity
with no loose ends, ruptures, or contradictions. Probably every individ-
ual subject expands and accentuates common Ieatures in its preIerred
modes oI approaching and participating in even partly diverse contexts -
thus providing an extra measure oI individual, subjective parsimony, so
to speak. And it is a basic practical necessity to sustain a suIIicient
25
measure oI subjective interconnection. Any subject must struggle to keep
a grip on his or her trajectory in the particular ways in which he or she
moves around in, and across, societal contexts oI action. Yet, personal-
ism and related holisms in psychological theories oI personality over-
simpliIy matters by presuming that an "integrated" person is an internal,
strictly personal "unity" in which everything is synthesized in perIect
wholeness - a sort oI person it is easier to imagine in others, especially in
those we do not know well. Actually, any subject is more complex than
that - diIIerentiated, varied, incomplete, Iull oI ruptures, conIlicts, and
contradictions. This is what any subject must try to hold on to, in ways
that are suitable Ior sustaining and extending his or her grip on his or her
complex and diverse existence. In personalism personal cohesion is not
primarily considered a practical matter, but turned into a merely internal,
mental, or even spiritual matter. To presume that purely conceptual or
spiritual integration may be obtained, is to simpliIy the diversity oI sub-
jects' social practice and, in eIIect, to abstract and detach the issue oI
personal integration Irom the objective relations oI concrete practice. II
we conceive it to be a purely cognitive achievement, we turn cognitive
categories into Iree-Iloating generalities.

Subjective standpoints
From their practice in local contexts, subjects evaluate, articulate, con-
nect, and generalize the premises oI their participation and points oI
view on social practice in its local, contextual diversity. Thus, a subject
actively adopts, elaborates, and composes a personal standpoint or
stance. It is a stand I take in, to, and across the mediated social contexts
oI my trajectory, and it allows me to direct my actions as coherently as
possible, to connect and conIigure my diverse participations in diverse
contexts and at diIIerent times. My standpoint is not merely a passive re-
sult oI my, more or less typical, objective conditions and positions. I may
develop and modiIy it. And I may work it out and over more or less de-
liberately and coherently, drawing upon the always more encompassing
practical background Ior my articulated standpoints. Sometimes I adopt a
particular standpoint merely "in passing", though. Its reach into other
26
times and places, participants and parties may, indeed, diIIer. It is never
Iinal and complete.
Though I elaborate my standpoint Irom local Ioundations in the Iirst
place, it stretches across time and place Irom where I am now. Still, it
gives me good reasons to act, think, and Ieel diIIerently in diIIerent
times and places, depending upon the particular context, my participa-
tion, and upon the place they occupy in the interrelated contexts oI my
trajectory in social practice. It is no contradiction in terms to say both
that a standpoint stretches across time and space to articulate and pursue
connections among them, and that it also gives me good reasons to act,
think, and Ieel diIIerently across time and space. On the contrary, that is
part oI living a complex liIe. A standpoint, then, is no Iixed structure oI
traits or goals, but a conIiguration oI more general premises through
which I direct my social practice. I combine it, more or less Ilexibly,
with my particular current context, needs and interests to guide the sub-
jective structuration and direction oI my particular activities.
In Iact, a subject adopts a complex structure oI more or less coher-
ently and deliberately interconnected standpoints. I weigh and interrelate
my standpoints in accordance with the structures oI relevancies oI my
complex practice in order to sustain and develop my participation in a
local, mediated Iorm oI liIe. I work out, articulate, coordinate, negotiate,
and contest my structure oI standpoints with other participants and other
parties in societal practice. The Iundamental condition oI possibility
which allows this process to take place, is what we have called a "gener-
alized Iirst person standpoint". The subjective stances I take may be
more or less opposed, particular or general, depending upon whether
their premises are opposed to the premises oI others, encompass particu-
lar parties, or may, indeed, be shared by everyone. In order to be able to
take part in changing present positions, contexts, and structures, we must
take stances, more or less in accord with those others take. We negotiate,
Iight, engage in conIlict and oppose, make alliances and join together
over them.
So my complex standpoints are no purely cognitive Ieatures, but
Ieatures oI my ongoing actions. They do remain attached to and are
elaborated, articulated, and pursued in my local participation in and
across time and space. Still, I do not work out my personal standpoints
independently oI existing societal Iorms oI thinking, linguistic and cul-
27
tural Iorms, social knowledge, other existing stances, etc.. Neither must
I, nor do I, just take them over or subsume myselI to them. Rather, I take
my stances in relation to societal Iorms and include them in so doing.
Compared to them, my personal standpoints remain restricted and par-
tial, with areas leIt more or less unaddressed or indistinct.

Socially mediated subjective conflicts
Contradictions and conflicts abound in societal practice, across and
within contexts, among its various parties, and about and Ior its subjects.
The present context may be contested and made an object oI struggle.
Various constellations oI common and opposed interests may be at stake.
All oI this aIIects the goals oI the context, participants' reasons Ior taking
part in them in particular ways, and the standpoints they adopt in relating
to them. In order to identiIy a perspective that may allow us to overcome
these conIlicts, we must adopt, elaborate, and pursue a generalized
standpoint.
Although conIlicts play an important role in everyday practice, they
play a strikingly minor one in personality theories which mostly consider
"personality" and "personality development" merely to be a kind oI
"task". Instead, we must conceptualize personality development as con-
Ilictual. Its direction and course is not straightIorward, but a contested,
zig-zagging one, marked by progressions and retrogressions. It takes
place in social contexts, marked by opposed interests among participants.
These conIlicts turn subjective reasons Ior action into conIlicting ones
and create numerous Iorms oI personal ambiguities and alternating
standpoints and voices, which can only be disentangled and located with
great diIIiculty. They make it diIIicult Ior us to predetermine the conse-
quences oI intended actions and create intersubjective and subjective
discords and contests oI interpretation about events, reasons, and person-
ality properties. They personalize discords and instrumentalize intersub-
jective relations, Iilling them with compromises, compensations, unequal
beneIits, and sacriIices. They also aIIect our socio-cultural notions oI
love, care, and service.
ConIlicts may set their stamp on interpretations oI the present con-
text oI action, oI particular participants' signiIicance Ior its state oI aI-
28
Iairs, and oI their reasons Ior participating in particular ways. Indeed,
interpretations may become a method by which participants engage in
conIlicts and in struggles Ior power over the context. By being subjected
to conIlicts oI interpretation, the signiIicance oI the context Ior particular
participants, their own evaluations and standpoints with respect to their
actions, intentions, reasons, goals, properties, thoughts, emotions, etc.
become complicated and entangled. Especially in conIlict, multiparty
practices are oIten interpreted - even theorized - Irom particular positions
which are not made explicit and amenable to common reIlection. Par-
ticular parties more or less monopolize interpretation and may instru-
mentalize it as a particular way to pursue particular interests. Then con-
Iounded perspectives oI interpretation, action, and account spread among
participants.

Socially mediated subjective trajectories
As my line oI argument has unIolded, we have gradually related physical
time-space and societally organized time-space to subjective trafectories.
These trajectories are not trajectories in pure time, though, abstracted
Irom the social structures oI space. The meanings oI and reasons Ior
concrete participation depend on more than their locus in such an ab-
stract "story". Rather my trajectory takes place in and across concrete so-
cial locations, positions, and contexts. In its course I move in and across
places, and my trajectory oI locations is part oI ongoing socio-historical
practice. Some societally prestructured dimensions oI inter-contextual
relations Iurnish an objective structure to my trajectory, in relation to
which I structure and unIold it in practice. Thus, trajectories relate ob-
jective and subjective aspects, on an individual-historical scale, oI exist-
ing and changing structures oI social practice. Besides, my trajectory oI
participation has meanings that go beyond the personal. It has meanings
in and Ior social practice since in the course oI my daily liIe I pursue
particular goals, interests, and standpoints in particular contexts oI social
practice. My partial participation has meaning to me, to others, in and Ior
particular contexts, to our society, and to the common good. There is a
societal dimension to the standpoints and meanings oI the trajectory I
pursue. In other words, there is a social dimension to my identity, rea-
29
sons, knowledge, potentialities, cognitive and emotional processes. In
deIining it, I relate my present possibilities and potencies to those oI oth-
ers, and to other contexts in the structure oI societal practice. In this
more or less global perspective, I identiIy opposed, partial, and common
Ieatures oI our interests and standpoints. In short, my trajectory is Iirmly
anchored in the history oI local social practice and its mediations, where
it, too, may become a matter oI mutual, personal conIlicts.

Analysis of psycho-social practice
Having outlined some main Ieatures oI my analytic Iramework, let me
now brieIly indicate what kind oI questions it enables us to address and
to what kinds oI research it may lead. As I said in the beginning, it is de-
signed Ior use where it is essential to combine psychological and social
science studies oI human practice. In my book, I used it to re-search the
psycho-social practice oI psychotherapy Irom various major positions
and perspectives in turn. Here I will try to sketch, very brieIly, some
common Ieatures and main points oI the analytic approach developed in
much greater detail in the book. My analyses are Iounded on my empiri-
cal studies oI ongoing therapeutic practice, studies oI the training and
clinical supervision oI therapists, and on materials Irom a series oI re-
search conIerences convened to study psychological practice.

Therapeutic modes of operation
Predominant Iorms oI thinking and research about therapeutic practice
construe and account Ior therapy outcomes as eIIects oI the therapist's
doings in the encounter. The therapist is some sort oI a maker oI thera-
peutic proceedings and outcomes. Notions oI therapeutic expertise and
the therapeutic mode of operation are marked by abstract individualism.
II we take their word Ior it, therapy is a profession-centered service in
which proIessionals, when it comes down to it, more or less monopoli:e
interventions and interpretations and, thus, misconstrue and lose sight oI
many oI their clients' activities and interpretations. Within the action
contexts oI therapy sessions, the participants' actual, multiple Iirst person
30
perspectives and standpoints are entangled and conIounded - in a prac-
tice nevertheless claimed to be executed Ior the good oI the client.
The analytic Iramework I developed oIIers quite a diIIerent ap-
proach to the study oI therapeutic practice: Like many other institution-
alized societal practices, it is the goal oI therapy to improve problematic
aspects oI clients' lives in their everyday contexts outside the therapy en-
counters. So in my research on this multi-contextual practice I investi-
gated not only the complex inter-action in clients' and therapists' imme-
diate encounters in therapy sessions, but also clients' evervdav lives and
therapists' institutional working contexts. II there were no connections
among these contexts, encounters could have no eIIects on clients' eve-
ryday practices. Given my theoretical Iramework, it is obviously essen-
tial to examine the interrelationships between these contexts and parties
in order to develop a new and more comprehensive approach to the
mode oI operation oI therapy, and, more generally, oI institutions in re-
lation to their users.

Decentered analysis of practice
To clients, the context oI the therapy encounter which they share with
their therapists, is a peculiar, additional, temporary "time-oII" sort oI
context. II we consider the constellation oI contexts in and across which
clients participate, other contexts are more signiIicant Ior their personal
social existence, including which problems they run into and their possi-
bilities to address and overcome them. In other words, the therapeutic
encounter lies outside clients' primary contexts where therapeutic im-
pacts, nevertheless, Iirst oI all are to be realized. So it is the main objec-
tive Ior therapy encounters to be oI signiIicance Ior clients' actions, rea-
sons, relations, trajectories, etc. in contexts which are customarily
viewed by therapists as outside and elsewhere. The mode oI operation oI
therapy action contexts on clients' everyday lives is mostly indirect and
mediated. In Iact, we must decenter our comprehension oI the eIIects oI
therapy and Iocus on how clients may locate and anchor its cross-con-
textual impacts in their main everyday contexts. To understand the op-
eration oI therapy, we must, Iirst oI all, approach it Irom clients' posi-
tions in their primary everyday contexts. Ordinarily, conditions, events,
31
and processes outside the immediate therapy encounter are crucial in
determining whether and Ior what clients use it, i.e. its concrete eIIects.
The main processes take place outside, in between, and aIterwards. In
spite oI this, mostly the therapeutic mode oI operation is regarded as a
matter oI transfer Irom the encounter which is, thus, misleadingly pre-
sumed to be clients' primary context. Also transIer is generally presumed
to occur, but rarely researched in a comprehensive way. Instead, we need
a broader, decentered approach which rests on a comprehensive view oI
clients as acting and experiencing subjects in and across their social
contexts. Treatment is a problematic part oI conIlicting everyday con-
texts. In Iact, it obtains its actual meanings precisely by being so. This
should lead us to consider how it is included or excluded in everyday
contexts, and how its meanings are contested here. The contested, indi-
rect workings oI therapy Iollow changes outside oI it and in relation to it
as, mostly, only a secondary part thereoI.
In the secondary context oI the therapy encounter clients include
phenomena and concerns Irom other places. Their state oI well-being,
perspectives, interests, reasons, and actions in therapy sessions are medi-
ated. More or less deliberately and conIlictingly, clients may direct their
actions within therapy encounters, in an attempt to achieve more or less
clearly anticipated, indirect eIIects on their lives in their main everyday
contexts, at other times and places. In so doing, they take into account
particular Ieatures oI the immediate context oI the encounter. They are
concerned with which objective connections and disconnections exist
between the encounter and their other contexts, which connections they
may inIluence and create, and which they may prevent. Though they deal
with their conIlicts in several contexts, they do so diIIerently, depending
upon the concrete meanings oI the context at hand and its connections
with their other contexts. Their state oI well-being, interests, standpoints,
and actions vary across contexts because oI these diIIerences and inter-
connections. Their conIlicts have diIIerent meanings to them in diIIerent
contexts. In order to pursue their interests clearly, it is important to them
to determine which particular restrictions and possibilities encounters oI-
Ier. In all this, the standpoint Irom which they participate in the encoun-
ter is mediated. The question is: How do clients include aspects and eI-
Iects oI their primary contexts in the therapy encounters in the ways that
they give accounts oI participation in those contexts, and in the ways
32
they Iunctionalize encounters? And how do clients use encounters to in-
troduce changes into their conIlicting everyday contexts?

Therapeutic analysis
II we consider the constellation oI contexts in and across which thera-
pists participate in social practice, there is a diIIerent structure oI rele-
vance at play than that oI their clients'. OI course, therapists and clients
alike are citizens oI a society, and as such they are related to, connected
with and separated Irom each other in common and diverse circum-
stances. As citizens other contexts than their proIessional working con-
texts Iorm part oI therapists' social practice. But the prevailing practice
and ideology oI proIessionalism brackets the signiIicance oI therapists'
lives as citizens. It transIorms their therapeutic practice to make it stand
out as separated Irom, and Irom that position directed at clients' everyday
lives while being involved in societal, institutional power structures in a
less tangible and accessible way. As proIessionals, then, therapists carry
out their therapeutic practice as seen Irom their working contexts, and
their proIessional, institutional contexts are their primary contexts. Their
proIessional perspectives, interests, reasons, tasks, standpoints, etc. in
the encounter are mediated through these other contexts. Hence, interac-
tions between therapists and clients in encounters are marked by diverse
mediations Irom each their opposite primary contexts. Their perspectives
and standpoints are mediated Irom opposite primary directions. The in-
tersubjective exchange oI perspectives between them is a signiIicant part
oI the processes by which encounters obtain eIIects, but these perspec-
tives are mediated in opposite ways. In order to understand their inter-
subjectivity in the therapy encounter, we must recognize these opposite
mediations. Since therapists' interests, perspectives, and standpoints in
the encounter are primarily mediated through their working context,
while therapy is primarily to be directed at clients' everyday contexts, a
diversion oI therapists' concerns may arise. This may create problems oI
perspectives, interests, and standpoints Ior therapists, especially when
their working context and their clients' everyday contexts appear to stand
in a relation oI (partial) conIlict. The Iormer may then inhibit and disturb
33
rather than enable client treatment. Uncontrolled and unadmitted
switching between standpoints and perspectives may occur.
Since my aim is to develop analytic means which therapists may use
to think through and develop their practice, let us brieIly look at the
analytic Ieatures oI therapeutic competence, i.e. therapeutic modes oI
thinking. A more comprehensive standpoint on psycho-social practice
must lead to correspondingly more comprehensive modes of thinking. As
is the case Ior all human thinking, therapeutic thinking does not occur in
abstract heads. It Iollows us around in our social practice. It is localized,
positioned, and in perspective, and Irom here it is related to our ongoing
observations. It interchanges with the thinking oI others' present and
with the materials and means oI thinking at our disposal in the current
context. Among other things by means oI thinking, we establish connec-
tions between contexts and become able in one context to deal with and
inIluence phenomena at other times and places. In our local doing and
thinking, we draw particular connections between what we do and think
in diIIerent contexts. Our thinking plays a crucial part in our recognition
and deliberate use oI objective connections in the world to pursue our
tasks and interests and to inIluence them. In the case oI a therapy en-
counter, it is primarily a matter oI including problematic relations out-
side oI it, in order to overcome them in those other contexts. We not only
think in constellations within the encounter, but beyond them, into other
contexts and back again. When we think about such comprehensive
cross-contextual matters, we may realize their essential, internal connec-
tions. We accentuate particular connections and combine them into more
comprehensive assumptions about the internal connections, relevant Ior
deIining problems and opening up new possibilities oI action. We make
them less equivocal and generalize them.
In the processes oI thinking within therapeutic encounters, therapists
should recognize and make use oI the Iact that not only they do the
thinking. Therapeutic thinking is distributed and coordinated. It is an in-
tersubjective process, negotiated among its participants who are in diI-
Ierent positions, with diIIerent interests and perspectives on current con-
Ilicts and possibilities. Disputes may occur over what to accentuate and
generalize, i.e. over which assumptions are important and general to un-
derstand, and which might inIluence current conIlicts and possibilities.
We re-examine, dispute, reject and question, modiIy, piece together, rec-
34
ognize, conIirm, etc. each others' contributions. When we manage to cre-
ate an interconnected construction, it remains heterogeneously con-
structed, maybe even intersubjectively disputed, diIIerently conceived
and used - although, when successIul, we combine our views, at least
enough that some Iorm oI coordinated or joint action among us becomes
possible. In any case, iI we want to overcome current conIlicts, we need
to relate and combine our thoughts about them.
We think about problems as parts oI social practice in a more com-
prehensive sense and include other social contexts, interests, experi-
ences, and standpoints in the way we think through problems and possi-
bilities. We also include absent parties' actions, thoughts, etc. in our local
thinking. Moreover, we relate our thoughts to encompassing societal
Iorms oI thinking. In our personal thinking we include and may contrib-
ute to societal knowledge, disputes, alliances, developments, etc.. Still,
our personal thinking remains partial. It is characterized by particular
points oI emphasis and areas unthought oI. We should recognize these
diIIerences in positions, approaches, and partiality in relation to our cur-
rent conIlicts when we relate and combine our eIIorts to think them
through. We each adopt partial standpoints, negotiate and combine them
with others' partial standpoints.
The above arguments are more comprehensive than what therapists
normally accomplish in practice. In Iact, they are so Ior good reasons.
They are meant to enable us to analyze our current practice in the direc-
tion oI developing a more Iar-ranging practice. Nevertheless, I contend,
they unavoidably are part oI current practice and not some abstract
norms imposed upon it. This is so because the analyses point at existing
scopes oI possibilities which are not Iully realized in current practice, but
which practitioners and others involved may set themselves the goal to
pursue and extend in the interest oI improving therapeutic practice. In-
deed, already in order to be able to carry out their everyday practice the
way they do now, therapists must take them into consideration in more
or less explicit, systematic, restricted, and transIormed ways. At the
same time, and contrary to this, they must keep a good deal oI their
thoughts in therapeutic sessions to themselves, and they must pretend
they are the ones who have done all the responsible thinking when they
account to outside parties and authorities Ior what they do. In their social
practice therapists are caught in a double bookkeeping system concerning
35
their thoughts and actions. The necessities oI accountability and sole pro-
Iessional responsibility lie behind their mystiIying "proIession-centered-
ness". This restricts and counteracts the necessary decentering oI their
practice and its analysis which is, nevertheless, called Ior.

Positioned concepts of mental illness
Let us now sketch some issues oI analysis related to the psycho-social
dimensions oI concepts oI mental illness. Since these concepts are used
by practitioners, we must - Irom a standpoint oI a science oI the subject -
inquire into practitioners' use oI them in their local proIessional practice
in relation to their clients. We must determine the Iunction and place oI
their concept oI illness in their social practice. Conceptions oI illness
have a special and limited place in their practice since the whole ration-
ale oI a social practice cannot be compressed within one personalized
concept. Evidently, the proIessional concept oI mental illness is used by
one party Irom his position about another party in it. It reIlects therapists'
judgments about their clients. To comprehend the concept, we must con-
sider the therapist and the use oI the concept by the therapist in relation
to the client. As already stated in general terms: In social practice we
Iace a plurality oI interrelated subject standpoints. A party's concepts are
part oI his or her dealings with his or her practice Irom his or her posi-
tion, aIIected by his or her needs, interests, reasons Ior action, tasks, re-
sponsibilities, accountabilities, etc.. In contrast, existing proIessional and
theoretical concepts oI mental illness seemingly stem Irom nowhere.
They are abstracted Irom practice, decontextualized. This state oI aIIairs
is even seen as a guarantee oI scientiIic objectivity, and it implies that
practitioners do not appear in them. ThereIore, such concepts oIIer
therapists insuIIicient grounds to guide their own actions in concrete
practice. They, and we, need a theory about proIessional subjectivity in
context, or else the activities oI diagnosis and therapy cannot really be
combined.
ConIlicts play a crucial role in the psycho-social dimensions oI
mental illness in clients' everyday liIe. Psycho-social practice pursues the
task oI Iinding such conIlicts and helping to realize possibilities to over-
come them, primarily in clients' everyday contexts "out there". This is
36
what a concept oI subjects' mental illness should primarily address. My
reasons to become ill are grounded in conIlicts among participants in my
social practice. II they were not, I, or we, would already have overcome
the trouble. As it is, conIlicts make us block each others' ways and get
stuck in various constellations. We prevent the resolution oI our interper-
sonal and personal conIlicts, Ior reasons which have to do with the con-
trary possibilities and interests oI our respective positions in our context.
Perspectives become dislocated and entangled. OIten some participants
are put under pressure to reinterpret their views. Participants may gradu-
ally come to articulate reasons Ior their actions Irom the perspective oI
other dominating positions. My standpoint becomes a mixture and con-
Iusion oI dislocated perspectives and interests, oI voices seemingly
without clear local grounding, thinking all sorts oI things Irom diIIerent
angles. This seems typical oI clients' ways oI being conIused and getting
lost. When a client's standpoint gets entangled in these conIlicts, it be-
comes problematic and unreliable. He or she must seek to disentangle
and reconstruct the plurality oI perspectives involved in it.
Mental illness is not Iirst oI all a personal attribute or property. It is
something I am in my context. It primarily has concrete, practical
meanings Ior me and other participants. Put diIIerently, everyday ways
oI being mentally ill are the practical basis Ior concepts about mental ill-
ness. Contrary to this, in the Iorms oI thinking oI prevalent proIessional
concepts oI mental illness, it is somebody else's judgment about me, my
properties, subjective state, and behaviors. Such proIessional concepts
bracket diIIerences between my perspective and, in particular, the per-
spective oI proIessional judgment. My mental illness is reinterpreted
Irom their position. Hence, my own perpective on it may become Iurther
mixed up, conIounded and heterogeneous.
Since existing concepts implicitly are construed Irom particular lo-
cations, we must comprehend them reIlexively as concepts articulated
Irom there, and as being about complex multiparty practices across con-
texts. Furthermore, the various parties involved pursue partly diverse
tasks because they participate primarily Irom positions in diIIerent so-
cial, institutional contexts. In psycho-social practice diIIerent parties
meet and interrelate. They come Irom diIIerent primary contexts and diI-
Ierent institutions. When they meet, they negotiate, cooperate, and Iight
over their diversely mediated concerns. When the parties move across
37
social contexts, they "carry with them" the concerns and tasks oI their
primary institutions in mediated ways.

Positioned research practice
When the practice oI particular research institutions and projects are
connected with psycho-social practice, diIIerent relations may arise.
These relations may be problematic and lead to conIlict with and within
the practice under study in ways which do not contribute much to its de-
velopment. We need to unIold concepts and Iorms oI research which are
better suited to developing a more useIul psycho-social practice. Much
prior theorizing about the practice oI therapy implicitly applies a re-
searcher's or, at the most, some top proIessional agent's position, per-
spective, and standpoint to those clients and users Ior whose beneIit this
practice is claimed to be executed. When we use the concepts I have
proposed to examine psycho-social practice, the theoretical problem be-
comes one oI understanding all participants' diverse positions and di-
verse trajectories in relation to each other. These concepts direct us to-
wards developing more democratic, user-oriented Iorms oI research and
practice. They propel us to ask how to organize practice in such a way
that user access and inIluence may be increased and the direction oI ser-
vices towards users' everyday lives emphasized. This requires a com-
mitment to shiIt our predominant ways oI comprehending clients Irom a
perspective that conceives them as patients to a perspective in which cli-
ents are viewed as users in social time-space, engaged in pursuing their
concerns and goals.
In the book my Iramework Iorms the basis oI a conception oI prac-
tice research. Such research must investigate and analyze the intercon-
nected personal perspectives on complex practices, oI participants who
Iind themselves in diIIerent, mutually related positions and contexts. It
throws light on particular participants' diIIerent interests, possibilities,
and reasons Ior participating in particular ways. These may then be made
available to other participants. Participants may reconsider and reevalu-
ate their reasons in light oI the resulting relationship between their ac-
tions and the oIten surprisingly diverse signiIicance which that which
takes place has to each oI them. Our research may Iocus on the concrete
38
constellations oI actions, problems, and possibilities which arise among
and Ior the parties in a context, and point to possibilities by which par-
ticipant actions could be combined to improve their grasp on common
goals.
Such research is geared to produce results which participants may
use to identiIy, handle, and develop problems and possibilities in their
historically concrete local practice in encompassing societal relations. I
have tried to show why it is that in order Ior analytic concepts and meth-
ods to be used that way, they must be based on a generalized science oI
the subject, articulated Irom participants' interrelated positions and per-
spectives in practice.
This holds Ior the conception oI research practice, scientiIic subjec-
tivity, and knowledge, too. In practice, research is Iounded on its par-
ticular prior knowledge oI, connections with, and participation in the
problems and possibilities oI the practice it studies. II that were not so, it
could not reconstruct a practice Irom its participants' Iirst person stand-
points (Irom which participants, hopeIully, are to put the results to use).
The research may miss its target, i.e. the practice as perIormed including
its problems and scopes as experienced. Risks oI being taken in by wide-
spread mystiIications about a practice, as its practitioners themselves see
and perIorm it, may be countered by acknowledging that research is a
special social practice with a special epistemological approach and par-
ticular interests, goals, and tasks in relation to the area oI practice it
studies.

References
Dreier, O. 1993: Psvkosocial behandling. En teori om et praksisomrde.
Kobenhavn: Dansk psykologisk Forlag. 2. udgave 2002.
Holzkamp, K. 1983: Grundlegung der Psvchologie. FrankIurt/M.: Cam-
pus Verlag.
Leont'ev, A. N. 1978: "The Problem oI Activity in Psychology". In: Ac-
tivitv, Consciousness and Personalitv. Englewood CliIIs, NJ: Pren-
tice Hall.
39
2. Client Perspectives and Uses of Psychotherapy

Abstract: The present paper argues Ior the importance oI studying user perspectives
on ongoing psychotherapy. Four approaches to such studies are discussed. In par-
ticular it is stressed that studies oI user perspectives may allow us to develop a
broader and more robust understanding oI clients as the primary agents oI their own
change processes. And iI these studies Iocus on clients` everyday lives during the
course oI psychotherapy, they allow us a better understanding oI how clients include
their psychotherapy, give it a particular signiIicance, Iight over it, and transIorm it as
a part oI their changing everyday practice in other places than the session. The ra-
tionale and design oI such a study is presented. It is a study oI a small number oI
Iamily therapies with the present author as a co-therapist. Some preliminary Iindings
Irom this study are presented. And Iinally it is related to other studies oI user per-
spectives and to the existence oI diverse Iormats and traditions oI doing psychother-
apy.
Key words: Psychotherapy; user perspectives, everyday liIe; transIer.

1. Approach
To claim that proIessional perspectives dominate user perspectives, and
that we need to research and include the latter more strongly, is a para-
dox and a provocation to many dedicated practitioners in the health care
services. AIter all, they practice Ior their patient's good, and they must
attend to their clients' perspectives in order to serve them well. This is
true, in a sense, and it is oI great importance in the Iield oI psychother-
apy. But iI we take it to be the whole truth, another paradox turns up:
Why, then, is research into user perspectives so rare? Does it not indicate
that this proIessional selI-understanding is problematic? AIter all, many
practitioners report running into various diIIiculties when trying to as-
certain whether their practice proceeds according to their intention. The
signiIicance oI their consultations Ior client liIe quality oIten seems
40
complexly blurred, and the eIIicacy oI their advice and treatment seems
diIIicult to distinguish and is too vaguely known. The prevailing under-
standing oI how health care practices work is given a severe blow by the
Iact that up to halI its clients do not comply with their practitioners' ad-
vice (Donovan and Blake 1992; Roberson 1992). The increasing critique
oI communication in the consultation and the rising number oI dissatis-
Iied and demanding clients is another troublesome issue (Freidson 1988;
Mishler 1984; Silverman 1987). On top oI this, we Iind similar patterns
oI selI-understanding combined with surprisingly similar problems in
other sectors oI institutionalized service (Dreier 1996; Lave 1988).
These, and other unsettled issues, point to a need Ior studies which
reconceptualize current health care practices in a way that includes user
perspectives and activities more Iully. This is not intended to replace
practitioners' perspectives, but to enable us better to address the relations
between the involved parties' perspectives and activities more compre-
hensively and to conduct health care practice in Iuller accord with its
general objectives.
My research on psychotherapy led me to conclude that client prob-
lems and treatment are normally not accounted Ior Irom the user's per-
spective, but rather implicitly Irom another position and perspective:
their psychotherapist's. Likewise the psychotherapist couches his/her
own reasons to act as he/she does Irom his/her interpretation oI his/her
client's perspective. So neither oI the two key parties` actions and prob-
lems are represented Irom their own positions and perspectives. Instead,
they get entangled in complex interpretative webs. As a result the Iield is
dominated by reinterpreted and disguised diIIerences in perspective, and
a corrective re-search is called Ior to re-direct practice (Dreier 1993).
The Iew existing studies oI users` perspectives on psychotherapy empha-
size that psychotherapist and client perspectives in many ways diIIer
much more than generally assumed (Barham and Hayward 1991; Dreier
1991, 2000); Eliasson and Nygren 1983, Howe, 1990; Malucio 1979;
McLeod 1990a, 1990b; Straus et. al. 1988). As things stand, it is there-
Iore problematic to deIine psychotherapy outcome and process without
examining user perspectives. We need research into client perspectives
and actual uses oI psychotherapy and to change its Iorms, processes, and
procedures accordingly. Actually the practice oI psychotherapy is carried
out by a plurality oI subjects. It emerges Irom more than one participat-
Client Perspectives and Uses of Psvchotherapv
41
ing subject's actions. This calls into question the prevailing understand-
ing that proIessional expertise and competence are a purely individual
property. In eIIect, psychotherapy works by means oI inter-action and
inter-subjectivity. Its expertise and competence are an attribute oI an or-
ganized collaboration among its participants - an attribute which even
cuts across the boundaries oI the context in which the session takes place
(Dreier 1996).
How then have user perspectives been introduced in research on
psychotherapy? Are there limitations to the ways in which it was done,
and can we establish guidelines Ior the Iuture? I shall sketch this brieIly,
reIlecting recent developments in basic approaches to this issue and
moving Irom more narrow to more comprehensive understandings. In
this way I shall introduce the stance on which my study rests.
In the Iirst approach, user perspectives are seen as subjective experi-
ences in contrast to an objective, scientiIic account oI their illness and its
treatment in terms oI a diagnosis and a cure. This distinction enables
practitioners to address discords between their practice and accounts, on
the one hand, and clients' reported subjective well-being, on the other
hand. It also springs Irom a growing recognition that we can not disre-
gard patient experiences iI we want to understand how treatment works.
However, the distinction is mostly drawn in a way which does not ac-
knowledge that the scientiIic account is also a positioned perspective
which springs Irom the tasks and experiences oI practitioners in a par-
ticular social practice. ScientiIic and proIessional concepts oI illness and
treatment are not conceived as parts oI the social practice oI health care
and as constituted out oI it - and thereIore, by the way, it becomes diIIi-
cult Ior practitioners to ground their concrete local practice upon them.
One might say that "expert stances" represent nobody`s perspective.
They are gathered Irom anywhere in general and nowhere in particular.
Actually the concept oI perspective was not introduced in the literature
until user stances were taken up, signaling a switch to a merely subjec-
tive dimension. The vast majority oI studies understand user perspectives
only in this sense. The very term user perspective is taken to imply that
something objective and public is contrasted with something subjective
and internal. User perspectives remain Iree-Iloating experiences. We
need, instead, to conceptualize experience and action as combined as-
pects oI subjects' practice. But the study oI any practice, in this case oI
42
psychotherapy, requires that we are able to understand how a participant
combines experiences and actions. It also requires that we can under-
stand how the experiences and actions oI all participants are interrelated,
and that we can combine them into an integrated understanding oI the
whole practice. II we are unable to understand how participants` per-
spectives combine, we are leIt with two or more competing perspectives
which we cannot but choose Irom according to our sympathies, alle-
giances, and tasks. It Iollows Irom all oI this that user perspectives can
be discounted in accounts oI "what is really the case".
The second approach conceives user perspectives to be lay cultural
belieIs about illness in contrast to proIessional, scientiIic knowledge
about disease (Kleinman, 1988). Strictly speaking, such common sense
cultural belieIs can then be discounted in the treatment oI disease. Cul-
tural belieIs surely play a part in user perspectives - as they do in proIes-
sional perspectives. The problem is rather: what happens iI we reduce
user perspectives along those lines? One consequence might be that all
members oI a given culture, or even oI our Western civilization`, are
understood to have essentially the same perspective. Such a distinction is
too abstract and uniIorm to account Ior the diIIerent reactions to a treat-
ment and the diIIerent treatment eIIects across users. We need to study
users and their relationship to treatment in more concrete and speciIic
ways. This brings us to the next approach.
The third approach considers user perspectives to be dynamic and
changing. Indeed, it is the task oI psychotherapy to enable particular
changes in its clients' practices. So we should study not primarily states,
but the dynamics oI change processes. From the very beginning and all
the way through, users participate in psychotherapy as experiencing and
acting subjects, who hopeIully change their experiences and actions. To
study psychotherapy in accordance with its task, we must thereIore study
how the participating subjects bring these changes about. This calls Ior
studies oI client change processes during ongoing treatment. Once more
we Iace a striking paradox: There are almost no such studies! That is, iI
by "such studies" we mean something else and more than what psycho-
therapists have always done when they interpret their clients during psy-
chotherapy. Indeed, many psychotherapists claim that studies oI client
change processes Irom client perspectives during ongoing psychotherapy
would inevitably disturb the psychotherapy and, thus, run counter to
43
promoting the patient's good (McLeod 1990a). So, with very Iew excep-
tions, we Iind only retrospective studies oI user perspectives aIter termi-
nation oI treatment.
One exception is the study by Eliasson and Nygren (1983). In sepa-
rate interviews with clients and psychotherapists, recordings oI the im-
mediately preceding sessions were presented to them. Many interesting
phenomena surIace in such a study oI changing psychotherapist and cli-
ent perspectives on sessions during the course oI ongoing psychotherapy.
At the same time, the limitations oI this study point to a key Ieature oI
the design and results oI my study: we can not study how psychotherapy
works by Iocusing only on events within sessions. Many conditions and
events outside oI them - in the institution oI psychotherapy and in the
clients' everyday liIe - play an important part in the dynamics and results
oI psychotherapy. Moreover, it is the task oI psychotherapy to contribute
to bringing about changes in clients' everyday practices outside oI the
sessions. Sessions are precisely a means to that end, and their eIIects are
primarily to make themselves Ielt beyond the boundaries oI the session,
in other times and places. User perspectives and clients' actual uses oI
psychotherapy should be researched and documented accordingly. We
need to decenter our study oI the practice oI psychotherapy (Dreier 1991,
1993). As Iar as its eIIects on clients are concerned, we need to turn 180
degrees and study it Irom their locations in the contexts oI their everyday
lives. Those contexts are the primary ones in bringing about the prob-
lems Ior which they seek treatment and in preventing or enabling the cli-
ents to overcome them. By comparison, the context oI the session re-
mains secondary with a limited and particular inIluence on their prac-
tices in these everyday contexts. Such a decentering is, indeed, neces-
sary, but neglected in studies oI most institutionalized practices. Instead
they are studied oII-hand Irom the proIessional practitioner's perspective,
or Irom the researcher's normative version oI how that practice should be
conducted. OI course, practitioners come to know and try to inIluence
client problems Irom their position within the session, extending their
understanding and inIluence Irom there into the clients` everyday con-
texts. But this location easily makes the practitioners slip into shortcut-
ting their account oI the signiIicance and eIIects oI their work Ior their
clients and overstate the role they and the session play to be the central
and primary one. Then the practitioners appear to be the only or decisive
44
maker oI change in their clients, as, indeed, most outcome studies pre-
suppose by their very design. This conIuses the location and socio-spa-
tial structure oI the practitioners` own actions and perspectives with
those oI their clients, and the consequences oI their eIIorts must appear
complexly blurred. It becomes impossible to understand why some cli-
ents comply with the practitioners` advice while others do not. The prac-
titioners become blind to the ways in which diIIerent treatment eIIects
arise Irom diIIerences in client contexts and their arrangements and in
the clients` handling oI their problems in their everyday Iorms oI liIe.
Indeed, we must consider the psychotherapeutic task oI contributing to
change in clients` problems and develop their potentialities to handle and
overcome them in a cross-contextual perspective. It is primarily a task oI
change and development to be pursued and realized outside oI the ses-
sions. Here client possibilities and potentialities to address, handle, and
overcome problems are to be identiIied, utilized, and supported, among
other things by means oI the sessions. The task oI psychotherapy is to
help identiIy possibilities and support the development oI capacities to
extend and develop problematic relations and scopes in clients' everyday
contexts. It is directed towards the realization and extension oI the
scopes oI action in clients' everyday contexts which are relevant to the
problems at hand. Sessions are a means to that end, Ior psychotherapist
and client alike.
The lack oI studies oI the connections between sessions and clients'
everyday contexts indicates that institutions may close themselves oII to
everyday social inIluences to maintain control over their own aIIairs
(Lewis et. al. 1991). At the same time, it obscures the proIessionals` ori-
entation towards achieving signiIicant impacts on clients' everyday liIe
and makes them vulnerable to clients' displacements oI problem-han-
dling processes Irom those everyday contexts onto this other separate or
uninterIering` context. In Iact, sessions must utilize and create connec-
tions between these contexts so that clients may then use sessions to deal
with their everyday problems, and the clients must come to recognize
such relevant connections in order to begin to make use oI their sessions.
Clients` discovery and use oI such connections is guided by the possi-
bilities and interests they perceive to have at stake in participating in the
sessions and in using them to deal with problems in their everyday con-
texts. Their use oI sessions goes through several transIormations in get-
45
ting beyond initial problematic notions and practices. At present, how-
ever, there is great conceptual and procedural uncertainty among practi-
tioners and researchers about this dimension oI the practice oI psycho-
therapy. But in spite oI that uncertainty, clients remain the primary
agents to launch and utilize these connections. And so they should be.
That should, in Iact, be an important part oI the psychotherapist's goals.
One may argue that health care services need to be restructured and
redirected in accordance with this comprehensive approach to user per-
spectives on ongoing treatment in a decentered "bottom-up" approach to
service systems (Dreier 1996; Strauss and Corbin 1988). We may claim
that it is necessary in order to uncover and secure the practical rele-
vances oI psychotherapy Ior users' everyday liIe, problems, and interests.
The more we study clients' use oI psychotherapy in their everyday con-
texts, the more our Iindings underline this requirement. But there is one
more issue to raise about user perspectives:
The Iourth approach regards client perspectives to be problematic.
We can not take them on Iace value as a new Iinal judgment about what
the problem is and what is to be done about it. At least, and maybe espe-
cially, in the area oI psychotherapy, it is not enough to decentre the per-
spective beyond the location oI the proIessionals. User perspectives are
grounded in those conIlicts in their everyday contexts Ior which they
seek psychotherapy. Inter- and intrapersonal conIlicts are constitutive oI
client problems or at least decisive Ior which possibilities there exist or
can be created to treat and overcome them (Dreier 1991; 2000). Clients`
interpretations, attributions, and accounts oI their problems are a part oI
their dealing with these conIlicts. The nature oI client problems is
subject to conIlict, disputed, and contested. That clients` current inter-
pretations are problematic, is shown, among other things, in the Iact that
they get stuck and are unable to overcome their problems when they ad-
here to those interpretations. So user perspectives play a part in repro-
ducing the current problems and must change in order to overcome them.
They must be included in the psychotherapeutic task oI change.
In this sense psychotherapy turns into a particular process oI en-
ablement: it seeks to enable clients to articulate and pursue their needs
and interests in ways that are adequate to handle and overcome their
problems in their everyday contexts. It must support the development oI
client capacities to do so in relation to others doing so in their common
46
contexts. Psychotherapy must Iocus on processes oI conIlict interpreta-
tion and action among various parties to the conIlict as it unIolds over
time. It must consider the interaction between a given conIlict and the
current procedures by which it is interpreted and reproduced in order to
get at other ways in which it could be resolved. It must inIluence ongo-
ing conIlicts in such a way that they can be transIormed and resolved.
Finally, while doing all this, psychotherapy must take into account the
Iact that its eIIorts take place in a diIIerent context than those in which
the clients` everyday conIlicts occur. II practitioners were working
within an understanding oI psychotherapy as a segregated province oI
proIessionalism, it would Ioster restricted misunderstandings oI how
psychotherapy works and oI their competencies, and they would be sus-
ceptible to clients' displacements oI conIlict-handling processes.
2. Design
In order to throw new light on the workings oI psychotherapy and on the
dynamics oI change as clients see it and act on it, I undertook a study oI
how user perspectives are implicated in the process oI ongoing treat-
ment, understood in the broad cross-contextual sense outlined above. I
wanted to create a more comprehensive and tenable understanding oI
client problems and treatment that could be used to improve and develop
current practice. It is the Iirst oI several studies I carried out since the
second halI oI the 1980s in order to re-search diIIerent dimensions oI the
practice oI psychotherapy (Dreier 1993). It Iocused on relations between
clients' everyday liIe and participation in psychotherapy during the
course oI a small number oI Iamily therapies in an out-patient child psy-
chiatric unit in Copenhagen. Later, other studies oI a similar kind and oI
similar issues were carried out by researchers with whom I collaborate. I
shall present the design and a preliminary analysis oI part oI the data
Irom my study.
All psychotherapy sessions in the cases studied - with me as a co-
psychotherapist - were audiotaped and transcribed. A research assistant
also interviewed the client Iamilies with a planned interval oI three to
Iour psychotherapy sessions during the whole course oI ongoing psy-
chotherapy and until about halI a year aIter its termination. The inter-
viewer knew the preceding session transcripts, and the details oI each
47
interview were planned and adapted to the present case in meetings be-
tween interviewer and psychotherapists. These interviews were also
audiotaped and transcribed. The design takes advantage oI the Iact that
participants conIigure phenomena diIIerently and reIlect on them diIIer-
ently in diIIerent social contexts which have diIIerent practical Iunction-
alities Ior them. Since I concentrate on interview data in this paper, it is
not about the practice oI sessions, but about relations between users' eve-
ryday lives and ongoing psychotherapy as seen Irom their perspective.
In the written inIormation sheet and oral presentation oI the project
aIter the Iirst psychotherapy session clients were told we wanted to in-
terview them periodically at home in the aim oI Iinding out whether we
could improve our work. They were assured that they would get the
same treatment oIIer iI they chose not to participate, and that they could
withdraw Irom the project at any time without consequences Ior Iuture
treatment. They were also told that their psychotherapists would see the
interview transcripts, and that they, as well as we, were Iree to bring up
or pursue any topic Irom the interviews in the psychotherapy sessions.
Our request was only turned down by the Iather in one Iamily: a case oI
child custody going beIore the courts.
In the interviews topics were introduced via broad, open questions
and then Iollowed up in probing, diIIerentiating, exempliIying and con-
cretizing ways. This was done to allow participants to select and accen-
tuate what they considered relevant and which connections they saw
between various aspects, events, Ieelings, etc.. It is a crucial Ieature oI
human subjectivity that subjects Iocus selectively on particular phenom-
ena, taken to be especially (positively or negatively) relevant, and that, in
so doing, they consider and act on particular interrelationships. We
wanted to capture this aspect oI client subjectivity.
The interviews were construed and conducted in accordance with the
overall task oI psychotherapy: to support change. Each interview was
conducted with the same constellation oI clients who participated in the
preceding psychotherapy sessions, and all interviews had a common
threeIold topical structure. In the Iirst part clients were asked about con-
ditions and events in their everyday contexts. II particular events and
changes had occurred, they were asked how they came about, what role
they played in them, and what they meant to them. They were asked
whether they now act in diIIerent ways compared to earlier, how and
48
why such changes had come about, whether they think that other mem-
bers oI the Iamily act diIIerently now, and iI so, how and why they do so
and what that means to them. Only then were they asked whether these
(courses oI) events, and their actions had any connections with their psy-
chotherapy sessions. The topics were addressed in this succession as an
antidote against clients crediting too much onto the psychotherapy and
their psychotherapists in order to please them, in return or gratitude Ior
their help, or Ior other reasons. The second part oI each interview then
concerned the clients` relations to the previous sessions. The third part
Iinally dealt with how they now saw their situation and problems, and
what they now considered necessary to change them.
I shall brieIly comment on our experiences Irom working with these
interviews: There were, oI course, topical overlaps between interviews
and sessions, but even then their contents were surprisingly diIIerent.
This is Iirst oI all because the two contexts have a distinctly diIIerent
meaning to the clients: clients have diIIerent stakes, hopes and depend-
encies in the two contexts. Certain things stated blankly in the interviews
were not said, and, to my best judgment, would and could normally not
have been said directly to our Iace in the sessions. AIter all, certain con-
troversial ends are pursued most eIIectively in disguised and concealed
ways. The diIIerence between the contents oI sessions and interviews
also has to do with the clients` recognition oI these interviews as an extra
chance to reIlect on and reevaluate the sessions and their problems in a
diIIerent way. Contrary to what many psychotherapists would expect, the
clients perceived the interviews to be clearly diIIerent Irom their ses-
sions, and declared they had no diIIiculty distinguishing between them.
To them the interviews were Iirst oI all an extra chance to articulate their
own point oI view. Because oI this they Ielt the clinic took them seri-
ously and that their voices counted in a special way. They also reported
that the extra chance to reconsider and reevaluate increased their inIlu-
ence on their psychotherapy and their use oI it. The psychotherapists and
researchers registered no example oI disturbing inIluences Irom the in-
terviews upon their treatment. When asked about it, clients were oI the
same opinion. Still some oI the cases included pretty controversial mate-
rial, and some clients had had extremely bad prior experiences with psy-
chotherapists. To minimalize where possible the clients` monopolisation
oI the interviews or their setting-up the interviewer as a go-between, the
49
interviewer was instructed to ask: have you considered to do something
about this? What and why, or why not? Have you thought about taking it
up with your psychotherapist? Why (not)? The interviewer was then to
proceed to other interview questions.
It lies in the nature oI interviews that one can only register what the
participants can articulate, stimulated by the questions. Obscurity and
conIusion is maniIested in their statements, but is also oI immense inter-
est: During the course oI psychotherapy the interviews reIlect changes in
clarity, conIusion, point oI view, and evaluation oI their practice and the
role oI psychotherapy in it. Since we pose the same questions in repeated
interviews, we can register when some clarity or conIusion arises over
which speciIic issue. In this way, we approach processes oI change in
subjective perspectives, assumptions and evaluations, together with pos-
sible relations between these changes and sessions.
As our experiences with these interviews grew, we placed increasing
emphasis on topics about the state oI aIIairs and events oI everyday liIe.
As we discovered how much uncovered terrain we entered, our decen-
tering oI the study oI psychotherapeutic practice expanded, and we
added interviews with third parties such as school teachers. The study
took a course which reIlects a movement away Irom a Iixating on the
immediate session towards an increased decentering. The more encom-
passing Iorms oI psychotherapeutic practice and views oI that practice
which have emerged in the later part oI this century do, indeed, call Ior
developing a more comprehensive theoretical approach and Ior the study
oI other possible sources oI change in relation to those inside the psy-
chotherapy session. Our experiences with the interviews Irom this study
was taken up in later projects, conceived in collaboration with my inter-
viewer and me. To sum up, we may say that the interview data in the
present study emphasized the unknown degree to which clients are the
main agents oI their change processes. They are the main agents oI
whether and Ior what which aspects oI psychotherapy are put to use. It is
an illusion to believe that their psychotherapist can control or predict this
alone.

50
3. Results
I shall now present some general Iindings about client perspectives and
uses oI psychotherapy which I shall list in Iive points. Exploratory stud-
ies are typically used to develop Irames oI analysis about their Iield, oI
study. This study is no exception, and some oI its results were already
incorporated in the arguments Ior the approach in the Iirst section oI this
paper. The Iindings I shall now present are all about clients seen as sub-
jects, and they are about aspects which hold throughout the course oI
psychotherapy while their particular conIiguration and phenomena
change. Still these Iindings do not tell us what it is that brings about
these developments during case work even though they resulted Irom a
study oI an action research type. Such a design includes client subjectiv-
ity, i.e. agency and experience, in an unusual way and to an unusual de-
gree, and an analysis oI those aspects oI client subjectivity which sur-
Iaced in the study led us to posit these Iindings. But these Iindings are
not oI the particular kind which an action research design is meant to
produce. Action research is normally an integrated part in bringing about
particular change processes, and the analysis oI its data aims at uncov-
ering and generalizing what brings these changes about. In later publica-
tions I shall present other Iindings Irom this study, especially concerning
what brings about psychotherapeutically relevant changes in clients` eve-
ryday liIe and how sessions and psychotherapeutic expertise can be
reconceptualized in light oI the analysis oI client perspectives and use oI
psychotherapy.
1. Clients use psychotherapy sessions in highly selective ways.
Compared to the multitude oI topics in clients` everyday practice in
other places, the sessions cover a very limited range oI topics. This is not
merely due to the limited duration oI sessions, but is a more or less de-
liberate result oI the concentration on particular problems within psy-
chotherapy. Nevertheless, in between sessions and aIterwards the clients
do not relate in an active way to all oI what took place in the sessions,
but pick up particular, sometimes apparently not very prominent, minor,
parts or aspects oI it. In so doing they act like human subjects in general
who can not realize all possibilities at hand in a particular situation, but
must act in a selective and, thus, partial way. This selective and partial
51
nature oI clients` use oI sessions highlights that clients are subjects in
their own right, and it characterizes their particular subjectivity. In other
words, the widespread proIessional assumption that clients directly take
over (aspects oI) sessions does not hold. Indeed, clients oIten pick up
other aspects oI sessions than those their psychotherapists expect them to
and believe that they have done, but the psychotherapists oIten do not
catch on to (very many oI) these diIIerences. This is probably due to the
complexity and opacity oI many sessions which give psychotherapist
reinterpretations oI their clients, centered around the psychotherapists`
own perspectives, proIessional tasks, and assumptions, an easy play. Be-
sides, psychotherapists have only limited access to clients' everyday
practice outside oI sessions and, thus, limited and mainly indirect access
to many premises oI client actions and interpretations.
2. Clients continue somehow at other times and places to process those
topics Irom the sessions which they select and bring to bear on their eve-
ryday liIe. In so doing they modiIy, change, and reinterpret these topics
and events oI the sessions in many ways that their psychotherapists nor-
mally never come to know about.
II we want to understand in practical terms how those aspects oI ses-
sions which the clients use make an impact on their lives, we must ac-
knowledge that the events, interpretations, evaluations, suggestions, in-
sights or whatever, as they occurred within sessions, are incomplete. We
cannot take precisely the version oI them that occurred inside the session
to be the basis on which the clients later act outside oI it. The session is
not a Iinished, neatly wrapped up package which clients simply carry
along with them and put to identical use. Their learning and changing are
not limited to, nor do they essentially only take place within the session
as many psychotherapists implicitly assume in their analysis, interpreta-
tion, and accounts oI case work. II this were so, it would, indeed, be
quite a restriction oI the workings oI psychotherapy. On the contrary,
psychotherapists and clients alike should intend that clients continue in
some way to process their understanding and handling oI their problems
outside the sessions. The great extent and signiIicance oI outside proc-
essing compared to that which takes place inside sessions already Iol-
lows Irom the simple Iact that sessions only take up, say, one hour a
week oI the clients` everyday lives and, Iurthermore, take place in a
52
context that is diIIerent Irom the one in which their problems are pri-
marily located and must be resolved. Yet, to the psychotherapists, the
learning and changing that take place outside oI the psychotherapeutic
sessions are largely unknown, not taken seriously, or downplayed as
relatively insigniIicant Ior the psychotherapeutically guided change
processes as compared with what went on within sessions. What is more,
clients mostly do not tell their psychotherapists that they reinterpret and
use sessions diIIerently outside oI them, nor how and why they do so.
3. Client interpretations and uses oI psychotherapy sessions diIIer
widely, not only Irom their psychotherapist`s, but already among the cli-
ents in the same case. Psychotherapy is no unequivocal aIIair.
Individual clients emphasize diIIerent events within sessions as sig-
niIicant Ior them and evaluate the same events in diIIerent ways. They
use diIIerent aspects oI them and Ior diIIerent purposes. Even when they
apparently end up with the same interpretation or evaluation oI their
problems, they may have arrived at it along very diIIerent roads. Psy-
chotherapists (and individual clients) oIten imagine that iI others arrive
at similar stances, they took the same road to get there, and it dawned
upon them at the same time and as a result oI the same steps. But the
road that psychotherapists imagine clients to have taken is heavily inIlu-
enced by the way the psychotherapists came to understand and work
through the case and by the way they perceive and pursue their proIes-
sional task and imagine the impacts oI their interventions.
4. Psychotherapy has diIIerent individual meanings even to clients in the
same case not only because they are involved in the problems that their
psychotherapy deals with in diIIerent ways on their diIIerent positions
vis-a-vis each other, and because they are involved in diIIerent individ-
ual trajectories oI development, but especially because psychotherapy
deals with deeply conIlicted matters.
The clients` processes oI development remain oI a conIlicting na-
ture, contested and disputed, and a total consensus is never installed be-
tween them. The prevailing ideology that good psychotherapy` produces
a consensus, makes many psychotherapists blind to the Iact that, on the
contrary, it works precisely because discords and conIlicts persist. This
is indicated by the amount oI diIIerence in the clients` and psychothera-
53
pists` perspectives throughout. The dynamics oI change rather lie in the
articulation oI discords and the change oI conIlicts. Hence the relations
oI strength in their conIlicts and their constellation oI conIlicts do
change. Some conIlicts are overcome while others stand in the way oI
development and have to be modiIied or transIormed Ior development to
occur. This means that while some client uses oI therapy are driven by
their discovery and creation oI possibilities and capabilities to overcome
current conIlicts, clients also use psychotherapy in other ways to inIlu-
ence their everyday conIlicts on the premise that these conIlicts cannot
be overcome, and that their only option is to inIluence the balance oI
power within them. When clients act on the latter kind oI premises, the
struggles between them take on new Iorms and may even intensiIy. Such
struggles also directly include their psychotherapy and their psycho-
therapists. The clients may even use the psychotherapy and their psy-
chotherapists` various actions, statements, and expressions against each
other - much to their psychotherapists` discomIort. But the psychothera-
pists do not witness most oI this. It takes place at home and elsewhere,
lest the psychotherapists might object to it iI they knew.
During the course oI psychotherapy the clients come to articulate
and negotiate troublesome and conIlictual subject matters in new ways in
sessions as well as at home. Let me mention two general Ieatures oI
these changes: First, at the beginning the clients do so only with diIIi-
culty and in restricted ways because oI the risk to end up reproducing or
aggravating their conIlicts, while later problems, disagreements and con-
Ilicts become more OK to have because they can be approached and
dealt with. They are not so scary, risky and disastrous, and the clients
can acknowledge that there need to be a place Ior them in everyday liIe
developments. Second, at the beginning the clients are more easily side-
tracked and obstructed when dealing with conIlicts, while later they be-
come better able to address them in sustained ways that reach across
wider spans oI times and places. One may say that the category oI possi-
bility achieves a more signiIicant, concrete, experiential and existential
meaning. Conditions do not just impinge upon them; they are not just
constraints to be obeyed. The clients are not so much on their heels any
more, overthrown by uncontrolled and unIoreseen events that tumble in
upon them. They react in less ad hoc ways and begin to establish con-
nections, make priorities and choices, reassess directions and interests -
54
in the anticipating perspective oI my Iuture and our Iuture. They pursue
interests and concerns across a wider span oI time and place, making
their personal and shared practice less disjointed.
5 The role oI psychotherapy in overcoming clients` everyday problems is
enabled by clients creating, and changing particular connections between
events and experiences in sessions and in other contexts oI their lives.
Through these connections clients transIorm what they use Irom sessions
and include it in other contexts as a particular part thereoI and with a
particular meaning that diIIers Irom its place and meaning in sessions.
In Iact, most clients must Iirst Iind out and learn how to use a psy-
chotherapy session and what they use Irom it. Initially they oIten Ieel
disoriented in this respect. And they are even concerned to keep up a
distance or a total disconnection between sessions and their everyday
liIe. They work to keep it up, in sessions as well as at home. They they
Iear an interIerence they cannot control or do not agree with and which is
not connected with any possibilities they can believe in to change or
overcome their problems and improve the qualities oI their everyday liIe,
subjective states, symptoms,etc.. There are also various Iorms oI conIlict
over which connections should be established and what they should be
used Ior. Let me just mention one diIIerence between the way they deal
with their conIlicts in sessions and at home which highlights the work oI
transIormation involved in the clients` use oI psychotherapy: clients do
not talk much about their treatment and about what to do about their con-
Ilicts at home. That comes as a striking paradox to most psychothera-
pists' expectations about how the talking cure` works. A main reason Ior
this is that clients do not think they can succeed in talking through their
mutual conIlicts on their own. There is no expert present to help the
process along. It doesn`t go very well, and not all members Ieel satisIied
about such talks. They complain that other members get cross, interrupt
them, do not listen or take them seriously. It is also very unusual to set
aside a predeIined time slot Ior concerted problem talk`. At the same
time, talk is still used at home as a weapon in conIlicts oI interpretation
about what is the problem and who is to change. AIter all, talk is a dis-
cursive means oI power in conIlicts. So they may still disagree over the
use oI talk and Iight over it at home.
55
To sum up the analysis oI clients` perspectives on the changes in their
lives during the course oI psychotherapy, emphasizes that these changes
are not merely an eIIect exerted by the psychotherapy sessions or by
their psychotherapists` intervention. This stands in stark contrast to the
way eIIects oI psychotherapy are normally researched and accounted Ior
in the literature. In the present study psychotherapists and sessions, on
the contrary, appear as parts oI the clients` much more comprehensive
personal social practice, and the clients appear as the primary agents oI
change as they take part in their comprehensive personal social practice.
References
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Donovan, J.L. and Blake, D.R. (1992) Patient non-compliance: devi-
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Dreier, O. (1991) Client interests and possibilities in psychotherapy`, in
C. Tolman and W. Maiers (eds.) Critical Psvchologv. Contributions
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Dreier, O. (1993) Re-searching psychotherapeutic practice`,. In S.
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Dreier, O. (1996) Subjectivity and the practice oI psychotherapy`, In
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Eliasson, R. and Nygren, P. (1983) Nrstudier af psvkoterapi. Psvkiat-
risk Jerksamhet Bd. 2, Stockholm: Prisma.
Freidson, E. (1988) Profession of Medicine. A Studv of the Sociologv of
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Press.
Howe, D. (1990) The Consumers Jiew of Familv Therapv, Aldershot:
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Kleinman, A. (1988) The Illness Narratives, New York: Basic Books.
Lave, J. (1988) Cognition in Practice, New York: Cambridge University
Press.
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Reed (1991) Worlds of the Mentallv Ill. How Deinstitutionali:ation
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therapy: a review oI the research literature`, in D. Mearns and W.
Dryden (eds) Experiences of Counseling in Action, London: Sage.
McLeod, J. (1990b) The practitioner's experience oI counseling and
psychotherapy: a review oI the research literature`, in D. Mearns and
E. Dryden (eds) Experiences of Counseling in Action, London: Sage.
Mishler, E.G. (1984) The Discourse of Medicine. Dialectics of Medical
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Roberson, M.H.B. (1992) The meaning oI compliance: patient perspec-
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Silverman, D. (1987) Communication and Medical Practice. Social Re-
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Straus, F., HIer, R. & Gmr, W. (1988) Familie und Beratung. Zur In-
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Francisco: Jossey Bass.

59
3. Subjectivity and the Practice
of Psychotherapy

Summary: Charles Tolman noted that basic theoretical stances in psychology are
dominated by notions about an isolated subject whose psychic processes reside
within the skull. Prevailing notions about the client subject in psychotherapy are oI
the same kind - client problems and their change reside within the skull, and psy-
chotherapy is an outside inIluence on what goes on in there. Seldom do basic theo-
retical stances in psychology emphasize or even approach psychic phenomena Irom
the point oI view oI interaction, communication or conversation. II theoretical
stances in psychology at all recognize the basic importance oI society Ior psychic
processes, they mostly do so in some grand abstraction about the relationship be-
tween the individual and the society as iI individuals conIront the society one at a
time and in the same way. I want to illustrate how I attempt to address and re-con-
ceptualize the practice oI psychotherapy in a way that I consider relevant Ior many
other Iields as well, namely as a complex social practice composed oI relations be-
tween many subjects an across multiple social contexts.
The ideological hold oI individualism and subjectivism constricts what
many assume "a science oI the subject" in "the Iirst person perspective"
can mean. Complex societal practice is organized in and extends over
multiple social contexts. The contexts are connected or separated, can be
inIluenced or controlled, accessed or closed oII in particular ways, oIten
to particular subjects or groups oI subjects. Thus, subjects may become
included or excluded Irom participating in them in various ways. Basi-
cally, then, we must conceive oI individual subjects as participants in the
structures oI ongoing social practice which mostly includes many par-
ticipating subjects in diIIerent positions with diIIerent stakes in the prac-
tice oI the context at hand and with diIIerent reasons to pursue them.
Each subject can have but a partial grasp oI what takes place in the con-
texts and but a partial impact upon them.
A concrete "science oI the subject" is needed to conceptualize the
ways in which subjects take part in the structures oI social practice and
60
move across them, participating in varying ways and Ior various reasons
in diverse social contexts. So subjects, their activities, and psychic proc-
esses are situated, but not immobile. They are on the move Irom situa-
tion to situation in a way which basically remains situated. These basic
Ieatures oI every subject's participation in complex social practice have
Iundamental implications Ior our notions oI the person, oI personal psy-
chic processes, and oI personal perspectives and stances (Dreier, 1993b).
Also they have proIound implications Ior our notions oI individual de-
velopment and liIe-history (cI. WolIgang Maiers, this volume). Whether
we regard it as determined Irom below (development), Irom outside (so-
cialization), or Irom above (upbringing), or whether we regard it to be
selI-transIormational or the unIolding oI a story, liIe-history does not
merely stretch across time. It stretches across times and places. II we
separate the two and omit the latter, we cannot relate liIe-histories to so-
cial structures in any robust way. There are elaborate societal arrange-
ments and prestructurations Ior subjects' trajectories, and these involve
guidances and misguidances, and collaborations and conIlicts. In relation
to these, subjects unIold, direct and compose their concrete liIe-trajecto-
ries. The challenge is to expand our theoretical notions to include all this
without loosing our hold on subjects' local Iirst person perspectives and
stances. We need to understand how subjects come to grips with their
complex, changing participations in multiple, changing contexts and, to
do so, develop more or less comprehensive stances concerning them
(Dreier, 1994). Predominant notions in psychology about unitary sub-
jects and their properties are usually too simplistic to serve as guidelines
Ior people to conduct their lives in complex social practices.
Where does all this take us in regard to the practice oI psychother-
apy? The analytic approach to psychotherapy that I sketch here Iits other
areas oI complex societal practice as well and thus stands in opposition
to widespread belieIs that psychotherapy is a special practice quite diI-
Ierent Irom other social practices. I have developed this conception
through my empirical, participatory studies oI psychotherapy, through
research collaboration organized to study proIessional psychological
practice among Critical Psychologists and others in various places in
Germany and Denmark, and through my practice as a therapist, supervi-
sor, and trainer. In brieI, psychotherapy, by my analysis, has the Iollow-
ing attributes:
Subfectivitv and the Practice of Psvchotherapv
61
Carried Out in One Place, But Used in Another. ProIessional psycho-
therapeutic practice is one oI many societal practices which are carried
out in one particular place with a particular set oI participants, but pri-
marily deals with issues Irom other times and places, and - so one hopes
- is primarily aimed at being oI use in other times and places. Its tasks
originate elsewhere, and its eIIects are to make a diIIerence elsewhere.
Other examples include schools, universities, health care institutions, so-
cial services, trade unions, ministeries, and churches.
Connections Across Contexts. To comprehend practices oI this kind,
we need an analytic Iramework which emphasizes cross-contextual con-
nections. This is necessary in order to study, carry on, and develop the
practice oI psychotherapy adequately.
Decentered Analysis. Client problems and their resolution are primarily
located in the contexts oI their everyday lives. So we cannot center our
understanding oI the workings oI therapy on the immediate encounter
and its processes. On the contrary, we must decenter our view oI the
problems it deals with and the eIIects it may achieve, i.e. oI the very sig-
niIicance and conduct oI sessions (Dreier, 1991).
Particular Concerns Are Pursued in Particular Ways. In sessions,
clients more or less deliberately pursue particular concerns which more
or less diIIer Irom concerns they pursue elsewhere. The concerns they
pursue in sessions and the ways they pursue them here also change as
therapy advances into more anticipated impacts elsewhere, between ses-
sions, and on the ways in which they include session topics, impulses,
insights, and suggestions elsewhere and later.
Sessions and Everyday Practice Are Disconnected. Clients not only
seek to connect sessions and everyday practices but they also keep a
distance between sessions and their everyday practices in particular in
unwanted or anxiety-provoking situations. They actively strive to dis-
connect sessions and everyday practice in ways they believe may prevent
therapists Irom achieving aims that are contrary to their perceived inter-
62
ests, e.g. until they Iind out "what sort oI baboons they are", "what they
might be up to", " with whom they side ".2
Peculiar Features of Sessions Make Them Work. In various contexts
clients participate and deal with their problems in diverse ways. In ses-
sions they deal with them in peculiar ways. They point to these peculi-
arities as being the main reason why therapy works: "It makes us pull
ourselves together", "There is someone there to ensure that 'dangerous'
topics can be addressed", "tI am protected Irom others", "It is assured
that others listen and take seriously what I say", "I am introduced to new
perspectives and angles on problems that stimulate my reIlections and
reevaluations".
Perspectives, Reasons, and Concerns Are Mediated. Within sessions
clients' perspectives, reasons Ior participating in particular ways and the
concerns they pursue do not stem exclusively Irom the sessions. They
are mediated and primarily originate elsewhere, in the contexts oI their
everyday lives and their relations to the institution oI therapy and its in-
ter-institutional relationships. Likewise, therapists' perspectives, reasons
and concerns in sessions primarily originate in their proIessional work-
ing contexts and are mediated through them. So relations between thera-
pists and clients in sessions are not just oI an immediate nature, but me-
diated.
Therapist and Client Mediations Are Opposed. The two parties take
part in the sessions with perspectives, reasons and concerns which are
mediated Irom opposite directions: the proIessional institutional contexts
versus the contexts oI clients' everyday lives. This gives rise to a variety
oI crossed purposes, interpretations, evaluations, and misunderstandings
between them.
Sessions Are of Secondary Importance. Therapy sessions remain oI
secondary importance to clients, compared to the primary contexts oI
their everyday existence. Sessions remain secondary events, and their

2
These and later quotations are taken Irom my study oI Iamilies attending therapy in a child
psychiatric unit (Dreier, in press; in prep.). These Iamilies were interviewed at regular intervals about
their perspectives on the interrelations between their everyday practice and ongoing therapy.
63
links with clients everyday lives are obscure and problematic. Therapy is
not the all encompassing experience many envision it to be, but a time-
limited preoccupation. AIter all, clients are only in session at the most
Ior one hour a week in a limited period oI their lives. Most oI what mat-
ters and what counts as client problems and their resolution really lies
outside.
Most Is Done Elsewhere. And most oI what can be and is done about
their problems occurs outside, in-between and aIterwards. Therapeutic
sessions must be re-conceptualized as a particular, limited medium in a
much more comprehensive and complex practice.
Direct Transfer Is an Exception. As clients move across contexts in the
conduct oI their everyday lives, their scope oI action, concerns, problems
and their signiIicance, aa well as their reasons Ior doing something about
them vary. This means that elsewhere, in between and aIterwards it
might not be possible or even the best thing to do what one did in the
session or what was suggested or came to mind within therapy. When we
look at the ways clients act in their everyday contexts, they do not sim-
ply Iollow their therapists' normative prescriptions - or even the ideas
they themselves got during sessions. A direct transIer Irom sessions or
compliance with therapeutic regimens are an exception and a peculiar
case rather than the rule many presume it to be and place their bets on Ior
therapy to work. And, indeed, Ior good reasons. Even the direct inIlu-
ence Irom within sessions upon how they are used outside is restricted
and secondary to other inIluences. And it had better be restricted, lest we
believe therapists should control their clients' lives - in their best interest,
oI course.
Clients Connect and Include Sessions in Their Everyday Lives. Ses-
sions do not work exclusively or even primarily because oI what takes
place within them, but precisely because oI their connections with cli-
ents' everyday lives - as clients realize these connections and bring them
to bear upon their daily lives. Events and relations in sessions are medi-
ated, but they are also meant to stretch beyond the session. The conduct
oI sessions should Ioster this.
64
Sessions Are Used Selectively. Compared to how much therapists ex-
pect clients to beneIit, clients use sessions in much more limited and se-
lective ways. Much is neglected and leIt aside, and outcomes are oIten
used at other occasions, times and places than their therapists believe.
Clients oIten select aspects oI sessions Ior use outside sessions that are
diIIerent Irom therapists` expectations and belieIs.
Uses of Therapy Become an Object of Conflict. Clients enter therapy
because they are caught up in personal and interpersonal conIlicts. These
conIlicts then also turn into conIlicts over why and Ior what therapy is to
be used. Client interpretations and uses oI sessions and oI their thera-
pists' actions and motives are part oI their conIlicts. In therapies with
more than one client participating, say Iamily therapies, each selects and
brackets, connects and disconnects inIluences diIIerently and in conIlict
with others. Given the conIlicts that therapy is meant to treat, casework
takes on diIIerent meanings and courses oI development Ior individual
participants. They even Iight over it outside the sessions. In practice,
"good therapy" is not a consensus oI "mutual understanding". It works
precisely because the dynamics and patterns oI conIlict develop. That
psychotherapy is a conIlictual aIIair, is a major Ieature oI its eIIective-
ness.
Topics Are Modified, Reinterpreted, and Used for Other Purposes.
AIter sessions clients continue in some way or other to process the ses-
sion topics they select and apply to their everyday lives. In so doing they
modiIy, change, and reinterpret them in ways more comprehensively and
proIound than proIessionals commonly suspect. This is partly due to diI-
Ierences in practical contextual meanings which make clients relocate
and recombine inIluences on their everyday actions. But clients even
turn events, insights and impulses Irom sessions around and direct them
against what they were intended Ior, e.g. against each other. All this
happens elsewhere, in between and later, when their therapists are not
present usually never come to learn about it. Again, these phenomena
emphasize the particular and secondary inIluence oI therapy. It warns us
against taking the contents and workings oI therapy to be identical with
that which therapists experience and witness within sessions when, in-
deed, this is being Iurther transIormed outside and in between sessions.
65
Professional Performance Versus Client Use. This picture oI the prac-
tice oI psychotherapy is Iar Irom the predominant notions in research oI
an aggregate (Danziger, 1990) practice oI diagnosis and matching tech-
niques having (more or less) standard eIIects and Iollowed by a transIer
oI these eIIects in identical shapes Irom sessions into everyday practice.
3

It calls us to distinguish careIully between proIessional perIormance and
client use - in this as in many other areas, e.g. teaching and learning. The
problem is that we know Iar too little about the uses oI therapy in clients'
everyday practices! This is a deep paradox, considering that therapeutic
practice intends to achieve impact precisely outside its own immediate
boundaries. As a corrective, we need to pay greater attention to the ne-
glected perspectives and practices oI clients as users. Client use is oIten
considered to be identical with and even determined by the proIessional
perIormance and provision oI service. The issue is rather to conceive oI
sessions and conduct them in such a way that clients actually can and do
have good reasons to use them in their everyday lives so that they make
the best possible diIIerence out there.
Clients Are Subjects, Not Consumers or Victims. My analysis high-
lights that clients are subjects in their own right and on their own terms
to a much larger degree and much more proIoundly than usually as-
sumed. They should be studied in this way too. They are no passive con-
sumers oI therapist services or even victims oI their treatment, but sus-
tain particular perspectives and stances and oIten make surprising use oI
psychotherapy. Indeed, it should be the aim oI psychotherapy to support
client subjects in doing so. To accomplish this, we must reconceptualize
therapeutic practice, increase client inIluence upon it, redeIine its proIes-
sionality and the structures oI its practice in a much broader and more
cooperative way. We should, Iinally, recognize in theory what all oI us
know how to do in practice: to act, think and Ieel in a particular way in
one context out oI consideration Ior its relations with other contexts and
even trying to achieve certain ends in other contexts by means oI acting
in that particular way here and now. We always act, think and Ieel in a
location, but also oIten beyond it. Human agency and subjectivity can be

3
There is a strong parallel between the aggregates oI academic, experimental psychology and
the diagnostic groups and therapeutic techniques in Iields oI 'applied psychology.
66
encompassing and not out oI context at the same time, just as it can be in
context in an apparently out-oI-context way.
Perspectives Are Confused, Practice De-subjectified. Contrary to
these demands, current therapeutic practice and theory are marked by a
widespread and proIound conIusion oI participants' subjective stand-
points and perspectives (Dreier, 1993a). In textbooks, theories, training,
case Iiles and report, this multiparty, conIlictual, cross-contextual social
practice is presented out oI context as an account about one person's, the
client's, problematic, personal properties. The actions oI the other, the
therapist, are presumably derived entirely Irom the client's assumed
needs Ior treatment. The client does not appear in his or her own per-
spective Irom his or her own position, but, implicitly, Irom the therapist's
perspective and position. Nor does the therapist appear as an acting and
experiencing subject Irom the perspective oI his or her own position, but
Irom the interpreted perspective oI his or her client as iI the reasons Ior
what the therapist does lie in the pockets oI his or her client. In this way,
neither oI the two appear as subjects in their own right Irom their own
positions and perspectives and through the stances they developed in re-
lation to them. The practice is virtually de-subjectiIied and de-contextu-
alized (Dreier, 1993a). The therapist virtually exerts a monopoly oI in-
terpretation, but does not acknowledge it as coming Irom his or her own
position and perspective. Upon closer inspection, we realize this is due to
social interests oI control over this practice which Ioster an individuali-
zation oI responsibility and accountability onto the proIessional subject
(Dreier, 1988). From there it spreads into the ways therapists handle and
interpret the immediate relations in the session, stimulated by its internal
conIlicts. Predominant notions about mental illness, diagnosis and psy-
chotherapeutic techniques are couched in this way, implicitly Irom the
standpoint and perspective oI proIessionals and their institutions on and
about the clients they meet and treat there, but not - as well as - Irom the
standpoint and perspective oI clients on and about themselves and the
place oI their problems in the conduct oI their lives in social practice
(Dreier, 1990).
A complex, Situated Practice with Many Participants. Therapy is a
complex, situated practice which reaches across several contexts and in-
67
cludes many participants. Its workings are a compositional eIIect oI eve-
rybody's doings, now and later, here and there. It is not an outside eIIect
upon what goes on in the skull. Nor can we, contrary to predominant re-
search in psychotherapy, locate the eIIectiveness oI therapy in some
more or less hidden details oI the immediate events in the session.
Restructure and Develop the Practice of Therapy. In this paper I Io-
cused my analysis on one oI its parties - the one Ior whose sake every-
thing is presumably done but whose perspectives and stances are Iright-
eningly marginal. But my analysis also has proIound implications Ior our
notions about proIessional practice and expertise and about what pro-
duces changes in psychotherapy (cI. Dreier, 1998). Put in more general
terms, my analysis is a pledge to restructure and develop psychotherapy
as a social practice. My approach reconceptualizes it in a way we may
use to redirect, develop and re-qualiIy it - so that we may become more
conIident that it makes the best possible diIIerence in improving peoples'
lives.
Democratize Practice and Negotiate Rlations between Participant
Standards. During the last 10 years I and others around me have been
involved in several projects dealing with these issues in various areas oI
health care and social services in Denmark (Hojholt, 1993; Nissen, 1994;
Rasmussen, 1994). As an alternative to the introduction oI a market
model oI public services, we aimed at democratizing services, Iirst oI all,
by increasing user inIluence upon them to secure and develop their qual-
ity. In addition, we reopened discussions and negotiations on the rela-
tions between the various parties' diverse standards Ior good practice in
order to get a more comprehensive and appropriate basis Ior reevaluat-
ing, securing and developing the qualities oI practice.
Practice Research of Complex Practices with Many Parties. These
studies are part oI Iostering new conceptions oI participatory practice re-
search (Dreier, 1993b; in. prep.; Fahl & Markard, 1993; Markard &
Holzkamp, 1989) which study complex practice, not just by looking at
what goes on in one situation, but across interrelated contexts and Irom
the positions and perspectives oI several, interrelated participating sub-
jects. Previously, research has been designed so that each study only
looks at one situation and Irom the perspective oI one party. That makes
68
prior research ill-suited to study complex practices and to deal with is-
sues oI participant power and inIluence in more democratic ways.

References
Danziger, K. (1990): Constructing the Subfect. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Dreier, O. (1988): "Denkweisen ber Therapie", Forum Kritische Psv-
chologie 22, 42-67.
Dreier, O. (1990): "Psychische Erkrankungen aus der Sicht der 'Kriti-
schen Psychologie'", in: A. Thom & E. WulII (Eds.): Psvchiatrie im
Wandel. Erfahrungen und Perspektiven aus Ost und West (pp. 55-
75). Bonn: Psychiatrie Verlag.
Dreier, O. (1991): "Client needs and interests in psychotherapy", in: Ch.
Tolman & W. Maiers (Eds.): Critical Psvchologv. Contributions to
an Historical Science of the Subfect (pp. 196-211). New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Dreier, O. (1993a): "Re-searching psychotherapeutic practice", in: S.
Chaiklin & J. Lave (Eds.): Understanding Practice. Perspectives on
activitv and context (pp. 104-124). New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Dreier, O. (1993b): Psvkosocial behandling. En teori om et praksisom-
rde. Kobenhavn: Dansk psykologisk Forlag.
Dreier, O. (1994): 'Personal locations and perspectives. Psychological
aspects oI social practice", in: N. Engelsted et.al. (Eds.): Psvchologi-
cal Yearbook. University oI Copenhagen (Vol. 1, pp. 63-90), Co-
penhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press.
Dreier, O. (1998): Client perspectives and uses oI psychotherapy. Euro-
pean Journal of Psvchotherapv, Counseling and Health 1:295-310.
69
Fahl, R. & Markard, M. (1993): "Das Projekt 'Analyse psychologischer
Praxis' oder: Der Versuch der Verbindung von PraxisIorschung und
Psychologiekritik", Forum Kritische Psvchologie 32, 4-35.
Hojholt, C. (1993): Brugerperspektiver - Forldres, lreres og psvkolo-
gers erfaringer med psvkosocialt arbefde. Kobenhavn. Dansk psy-
kologisk Forlag.
Markard, M. & Holzkamp, K. (1989): "Praxis-Portrait. Ein LeitIaden zur
Analyse psychologischer BeruIsttigkeit", Forum Kritische Psv-
chologie 23, 5-49.
Nissen, M. (1994): Brugerindflvdelse og handlesammenhnge i psvko-
socialt arbefde. Ph.d.-aIhandling. Kobenhavn. Psykologisk Labora-
torium.
Rasmussen, O.V. (1994): "Brugerperspektiver og organisationsudvik-
ling", Udkast, 21, 1, 87-114.
71
4. Psychotherapy in Clients` Trajectories across
Contexts

The work I shall present is based on my previous attempts at a compre-
hensive theorizing oI people`s lives as participation in social practice
(Dreier, 1993, 1994, 1996). Though I cannot go into the theory in any
detail in this chapter, I hope that the links to the materials I shall include
come across as I unIold my argument. First I shall sketch some central
contentions on how to theorize about subjects in social practice, empha-
sizing that people live their lives participating in multiple social contexts
and moving across them. Then I present a study oI psychotherapy that
illustrates the place oI sessions in clients` practice across social contexts.
In the next section I elaborate some general points about my under-
standing oI psychotherapy and oI personal liIe trajectories in subjects`
social practice. And in the Iinal section I relate my analysis to some gen-
eral Ieatures oI a narrative understanding which many Iind IruitIul in the
study oI psychotherapy and which has much in common with my ap-
proach. My analysis in particular raises questions concerning the place oI
narrative in personal action and experience when one takes into account
that persons conIigure their actions and experiences as they participate in
diverse social contexts and move across them. I shall be warning against
limitations and distortions iI one Iocuses too closely on narrative and
loses sight oI its perIormative signiIicance and place in people`s ongoing
personal practice across social contexts.
Subjects in Social Practice.
My work is inspired primarily by the theoretical tradition oI critical psy-
chology (e.g., Holzkamp 1983; Tolman 1994; Tolman and Maiers 1991).
This cultural-historical, Marxist approach reconceptualizes psychologi-
cal theory Irom the point oI view oI the individual subject in her imme-
diate local situation in the social world. To the individual subject, the
meaning oI any local situation is the concrete scope oI possibilities Ior
action which it aIIords and which is mediated by the overall social
72
structure. The personal potentiality Ior action that enables the subject to
live by means oI such possibilities Ior action is, thereIore, the widest and
most crucial characteristic oI individual subjectivity. The development
and restriction oI personal action potentiality plays the key role in the
study oI individual subjectivity. The theoretical analysis oI particular
situations and episodes Iocuses on understanding how the individual
subject arrives at grounds Ior a particular course oI action and attempts
to realize it. Individual action, it is argued, is not caused, but subjectively
grounded. The subject grounds her actions by relating her perceived
needs and interests to the concrete possibilities Ior action in the situation
at hand. Her immediate mental state reIlects the degree to which she an-
ticipates being able to have relevant possibilities at her disposal or to be
dependent and exposed. Subjective experiences are, thus, not seen as
Iree-Iloating views Irom anywhere and nowhere in particular but as lo-
cated experiential perspectives Irom a particular situation. In general
terms the subject may adopt one or the other oI two basic modes oI ac-
tion. She may either (1) attempt to expand her present scope and increase
her disposal over relevant possibilities or (2) act within the existing lim-
its oI the situation. A matching distinction is made between two basic
Iorms oI action potentiality. The subject may adopt (1) an expanding ac-
tion potentiality oI developing new possibilities and potentialities and in-
creasing its disposal over these possibilities or (2) a restricted action po-
tentiality oI keeping within pregiven limits. The choice oI one or the
other basic mode oI action is not a characteristic oI a particular individ-
ual 'personality but oI what a subject may Iind grounds to do in relation
to the present scope oI possibilities and her perceived needs and inter-
ests. For instance, she may turn her back on the alternative oI expanding
the present scope because she anticipates that this would lead to conIlicts
that might make matters worse and threaten her present degree oI dis-
posal.
Lave`s work on situated learning through participation in communi-
ties oI practice (e.g., Lave and Wenger 1991) encouraged me to place
greater emphasis on the contextual and participatory nature oI individual
subjectivity in the development oI my Iramework. It led me to highlight
the notion in critical psychology that any local individual situation really
is part oI a local social context oI action in which individual subjects
participate. These social contexts oI action have particular structures oI
Psvchotherapv in Clients Trafectories across Contexts
73
social positions that oIIer individual participants diIIerent scopes oI pos-
sibilities, and individual participants` degrees oI dependency or disposal
vary accordingly. But as soon as one starts to conceptualize individual
subjects through their participation in relation to other participants and
their context as a whole, some Iurther characteristics oI individual sub-
jectivity come to the Iore. Any individual participant realizes a selective,
partial, and particular set oI possibilities compared with the possibilities
other participants realize and with the possibilities Ior action which the
context aIIords. Consequently, individual subjectivity assumes a partial
and particular conIiguration. This is equally true oI participants` action
potentialities, their grounds Ior action, the signiIicance oI their actions
Ior everybody involved, their dependency and disposal, their experi-
ences, thoughts, and emotions. The partiality and diversity oI individual
subjectivity must also be taken into account in understanding the dy-
namics oI the relationships among participants.
Moving situated participation to the center oI my theorizing about
subjects in social practice, however, only made the next necessary con-
ceptual expansion more obvious. Once we stop considering subjects as
Iree-Iloating agents and study their local participation, we must also rec-
ognize that subjects do not stay in one place and participate in only one
context oI action. On the contrary, subjects move across social contexts
and participate in several contexts on diIIerent locations. This has conse-
quences Ior our understanding both oI social practice and oI individual
subjectivity. As Ior our understanding oI social practice, it leads us to
recognize that social practice is structured in a multitude oI social con-
texts. These contexts are connected and disconnected in a variety oI
ways. They are accessible and inaccessible in particular ways Ior a vari-
ety oI groups and persons. And many social contexts are arranged as set-
tings Ior particular kinds oI social purposes and tasks and Ior people to
pursue particular kinds oI personal activities, concerns, and obligations
in them and through them.
And as Ior our understanding oI individual subjectivity, it means that
in a social practice with such a complex structure, each subject must
conduct his liIe by participating in multiple social contexts and moving
across them in pursuit oI his concerns and obligations. In so doing, the
subject`s personal mode oI participation varies Irom one context to an-
other and is, at the same time, aIIected by the contextual complexity oI
74
its conduct oI liIe. Let me brieIly point out some important Ieatures oI
this variability and complexity oI individual subjectivity. First oI all,
subjects` modes oI participation vary Irom one context to another be-
cause diIIerent contexts oIIer diIIerent scopes oI possibilities Ior action
and because subjects have diIIerent personal concerns at stake in these
diIIerent contexts. Each subject, then, has good reasons to participate in
diIIerent ways in diIIerent contexts, and the subject`s personal action
potentialities and psychological processes assume a contextual multiIac-
ity. Still, the subject`s grounds Ior a particular mode oI participation do
not stem only Irom the context he is presently located in. Since the sub-
ject also participates in other contexts, the interrelationships between
these contexts matter to him. So a person`s participation in a context is
also inIluenced by its signiIicance in relation to that person`s participa-
tion in other contexts. As a consequence, a subject`s local mode oI par-
ticipation assumes a particular, mediated, cross-contextual complexity.
This cross-contextual complexity is Iurther strengthened by the Iact that
subjects oIten pursue particular concerns across several contexts, varying
the way they do so as they move Irom one context into another, depend-
ing upon the nature and signiIicance oI the context they are presently lo-
cated in. When a subject`s local modes oI participation are complexly
grounded and motivated, the same, oI course, holds Ior his experiences.
The subject`s experiential perspective is grounded in his immediate lo-
cation and Iollows the embodied subject as he moves around in his com-
plex social practice. The subject`s experiences are located in his diverse
participations in disparate contexts and, at the same time, involved in di-
recting his pursuits across them. The subject conIigures his experiences
as part oI its trajectory across times and places.
In order to manage to live a liIe in and across diverse contexts oI so-
cial practice, the subject must create and sustain an everyday personal
conduct oI liIe (Holzkamp 1995). The subject must contrast and balance
oII the demands and concerns associated with her diverse social contexts
and integrate them into a particular ordering and conIiguring oI her eve-
ryday activities. By establishing an everyday conduct oI liIe, this com-
plexity becomes manageable in practical terms. However, the contextual
complexity is not only a matter oI everyday liIe. It is characteristic oI the
whole liIe course. At any given time during the liIe course, the individ-
ual subject lives her liIe by taking part in a particular conIiguration oI
75
several, diverse social contexts. Which social contexts the individual
subject participates in may, oI course, change during the liIe course, as
may their personal signiIicance. Still, throughout her liIe, the subject
lives not only by directing herselI ahead, but also across. I suggest using
the term liIe trajectory to capture this complexity oI the liIe course
(Dreier 1994). I shall illustrate this notion later and conclude the intro-
duction to my general Iramework oI analysis at this point.
The development oI the Iramework I have introduced was in Iact
heavily inIluenced by challenges raised in my study oI psychotherapeutic
practice. Some unresolved problems in our usual understanding oI psy-
chotherapy pushed me in the direction oI this kind oI theorizing. The
Iramework is geared to allow us to reconceptualize subjects in social
practices such as psychotherapy. When clients attend psychotherapy, this
adds, Ior a period oI time, another context, the therapy session, to the
structure oI their everyday practice. Therapy works precisely because
clients pursue their concerns across as well as in the contexts oI the ses-
sion, their home, school, workplace, and so Iorth. Treatment does not
progress as an eIIect therapists make on their clients. It progresses pri-
marily because oI the clients` changing pattern oI interrelating diIIerent
modes oI experiencing and dealing with their problems in their diverse
social contexts. It is not the therapists but the clients, who are the pri-
mary agents oI therapy, those whose practice will hopeIully change and
Ior whose sake the practice oI therapy takes place. Contrary to wide-
spread notions, treatment is promoted not by the transIer oI an identical
mode oI experiencing and dealing with problems but by particular, sig-
niIicant diIIerences in the ways clients experience and deal with their
problems in their diIIerent social contexts. In Iact, since treatment is car-
ried out Ior the sake oI resolving problems that occur in clients' everyday
lives, clients` everyday concerns and perspectives do and should play the
main role compared with those oI the therapy session.
These propositions lead to a diIIerent understanding oI therapeutic
practice. This understanding emphasizes that participants are involved in
diIIerent activities and experiences in therapy sessions than, say, at home
and that they experience and deal with their problems in diIIerent ways
in these places. Talk has a diIIerent role, and diIIerent aspects oI talking
matter in the two places. The practice and experience oI therapeutic
change is deeply conIlictual and not based on a consensus, which many
76
assume that 'good understanding should all be about. Clients` circum-
stances and possibilities outside oI sessions are more important Ior the
realization, range, and direction oI changes than is the practice within
sessions. As therapy gets underway, participants Iorge stakes and stances
to pursue across the diIIerent times and places oI their everyday practice.
In this way they come to pursue dealing with conIlicts in particular ways
within sessions and by means oI them.
This new understanding oI psychotherapy requires a diIIerent way oI
conducting research. Accounts oI therapy in the research literature and
among practitioners normally only Iocus on what happens within ses-
sions or even on what the therapist does to the clients in sessions. But
this gives us no good understanding oI why and how therapy works. We
need a kind oI research that Iits the complexity oI the social practice we
study. In short, we need to study it Irom the perspective oI its multiple
participants and as a particular part oI their liIe trajectories across multi-
ple social contexts. This insight was substantiated Iurther by discovering
that in this respect the practice oI psychotherapy is no diIIerent Irom a
range oI other social practices that show similar complexities and would
need similar Irames oI analysis and modes oI conducting research to ad-
vance our understanding oI them (Dreier 1996; Lave 1997).
A Study of Psychotherapy.
To illustrate my Iramework, I shall draw upon materials Irom my study
oI change processes during Iamily therapy. My materials consist oI tran-
scripts oI the therapy sessions and oI interviews with a small number oI
Iamilies about their everyday lives, especially in relation to their ongoing
therapy. I was a co-therapist in these cases. The interviews took place in
the clients` homes. They were conducted by an interviewer hired espe-
cially Ior that purpose, with all Iamily members present and at regular
intervals throughout their 1 to 2 years oI therapy until about halI a year
aIter treatment termination. It was such a dual set oI materials that al-
lowed me to develop a new analysis oI therapeutic practice that Iocuses
on relations between therapy sessions and everyday Iamily liIe Irom the
clients` point oI view. I cannot cover the range oI topics Irom these ma-
terials here, but I am in the midst oI writing a Iuller account in book
Iorm (Dreier, in prep.), and Other aspects oI the design and materials are
77
presented in Dreier (1998). I also must to omit the therapists` participa-
tion in multiple contexts altogether.
In this chapter I shall Iocus on aspects oI interview materials gath-
ered outside and in between the therapy sessions to illustrate how clients
reIlect on the meaning oI sessions as part oI their ongoing everyday liIe.
When talking about the therapy sessions, clients show how the sessions
become a part in their everyday pursuit oI concerns across contexts. I
shall illustrate some oI these key points with materials Irom the Iirst two
interviews, carried out approximately 1 month apart in the beginning
oI one case as Iamily conIlicts gradually came to the Iore. It is a work-
ing-class Iamily oI Iour: a mother and Iather, a IiIteen-year-old daughter,
and a thirteen-year-old daughter. The Iamily was reIerred to an outpa-
tient child psychiatry unit in Copenhagen because oI the younger
daughter`s anxiety symptoms, which heavily constricted her liIe.
I shall Iocus on what is conventionally assumed to be three main
Ieatures oI therapeutic practice as seen Irom the clients` points oI view:
the role oI talk, the therapist, and client conIlicts. To this I add a Iourth
Ieature, the reinterpretation oI sessions in other times and places. I hope
to show how clients` multiple relations with talk, therapists and conIlict
in multiple settings create diIIerent processes oI participation and diIIer-
ent meaning especially to participating in therapy.
Sessions as Part of Clients` Social Practice.
a. Session Salk.
A main Ieature oI the practice oI sessions is talk. But in the Iirst oI the
two interviews, the Iamily states they 'cannot quite understand how talk
may work on anxiety symptoms, as the mother puts it. In other words,
they have no clear notion about the relation between the nature oI their
daughter`s symptoms (anxiety), and the main activity oI sessions (talk).
In Iact, they state that at home they don`t talk much about these prob-
lems. The diverse ways oI dealing with problems is Iurther highlighted
when the Iamily tells the interviewer that two years ago, when the older
daughter was in individual therapy Ior about a year, they never talked
about her therapy at home. They state that a main reason they do not talk
about the present problems at home is that iI they do try to talk about
them, they cannot resolve them. Instead, the situation soon explodes into
78
open conIlicts they cannot handle. Everybody starts to yell, slam doors,
leave, and so on. Another important reason, they say, is that they virtu-
ally never set aside a time slot Ior everybody to talk something over.
They aren`t even all gathered at many other times than during meals.
Most talk is thereIore done more in passing and with diIIerent constella-
tions oI mostly two members, the mother being the most common Iigure.
Let us Ior a moment compare with interview materials Irom the whole
course oI their therapy. We then Iind that the "concerted problem talk",
which is typical oI sessions and which takes place here regularly over a
period oI time, remains a peculiarity oI sessions and makes them stand
out as a special experience in contrast to other kinds oI talk and other
activities at home and in other places. Session talk plays a signiIicant
role by being diIIerent in particular ways. To them it is a signiIicant ex-
perience that has an impact on their everyday practice at home, not by
being transIerred into it but by virtue oI being diIIerent and being trans-
Iormed in their everyday practices.
b. Intimate Strangers.
The second topic concerns therapists: Clients give meaning to their
therapists as a part oI their everyday lives by emphasizing that taking
part in therapy sessions in many ways diIIers Irom taking part in their
Iamily liIe. In therapy sessions 'there are strangers present, everybody
says. Their therapists remain 'strangers to them in the sense that they
'never really come to know them, even though 'they |come to| know
all about us, says the Iather. In addition to this asymmetry, the clients
emphasize a diIIiculty: 'It must be diIIicult Ior them to understand our
problems, the mother holds, and 'to place themselves in our situation,
the Iather adds. They state two reasons Ior this diIIiculty. One is that
they Iind it hard to explain what goes on in problem situations at home.
The other is that the therapists do not know their everyday situation at
home. Both these reasons arise because oI the gaps between practices in
diIIerent places: the session where clients and therapists meet and other
contexts oI the clients` lives in which their therapists do not take part. On
the other hand, the gaps between the contexts and their diIIerent con-
stellations oI participants are also a relieI. 'It would be diIIicult iI they
weren`t strangers, the mother contends. II they talk to people they know
79
about their problems, 'they would use it against us, the older daughter
says, 'tell it to others, the younger daughter adds, 'believe we were
crazy, the mother says. Therapists are strangers whom the clients be-
lieve have not already taken sides in their conIlicts, or at least the clients
do not yet know where the therapists stand. So Iirst the clients must Iind
out 'what sort oI baboons they are, as the Iather in another case puts it,
'what they might be up to, as the Iather in this case says, and whether
the therapists might come to side more with one member oI the Iamily
than with others - or even in some respects against others. But the clients
also say that they can - and in a sense must - all join in the hope Ior some
sort oI more balanced mediation in the session with their therapists,
which will allow them to enter a new dialogue with each other. What is
more, being 'strangers means that therapists may introduce 'new an-
gles on their problems, which they themselves or the people they know
have not already brought up and thought about, as Iirst the mother, then
everybody else, emphasizes. They all repeatedly stress that the introduc-
tion oI these new angles sets them reconsidering and reevaluating their
problems, their relations, and their ways oI dealing with them in many
situations during their everyday lives. In Iact, this is a major Ieature oI
the transIormation - rather than the transIer - involved in the impact oI
sessions.
c. Client Conflicts in Sessions and Elsewhere.
I now turn to the third topic: How do the clients see the ways they deal
with conIlicts in therapy sessions as part oI their ongoing everyday lives?
The mother says about the older daughter`s earlier therapy: 'There it is
again. It was a stranger who told her. And the psychologist sort oI turned
her thoughts in the direction that the solution Ior her simply was to move
to another school. And then she told herselI that now she wanted to
move to another school. We had talked about it Ior years. But the psy-
chologist could turn it so that now she decided that she had had enough.
So therapists may introduce 'new angles, and they may even bring up
old ones. But since they are strangers, clients will 'listen to them, which
they would not do iI a Iamily member said the same. They 'listen more
to strangers, and they 'listen more to each other when strangers are
there, they all say. The Iather in another case says about his wiIe: 'She
80
listens more to me. And his wiIe continues: 'He doesn`t just shout at
me. They are better able to unIold a conversation about problems with-
out it ending in explosions or some other sort oI communication break-
down. They emphasize that 'we sort oI pull ourselves together a little,
as the older daughter puts it. She adds: 'In sessions we sort oI turn things
in our heads beIore we say something. At home we say it point blank.
The others conIirm this. She continues: 'I believe we have never talked
so nicely to our mother and Iather as when the therapists are present.
Her mother conIirms and contradicts her at one and the same time: You
never become agitated, Iurious, and crazy |in sessions|. They all work
to make talks in therapy sessions proceed more calmly. The younger
daughter says: '... then we all talk, and then it goes better. While,
'when the therapists aren`t there, they keep interrupting me. In this way
conIlicts may gradually become articulated, and other members` per-
spectives on them and grounds to do what they do may become more ap-
parent. The older daughter adds: 'We are more daring about saying
something. The therapists 'may deIend us a little when the others say
something. Here the Iamily gives us their perspective on how they pur-
sue their everyday conIlicts with each other in and through therapy ses-
sions. ConIlicts they have at home are gradually introduced and pursued
in other ways in the therapy setting. The older daughter says about the
younger daughter`s ways oI being within sessions compared with at
home: 'She is totally diIIerent when others are present. And the mother
adds that the diIIerence is that '...the children stay quite calm and re-
laxed. Note that in both these instances diIIerences are emphasized - or
maybe noticed - only in others: the older daughter sees them in the
younger, the mother in the children, the children in the parents, and so
Iorth. This Iits with everybody`s belieI that in order to resolve their
problems in the way they each see them and imagine their resolution, it
is the others who will have to change. Thus the mother states that she
hopes the therapists 'can make the children do things which they
wouldn`t do iI I corrected them.
d. Reinterpretations of Sessions Elsewhere.
So conIlicts do arise in sessions and are pursued in a variety oI ways. For
instance, in sessions clients attempt to turn the therapists as persons and
81
their interventions into instruments oI their Iamily struggles. But con-
Ilicts over sessions, therapists, and interventions are also pursued in be-
tween sessions and aIterward, at home and in other places where the
therapists are not present. Clients do not stop processing session topics
when the therapy session is over. A therapy session is no well-bounded
thing that a therapist can know all about. At other times and places, cli-
ents reinterpret session topics and put them to other kinds oI uses than
the therapists imagine or ever come to know. Since part oI this is con-
Ilictual and may end up utilizing therapist suggestions to serve quite op-
posite ends Irom those the therapists stand Ior, clients deal with these
diIIerences discreetly and even secretly. Instances oI this slip through in
glimpses in the interview materials, as we shall see later. There are also
many instances oI other kinds oI continued processes and reinterpreta-
tions oI therapy session topics in other settings aIterward. In Iact, our
analysis has led us to a Iourth topic besides the role oI talk, the thera-
pists, and client conIlicts, namely, the reinterpretations oI, struggles
over, and diverse uses oI sessions in other times and places outside oI
sessions. One instance oI the reinterpretation and struggle over therapy
sessions is closely related to the episode we just described. In the therapy
session prior to the latter oI the two interviews I quoted Irom, therapists
and clients worked with the younger daughter`s passivity in dealing with
her own aIIairs. The therapists were trying to make it clear that there is a
striking pattern by which her mother takes over on her behalI out oI care
and consideration Ior her sensitive child and the risks oI her daughter`s
various impending states oI anxiety. In this way the daughter is relieved
oI any responsibility, and, especially iI things do not turn out the way she
wants, she sullenly reproaches her mother. In addition, her parents dis-
agree about what would be a suitable degree oI co-responsibility Ior the
daughter. At the end oI the session, one oI the therapists remarks in
passing that the daughter seems to be quite sullen.
How did the clients reinterpret this session issue oI 'responsibility
aIterward? That is documented in the interview which took place only a
Iew days later. At this time the Iamily members` participation in therapy
sessions has itselI turned into a matter oI mutual conIlict among them, so
that they do not consider the same topic to be the most important one. In
the interview the older daughter states what she considers to be the most
important topic in the prior therapy session: 'I know. It was being cross.
82
... We couldn`t stand any more that mum and dad were cross. Especially
dad. The mother responds: 'It is not Iunny to be accused oI something
one is not. Then she Iires back at the children: 'II the therapists were
not there, the children would get cross iI we talked about something
problematic. ... As soon as you say a word they do not like, then we are
cross. The older daughter wavers: 'What else should one call it? And
the mother continues: 'We have to put up with whatever you say and do
with a smile. We are not allowed to make any demands on you. Now
the very same person who out oI consideration and care would do on her
daughter`s behalI what she Ieared her daughter might not like to do her-
selI starts marking out a polarity: the parents as a 'we against the chil-
dren as a 'you. She continues to criticize the children Ior 'turning
around everything we say. The older daughter retaliates by critiquing
her Ior shouting and being cross. The mother shouts back: 'I am not
cross! Asked whether she has taken any ideas Irom the session Ior her
Iuture behavior, the mother responds: '... that I too am to intervene
more: I won`t talk to you like this any more. Come back when you have
calmed down.` We have always paid too much attention to the children.
So maybe it`s time to pay attention to ourselves. The Iather sides with
her. Here we see that aIter the session both parents have turned 180 de-
grees compared with their prior attitude oI being considerate and so
Iorth. The older daughter then says that she learned Irom the previous
therapy session 'that one should never say that mum is cross. The
younger daughter retreats into saying, 'I don`t think we got anything out
oI the session about being cross. I think we should talk about it once
more so that we could get more out oI it. Here it is clear that what each
member pays attention to as 'getting something out oI it and what they
all Iocus on in their experience oI therapy sessions diIIer according to
the stakes they each believe they have and pursue in and through therapy
sessions. And, oI course, these are in part relations between stakes here
and in other settings oI their lives.
Now all members oI the Iamily in a way agree on a common prob-
lem - which, by the way, is not the 'anxiety symptoms Ior which the
daughter was reIerred to the therapy in the Iirst place namely, 'being
cross as a widespread burden oI Iamily liIe. But they all locate it diIIer-
ently, attributing it to others while holding themselves to be innocent
victims oI these others. And they do not agree on which means to use to
83
resolve the problem, nor does their therapy have the same meaning Ior
them. On the contrary, now there is open conIlict over the therapy, too.
Or, to be more precise, sessions have become a peculiar part in the un-
Iolding oI their everyday conIlicts. Therapy is a conIlictual matter also in
the ways in which its meanings and impacts are negotiated and change.
Furthermore, they share views that are only a small step away Irom the
mother`s notion about what therapy should be used Ior: 'to teach the
others that one can talk about things, which she considers to be the most
important topic in the previous therapy session because 'the others could
really need that a lot. She draws the connection between talking about
things and the omnipresent 'being cross: 'But that is because you won`t
discuss. Now the conIlict has been taken to the very level oI talk, the
main vehicle by which therapy sessions are carried out. The older
daughter says sarcastically: 'You say all problems can be solved just be-
cause the therapists are here, or... The mother interrupts: 'Problems are
there to be solved. And I think one does that best by talking about them.
The older daughter responds deIensively: 'Everything cannot be sheer
delight. ... One doesn`t always Ieel like discussing it, does one. Her
mother retaliates: 'I know, but I do. The daughter again: 'Yes, you do.
But I won`t. 'No is the mothers only response; her assured tone oI
voice implies that she sticks to her commitment to pressure her daughter
into participating in talks about their problems. Insisting on talk can cer-
tainly be a means oI power in mutual conIlicts.
Therapy in Subjects` Social Practice.
Let us step back Irom the details oI ongoing interviews and sessions. In
this chapter I have Iocused on the ways in which clients deal with ther-
apy sessions. By doing so, I wanted to show that we need a new under-
standing oI therapy that emphasizes the relationship between sessions
and clients` everyday lives in other places. I argued that clients compose
their participation in sessions as a part oI their complex social practice in
and across contexts. Their experience oI therapy, its meaning Ior them,
and the reasons and motives Ior their participation in it are also a com-
posed part oI their complex social practice. In Iact, their therapy evolves
in a complexly composed way, and it works precisely because it be-
comes a particular and changing part in clients` complex social practice
84
across times and places. Put in more general terms, in developing a new
understanding oI therapy, we need to Iocus on the Iollowing.
First, it is the changes which Iamily members realize outside therapy
sessions that really matter. Here are the primary locations oI their prob-
lems and their change. These changes which Iamily members realize
outside oI therapy sessions in the various contexts oI their everyday lives
are not brought about primarily by means oI talk. They primarily rest
upon their attending to other aspects oI their everyday situations than be-
Iore, discovering opportunities they had not realized were there, evalu-
ating and utilizing existing opportunities in diIIerent ways, bringing
about new possibilities and arrangements, and in so doing Iorging new
relations with each other, supporting each other in new ways, launching
new activities, some oI them in new contexts, and so Iorth. For some
time they may be preoccupied with issues addressed in sessions, but so
they are because they consider them relevant Ior the concerns and prob-
lems oI the conduct oI their lives outside oI sessions. In interviews the
clients emphasize that new angles introduced in sessions make them re-
consider and reevaluate important parts oI their everyday lives, but these
reconsiderations are occasioned by situations and events oI their every-
day lives in other contexts. And it does precisely take some reconsidera-
tions to become able to put the new angles to use in the contexts oI their
everyday lives. In order to make use oI them, they Iirst have to Iind out
which other place and meaning the new angles may have in the particu-
lar constellation oI their present context, and they need to Iind out how
to approach and exert inIluence upon the occurring everyday situations
in reconsidered ways. In so doing, they modiIy and Iurther transIorm
these new angles. ThereIore, the range oI changes that are brought about
during the course oI therapy primarily depend on the nature oI their so-
cial situations outside oI the therapy sessions and on their changing the
ways they deal with them. Here new events and opportunities oI every-
day practice, new scopes oI possibilities, new qualities to their mutual
relations, new arrangements and new things to talk about may be brought
about. In other words, the workings oI therapy primarily depend on cir-
cumstances and client activities that lie beyond the immediate reach oI
sessions and therapists.
Second, therapy does not eliminate conIlicts among clients and over
the ongoing changes. Some conIlicts are resolved, some are transIormed,
85
while other new conIlicts arise. Indeed, the changing constellation oI
conIlicts alters the agendas and dynamics oI therapeutic change. In the
case described earlier, the loosening oI symptoms and the gradual reso-
lution oI some conIlicts increasingly make the two daughters engage
more and diIIerently outside oI the Iamily. They become involved in
new activities with new Iriends, jobs, and new relationships with each
other in these contexts. This creates a new conIlict Ior the parents who
are leIt behind to reevaluate and redirect their Iuture perspectives and
their liIe as a couple. It interacts with the parents` preoccupation with the
issue oI the reasons they came to pursue a Iorm oI care Ior their children
in which they, as they now realize, tied each other down out oI love.
Both parents call this discovery 'terrible. They are deeply shaken by it,
and it sets them reevaluating major dimensions oI their past, present, and
Iuture Iamily liIe as parents, husband and wiIe, and individual subjects.
Third, it would be a mistake to consider only the clients` practice at
home and in sessions. Outside oI sessions their practice is also composed
oI diverse participations in diverse contexts. In Iact, their Iamily liIe has
a diIIerent weight and meaning in the diIIerent complex practices oI its
individual members. As brieIly indicated, the meaning and weight oI
their Iamily liIe change Ior the mother in this case. At Iirst she unques-
tionably considers it to be the main context in her liIe and herselI to be
the person who holds the main responsibility Ior the qualities oI well-
being and care in the Iamily; iI the Iamily members disagree among
themselves, she is the one to decide what is right. Later she realizes that
this practice ties her and her children down at home. She begins to
search Ior ways to better combine activities and involvements within and
outside home, Ior herselI and others, together and separately, and she
thrives on possibilities this new approach opens Ior her. Her changing
modes oI participation at work and in the new contexts oI her leisure
time change the composition oI her personal social practice and the sub-
jective meaning oI its parts Ior her. By contrast, the younger daughter
triggers their reIerral to Iamily therapy, but it does not mean much to her,
and she cannot really see why. She spends most oI her time aIter school
at home in a sullenly passive manner, but it is emerging relations and
activities outside oI the Iamily (new hobbies and relations in her leisure
time and an upcoming one-week trip with her school class) that urge her
to change her symptom-ridden liIe. For her the primary meaning oI en-
86
gaging in these changes is to be able to participate in these other activi-
ties with Iriends oI her age, and not to be excluded or ridiculed by them.
The Iamily therapy is Iirst oI all a means oI support to that end. Against
this background, it should come as no surprise that not only their Iamily
liIe but also their Iamily therapy has a diIIerent meaning and weight to
the individual members oI the Iamily.
Fourth, their Iamily liIe plays a diIIerent part in their diIIerent indi-
vidual liIe trajectories. This may already have become clear Irom what
was just mentioned about the mother and the younger daughter. In gen-
eral terms, the subjects` individual liIe trajectories Irame the diIIerent in-
dividual meanings and implications oI the current Iamily problems and
changes. They Irame the diIIerent stakes individuals have and stances
they adopt on whether their Iamily is to change and, iI so, in which di-
rections. Their personal bonds with the Iamily and their Ieelings oI be-
longing to it diIIer depending on the position they have reached and the
Iutures they anticipate in their individual liIe trajectories. Their current
Iamily problems and changes, on the other hand, make them Iace diIIer-
ent challenges to reevaluate and change their personal participation in
the Iamily liIe and the composition oI their own personal conduct oI liIe
and liIe trajectory. Let me use the two remaining members oI the Iamily
to illustrate this. The older daughter is caught up in a complex problem
situation in a transition period oI her liIe trajectory at the point oI leaving
public school, starting vocational training, and striking up other kinds oI
relationships with people oI her age. She had been relentlessly harassed
and isolated Ior years and has great trouble presenting and sticking to
what she stands Ior in ways that other young people will recognize. This
diIIiculty spills into her Iamily liIe when her Iriends wreck the Iamily's
apartment at weekend parties, and the Iamily is threatened by expulsion
Irom their home. The conIlict with and between her relations in these
two contexts makes her withdraw into isolation in her room at home. She
Ieels let down by her Iriends, and she Ieels guilt, but also resentment,
toward her parents because they do not recognize her as the 'big person
she now considers herselI to be; they still regard her as a 'small person
who cannot be trusted to handle such things. The problem oI being rec-
ognized as a 'grown-up is her main concern in relation to the rest oI the
Iamily. The Iather wrestles to build a closer relationship with his two
daughters with room to unIold mutual recognition and support in spite oI
87
acute trouble. At the same time, he renegotiates the relationship with his
wiIe and their anticipated Iuture when their two daughters will soon
leave home. Finally, he attempts to change into stating his mind at work
at a time when layoIIs loom in the horizon.
FiIth, their individual liIe trajectories, with diIIerent individual
stakes in the common Iamily liIe, also Irame their diIIerent individual
stakes in Iamily therapy and its diIIerent meaning to them. Against this
background, the Iamily therapy sessions are marked by a particular con-
stellation oI participation, a particular dynamic oI changes, and particular
constellations oI problems and possibilities. Phenomena such as these
lead to the question: In relation to whom or to what mix oI members`
concerns are Iamily therapy interventions primarily grounded and di-
rected and their eIIects evaluated?
Sixth, as mentioned brieIly at the beginning oI this chapter, my
analysis calls Ior a therapy research that diIIers Irom what is usually
done. I consider the present study a preliminary example. We need Iur-
ther studies oI the composition oI personal participation in complex so-
cial practice across times and places. As a corrective, we especially need
to study everyday practice and trajectories outside oI sessions and to
comprehend the role oI therapy sessions as seen Irom there. By contrast,
the dominant tradition oI research analyzes therapy viewed within the
context oI sessions and Irom the position and standpoint oI therapists and
researchers. The clients` own perspectives are neglected, massively re-
interpreted, or abstracted Irom the contexts oI their complex everyday
social practice, including the place oI therapy in it. While therapy is sup-
posedly conducted Ior the clients` sake, it is primarily accounted Ior and
researched Irom the positions and standpoints oI the proIessionals who
are hired to conduct and research it. When, in some studies, clients` per-
spectives do appear, it is their perspectives on their mental states, their
sessions, and their therapists. But they rarely appear as experiencing
agents outside oI their sessions in and across the various contexts oI their
everyday lives. When a particular study obtains various sorts oI data, it
mostly only varies its methods oI data gathering, but not the position and
standpoint oI analysis. And when diIIerent sources oI data are included,
they are mostly about the same issue: What goes on in sessions, and
what are their alleged impacts on clients` subjective state and personal
properties? In addition, the proIessionals combine the data when they
88
analyze them. In so doing, analysts may easily come to neglect the con-
nections between that which the data stand Ior which the clients them-
selves established in order to conduct their personal social practice in
and across its various contexts.
To sum up, therapy is a particular social arrangement. It is a place to
go to talk over problems in a peculiar way with an intimate stranger, in a
strange kind oI intimacy. Which Ieatures oI sessions stand out as par-
ticularly meaningIul and signiIicant vary across participants and over
time. But they have to do with those things clients Iind themselves un-
able to do on their own accord outside sessions, and so point to the deci-
sive role their everyday social situation plays in determining the meaning
oI attending therapy and the range and signiIicance oI therapeutic
change. And they depend on the place oI their Iamily and oI their ther-
apy in their ongoing liIe trajectories. Clients conIigure the meaning oI
therapy within the structure oI their ongoing social practice. Clients` ex-
periences and actions are part oI their ongoing complex practice and
reach across contexts. This is especially important to notice in a social
practice such as therapy, which is directed at promoting change in prac-
tice elsewhere and later. In studying client experiences and actions, we
must thereIore Iocus on what they can tell us about how changes are
brought about or how people may avoid them, as they participate in the
interconnected settings oI their lives.
Personal Social Practice and Narratives.
In this Iinal section I shall put Iorward some general analytic comments
on a narrative understanding, especially warning against dimensions that
may be bypassed or distorted iI one Iocuses too closely on narrative as it
is now commonly understood. There are diIIerent narrative positions
with which my position overlaps and contrasts in various ways. So to
keep this discussion Irom becoming too complicated and technical, I
shall Iocus on what I hold to be common assumptions. Conceptions oI
narrative characteristically Iocus on experience and meaning, which they
consider in a dimension oI time directed toward a Iuture, ordered Irom
an (imagined) end point and in a way that creates coherence. In some po-
sitions all experience has a narrative shape while in others narrative is a
speciIic practice oI storytelling with particular qualities oI accounting
89
and cultural and aesthetic dimensions. I do not intend to argue in any
detail about these assumptions, which are close to my position and have
broadened our understanding oI illness and healing. Nor do I claim that
one may Iind no narratives in my materials. I primarily argue that we
need a conception that covers a wider range oI phenomena and dimen-
sions than a narrative position as now commonly understood. The ap-
proach I advocate has not settled the question oI the place oI narrative in
a theory oI subjects in social practice - just as there is no consensus
among narrative theorists over whether narrative is a speciIic concept
that can be integrated in (other) conceptual Irameworks or in and oI itselI
a key concept designating a whole approach.
The concept oI narrative orders experiences only in a time dimen-
sion and downplays the signiIicance oI the dimension oI space. How-
ever, a spatial dimension to the conIiguration oI experience and meaning
is necessary in order to be able to anchor experiences in a robust way in
social structure. Experiences in the immediate here-and-now are not only
related to the past and Iuture. They are always already located in struc-
tures oI social practice, and their conIiguration draws upon this em-
beddedness as a relevant resource. There is more to relate, order, and
create direction, robustness, and generality in our actions and experi-
ences than time, cognitive ordering, symbolic structures, and so on. The
structure oI times and places oI ongoing personal social practice con-
strains and enables the subjective structuration oI actions and experi-
ences. It prevents them, so to speak, Irom Ialling apart. In order to work,
the subjective "plotting" oI ongoing personal practice must rely on these
structures. Even the shaping oI experiences in "therapeutic time" reaches
beyond the present space oI time into the subject`s liIe in other places.
And what counts as an experience, as well as the meaning oI that experi-
ence, depend on the particular context in which the subject is presently
located.
That everyday liIe does not take place in one homogenous location
but as participation in and through a structure oI diverse social contexts
underlines the importance oI space. It calls us to highlight the diversity
oI contextual practices along with the social arrangement oI these di-
verse practices. In order to conduct their lives and pursue their concerns
in and across these places in a personally sensible way, subjects must
develop personal stances that reach across them. The structuration oI
90
personal actions and stances takes place in subjects` participation in and
across the structure oI their social practice, and subjective meaning is
conIigured as part oI this structuration oI personal social practice. Con-
cepts oI narrative abstract too much Irom the concrete diversity oI social
practice and its contradictions. We need to understand concrete, particu-
lar situations in their practical, contextual interrelationships and not sub-
sume them too readily in a narrative. Lived experiences are not interre-
lated only by means oI narratives. They are already interrelated in practi-
cal terms in the Ilow and structuring oI participation in and across con-
texts. There is more to the structuration oI meaning than the shaping oI a
coherent narrative.
How central, then, is narrative to the practice oI psychotherapy, and
what do we gain by adopting it as a key term? Many believe narrative to
be central to psychotherapy, especially in light oI the crucial role oI talk.
Still, in a narrow sense oI the term, "storied accounts" are not prominent
Ieatures in the sessions and interviews in the study oI Iamily therapy I re-
Ierred to. These sessions and interviews are mostly structured in ques-
tion-and-answer sequences. Some would argue that such sequences are
part oI narratives under construction, which, oI course, they might be.
Still, in general terms, I doubt that. Sessions may be used to tell and con-
struct stories, but that is not the most important aspect oI what takes
place in them. And when stories occur, other things Irame and drive
them than the construal and telling oI a story. Indeed, their perIormative
signiIicance is oIten, say, the situating oI a problem or the arguing
against an opponent. In this sense, stories rather seem to be means to an
end - Ior example, the pursuit oI interests in conIlicting relationships -
than an end in themselves. In these conIlicting relationships other people
already are necessary parts in the negotiation oI stories, because they are
characters in the stories. Yet, not only in individual therapies, these "oth-
ers" include absent others who are not present in the session but are en-
countered in other times and places. Again we see that narratives reach
beyond the present space oI time into the structures oI personal social
practices. And the intersubjective dimension to narrating reminds us that
the subjects involved may never reach a consensus on "the story." In my
materials there seems to be no end to the divergences oI their perspec-
tives. It is, rather, their conIlicting stances that Iuel the process oI ther-
apy and the change oI personal perspectives. Particular diIIerences
91
change, but diIIerences remain. What is more, these changes seem not so
much to be driven by trying to reach a common story as by challenging
the conIlicts, ambiguities, and indeterminacies oI present points oI view,
by moving along the lines oI the problematic, conIused, and contested
toward an uncovering oI alternative possibilities oI handling problematic
aspects oI personal social practices. The belieI that we arrive at "a story"
may rather result Irom the therapists` - and researchers` - need to inter-
pret what the clients tell them and mistaking their interpretation Ior "the
client`s story."
II we did analyze the practice oI psychotherapy with the concept oI
narrative as now commonly understood, what might we risk loosing
sight oI? OI course, some topics might be included in our analysis just
because we Iind certain phenomena interesting, without their having
anything to do with using a concept oI narrative. So to be a little more
precise, the question I raise here concerns which topics the concept oI
narrative does or does not point us toward? Like any other theoretical
concept, the role oI the concept oI narrative is primarily to direct our
analytic attention toward some particular Ieatures and relations rather
than other Ieatures and relations. The Ieatures and relations oI therapeu-
tic practice I shall now brieIly mention seem relevant Ior an analysis oI
subjective experience and action in relation to psychotherapy, but they
seem to be external to the common understanding oI narrating.
First, the concept oI narrative seems strangely Iree-Iloating. It would
not make us ask what particular social arrangement Ior narrating psy-
chotherapy really is, and which particular 'culture oI narrating might
have developed in this arrangement. Psychotherapy would be analyzed
just like any other case oI narrating. It would not be oI theoretical sig-
niIicance Ior the analysis oI psychotherapeutic narratives that psycho-
therapy is conducted in a particular place with a particular kind oI inti-
mate strangers and conIidentiality. The concept oI narrative does not it-
selI consider the practice oI narrating to be a situated practice with par-
ticular situated concerns, pursuits, and stakes Ior the narrator(s). That
would, instead, have to be introduced as something external to the very
practice oI narrating. Even though narrative theory may emphasize the
question oI the perspective oI the narrator, that perspective seems
strangely unlocated. The same holds Ior the question: What particular
situated, more or less clearly delimited public does the narrating create,
92
or what particular public constitutes the Irame within which people Iind
reasons to narrate in one way rather than another? There certainly might
be quite substantial diIIerences between the narratives produced in diI-
Ierent kinds oI publics with diIIerent meanings Ior the narrating persons.
The strangely unsituated character oI the conception oI narrative
would easily make us overlook the Iact that, as I stated earlier, clients
have multiple relations with talk in multiple settings, that is, a quite pe-
culiar one in sessions. In Iact, the clients I quoted emphasized that they
never beIore talked to each other the way they did in the sessions, and
they do not do so in other places. They have quite diIIerent grounds Ior
talking and pursue talk and their concerns in quite diIIerent ways. What I
called "concerted problem talk" remains a peculiarity oI their sessions.
Even iI they were to talk at length and intimately to somebody else about
(the problems oI) their lives, it seems doubtIul to me whether, say, a
Iriend or a lover would hear the same story. Only a concept oI situated
practice, including situated talking, would make us aware oI the rele-
vance oI posing the analytic question oI how talk or narrating here is re-
lated to talk and narrating in other settings.
We would, thereIore, also easily lose sight oI the Iact that psycho-
therapy works precisely by virtue oI being something diIIerent Irom
what normally happens at home, in school, at work, and so Iorth. It
stands out as a particular experience because it is diIIerent and hence
may contribute something diIIerent. Clients even do something diIIerent
with these peculiar experiences Irom sessions when they get home and in
other optional Iuture situations.
This leads us to ask how one can understand the practice oI narrating
across contexts? How does situated narrating relate practices across
places. How do subjects relate their local practices oI narrating and act-
ing? What kind oI interrelationships do they establish between them?
How do subjects conIigure their narratives so that they may be oI help in
the pursuit oI their concerns Irom other places in the sessions and, at the
same time, in their pursuit oI Iuture concerns in other places by means oI
the narrating in the sessions? And how do proIessionals Iind a way to be
helpIul in all these pursuits across contexts oI which they take part in
only one?
All boils down to coming to understand the place and role oI nar-
rating in personal liIe trajectories in complex social practices. In Iact, the
93
concept oI liIe trajectory is itselI an attempt to reconceptualize our com-
mon concepts oI personality, selI, identity, and liIe history in a way that
diIIers Irom a narrative approach and builds on the recognition oI the so-
cial structure oI practice and oI the social arrangement oI people`s per-
sonal conduct oI liIe in and across a set oI diverse social contexts. It
takes up the challenge to reIlect in theoretical terms the sociohistorical
changes and challenges to being a person in complex structures oI social
practice.

References
Dreier, Ole. 1993. Researching psychotherapeutic practice. In Under-
standing practice. Perspectives in activitv and context, edited by J.
Lave and S. Chaiklin, 104-24. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Dreier, Ole. 1994. Personal locations and perspectives - Psychological
aspects oI social practice. In Psvchological Yearbook. University oI
Copenhagen Vol. 1., edited by N. Engelsted et. al., 63-90. Copenha-
gen: Museum Tusculanum Press.
Dreier, Ole. 1996. Subjectivity and the practice oI psychotherapy. In
Problems of theoretical psvchologv, edited by C. Tolman, F. Cherry,
R. v. Hezewick, and I. Lubek, 55-61. York, Canada: Captus Press.
Dreier, Ole. 1998. Client perspectives and uses oI psychotherapy. Euro-
Dreier, Ole. In prep. Trafectories of participation in social practice.
Subfects in psvchotherapv and bevond.
Holzkamp, Klaus. 1983. Grundlegung der Psvchologie. FrankIurt am
Main: Campus Verlag.
Holzkamp, Klaus. 1995. Alltgliche LebensIhrung als subjektwisen-
schaItliches Grundkonzept. Das Argument 37:817-846.
Lave, Jean. 1988. Cognition in practice. Mind, mathematics and culture
in evrvdav life. New York: Cambridge University Press.
94
Lave, Jean. 1997. On Learning. Forum Kritische Psvchologie 38:120-
135.
Lave, Jean and Etienne Wenger. 1991. Situated learning. Legitimate pe-
ripheral participation. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Tolman, Charles. 1994. Psvchologv, societv, and subfectivitv. An intro-
duction to German critical psvchologv. New York: Routledge.
Tolman, Charles and WolIgang Maiers. eds. 1991. Critical psvchologv.
Contbutions to an historical science of the subfect. New York: Cam-
bridge University Press.

95
5. Personal Trajectories of Participation
across Contexts of Social Practice

Summary: In discussions about basic theoretical approaches in a non-Cartesian psy-
chology several candidates Ior a key concept were proposed, such as action, activity,
relation, dialogue and discourse. None oI these concepts, however, suIIiciently
ground psychological theories oI individual subjectivity in social practice. To ac-
complish this we need to conceptualize subjects as participants in structures oI on-
going social practice. In this paper I argue why and address issues oI subjectivity as
encountered by persons in their participation in complex structures oI social practice.
I introduce the concepts oI personal conduct oI liIe and liIe-trajectory as elaborations
oI my theory. And I discuss this theoretical approach and show what is at stake in
developing it by comparing it to similar approaches in the current literature on the
person, selI, and identity.

1. Personal participation in structures of social practice
This paper has a dual background in my prior work. On the one hand,
my prior theoretical work on the concepts oI 'subject and 'personality
led me to argue that theories oI individual subjectivity must be devel-
oped on the basis oI a conception oI persons as participants in social
practice (Dreier, 1993, 1994). On the other hand, concrete studies oI
participants in social practice - such as oI clients` lives in and across the
contexts oI their Iamily, work, school, psychotherapy sessions, etc. -
made me realize how signiIicant it is to ground a theory oI the person on
a conception oI personal participation in structures oI social practice
(Dreier, 1996, 1998, in press). The primary aim oI the present paper is to
elaborate such a theory oI the person.
4
I shall begin by summarizing Iour
crucial arguments why we should adopt 'participation as a key concept.

1. This is an extended version oI a paper delivered at the biannual conIerence oI the International
Society Ior Theoretical Psychology in Berlin 1997 as part oI a Danish session (Dreier, 1999b;
Forchhammer 1999; Hojholt, 1999, Nissen, 1999). Frustration over the restrictions on
96
First, to adopt 'participation as a key concept in a theory oI the per-
son means to conceptualize subjects as always already involved in social
practice. II we acknowledge that individual subjectivity is based on the
potentiality to realize action possibilities (Holzkamp, 1983), we must
also admit that subjects encounter and realize these possibilities as as-
pects oI social contexts oI action in which they take part albeit perhaps in
restricted, problematic and indirect ways. In Iact, most human activity is
only meaningIul because it presupposes a common social practice oI
which it is a part and oI which we have a more or less common under-
standing (Taylor, 1995a). This participatory dimension oI subjects` ac-
tivities is crucial to the quality oI their relationships, their understand-
ings, orientations, Ieelings and thoughts, and it is crucial Ior subjects to
recognize and pursue this communality. In order to direct their activities
subjects must, thereIore, think beyond themselves Irom where they stand
into the structures oI social practice oI which they are a part. And in or-
der to understand subjects` actions, thoughts, and emotions we must
study the ways in which they take part in social practice.
Second, the concept oI participation theorizes individual subjects as
always situated in local contexts oI social practice and involved Irom
there in primarily practical relations with social structures oI practice. It
urges us to consider subjects as particular parts oI a social practice and to
come to understand them by asking what it is they are a part oI and how
they take part in it rather than to theorize them as Iree-Iloating agents lo-
cated nowhere in particular or above ongoing social practice in some
ideational mediation with the community, the culture, or the society.
This is the main diIIerence between adopting participation as a key con-
cept in a theory oI the person instead oI even closely related concepts
such as action, activity, relation, dialogue, or discourse. It is not a crucial
Ieature oI these concepts to understand oI which particular local social
practice the persons are a part. The concrete location oI individual sub-
jects in social practice remains strangely implicit or ambiguous. While
human action, activity, relation, dialogue, and discourse really are part oI
a particular local social practice, these concepts do not ground our com-
prehension oI subjects in the social context in which they obviously are

presenting elaborate theoretical arguments even at a congress Ior theoretical psychology made
me write it.
97
located and theorize them Irom there. Taken by themselves these con-
cepts rather grasp the local practice they actually study as a Iree-Iloating
interchange between people or with an environment.
Third, all individual participation is a partial and particular aspect oI
a social practice. To adopt the concept oI participation as a key concept
in a theory oI the person means to comprehend individual action and
psychological processes as partial phenomena in relation to a social
practice. Individual participants have but a partial grip and inIluence on a
social practice and a particular ability and knowledge about it. No indi-
vidual subject is an omnipotent agent or covers it all. Individual subjec-
tivity is a partial personal aspect oI a social practice. But individual par-
ticipants also play diIIerent parts in a social practice, oIten Irom diIIerent
positions and with diIIerent scopes oI possibilities, concerns, and obliga-
tions. So individual participants are also particular ones, i.e. diverse and
not uniIorm members. They conIigure their participation in social prac-
tice in a particular and partial personal way. Individual subjects orient
themselves and develop their particular abilities and qualities by being
particular parts oI social practices.
Fourth, the Iundamental human duality between acting within the
existing limits oI a social practice and extending its scope oI possibilities
(Holzkamp, 1983) is grounded in a similar duality oI modes oI partici-
pation, i.e. oI participating in the reproduction oI the current state oI aI-
Iairs or oI contributing to change it so that participants may extend their
degree oI disposal over the social practice. By the same token being
critical oI a social practice, at least implicitly, involves an appeal to co-
participants to ally in changing it according to the critique or leave it to
join or Iound other practices. A critic does not stand outside all social
practice, but participates in a particular way. Even an isolated critic
Iighting alone is not located outside social practice, but in particular re-
lations oI isolation and powerlessness in a given social practice.
When we comprehend subjects through their participation in social
practice, we neither consider them to be well-bounded, autonomous units
nor diIIuse them into relations (Gergen, 1995, 1996) or dialogue 'be-
tween people (Shotter, 1996, p. 5) or positions in discourses. While we
maintain that relations and dialogues are grounded both in their partici-
pating subjects and in the social practice in which they take place, we
also see individual subjectivity and social practice as related by grasping
98
the variety oI psychological phenomena as personal aspects oI the
structures oI social practice oI which these persons are a part. Like the
concepts oI action, activity, relation, dialogue, and discourse this con-
ception proposes what Harre (1998), using a Wittgensteinian terminol-
ogy, calls a grammar oI active powers as opposed to a grammar oI (inert)
substances and their qualities. But unlike most psychological theories
which conceptualize human action by means oI purely or primarily indi-
vidual properties, it argues that human actions and their psychological
aspects must be grasped as particular parts oI social practices (cI.
Schatzki, 1997).

2. Social structures of practice
One reason why theories about the person did not conceptualize subjects
as participants in local contexts oI action is that by and large social the-
ory also played down the concrete locatedness oI social practice and Ia-
vored other approaches to the structure oI social practice.
Especially under the inIluence oI nationalist ideas (social theorists) developed
notions oI societies as singular, bounded, and internally integrated, and as
realms in which people were more or less the same. On this basis, a great deal
oI modern social theory came to incorporate prereIlectively the notion that hu-
man beings naturally inhabit only a single world or culture at a time. (Calhoun,
1995, p. 44)
II this really were so, society would be some sort oI container that holds
and inIluences all members in the same way, the relationship between
individuals and social structure would be uniIorm, all members would be
basically uniIorm individuals, and the social structure or the culture
would be uniIormly present everywhere in individuals` lives.
But social practice is not homogenous. It consists oI diverse, located
contextual practices which are linked in a social structure. To capture
this, we need a theory about the social structure oI practice as a set oI
interrelated and diverse, local social contexts oI action.
99
(T)o consider the spatialization oI liIe is to Iill out the context(s) oI social Ior-
mation - our daily and institutional practices, in all their situatedness. (Liggitt &
Perry, 1995, p. 3)
My main purpose in this paper is not to elaborate a theory about the
structure oI social practice with its diverse and interrelated social con-
texts, but to unIold a theory about the person. ThereIore, I shall only
point to some crucial Ieatures which we will need to unIold a theory oI
the person. Obviously, particular local contexts - homes, workplaces, etc.
- may be institutionalized in various ways, and they are oIten structured
Ior particular primary purposes and concerns and marked by particular
power relations oI unequal scopes oI personal participation. In relation to
a particular social context we may Iocus on the practical interrelatedness
oI participants` actions in some particular constellation oI actions which
reproduces or changes the common context in a particular way. And we
may consider how some constellations oI action reach beyond the pre-
sent social context and obtain inIluence on the practice oI other social
contexts as well.
Since social contexts are particular parts oI the structure oI social
practice, no context can be understood by itselI though contextual prac-
tices are mostly studied in this way: one at a time, in isolation, as iI the
context were an island. A social context can only be understood through
its interrelationships - connections as well as separations - with other
contexts in the structure oI social practice. Social contexts depend on
each other in particular ways Ior their reproduction and change. And
they reIer to each other, sometimes in problematic ways. Educational
contexts, Ior instance, reIer to other social contexts Ior which they sup-
posedly educate particular modes oI participation, and they give direc-
tives about what should count as a qualiIied mode oI participation in
those other places.
For a social practice to be reproduced or changed it must be so ar-
ranged that subjects realize some oI these interrelationships and come to
be able to use them. And when individual subjects conIigure their par-
ticipation in these contexts and and direct their trajectories across them,
they must take the structuring oI social practice into particular contexts
into account. They must also rely on the existence oI intercontextual
structures to achieve many oI the ends they pursue. The concrete mean-
100
ing oI a particular context Ior them in many ways depends on its interre-
lationships with other contexts in the structure oI social practice and in
the structure oI their own personal social practice.
A theory about structurally interrelated social contexts makes us
consider in which particular ways particular contexts are involved in the
structure oI social practice and in which particular ways subjects en-
counter and address particular aspects oI this structure through their par-
ticipation in particular contexts. It makes us Iocus on the structuring oI
social conditions as contextual arrangements Ior participants` social
practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Social contexts are arranged Ior par-
ticular social practices and particular modes oI participation. Particular
groups oI participants have access to them or are excluded Irom them in
particular ways. And social contexts may be arranged Ior particular tra-
jectories oI participation in them and through them, e.g. by virtue oI an
internal structure oI divisions and stations or an array oI social contexts
Ior the unIolding oI personal liIe-trajectories with transitions and
changing constellations oI personal social practice and conIigurations oI
personal signiIicance.
Compared to earlier historical times, present social practices are less
conIined to particular places and limited areas. Places and practices are
more interlinked. People - not only inIormation - move around in them
and through them. This historical shiIt is mostly celebrated as an ab-
straction Irom place and interpreted as the negation oI being bound to a
place (e.g. Giddens, 1991). But what we actually see are interlinked local
contextual practices partaking in more comprehensive practices and peo-
ple moving around in them and across them creating direct and indirect
links between these practices Ior themselves and others. To think about
this as a uniIorm relationship between local practice and the overall
structure is not accurate. Local practices are related to the overall struc-
ture in varying ways depending on which comprehensive inIluences
make a diIIerence in them and on the particular comprehensive reach
Irom them.
Numerous social theorists go along with the abstraction Irom place
which Giddens holds to be characteristic oI modernity (1991, p. 146).
They conIuse being situated with being situation-bound and argue Ior the
rise oI a 'disembedding Irom place which they conceptualize like the
well-known notion oI abstraction as a detachment Irom any particular
101
place into an ideational nowhere. In so doing they loose sight oI the Iact
that individual subjects always act in a situated, embodied way Irom
deIinite time-space locations as participants in local social contexts -
even when their actions reach across translocal or global, deIinite or in-
deIinite time-space distances. Whatever we may think oI the process oI
globalization which overwhelms many oI these authors, and regardless
oI how much some subjects travel around the globe, it does not Iollow
that subjects` personal social practice really is global. On the contrary, it
keeps on being situated in and across particular locations, i.e. translocal,
no matter how scattered the particular locations are in which subjects
take part.
On the whole social theorists do not conceptualize boundaries and
diversities in the structure oI social practice in primarily practical terms.
They see them as primarily Iunctional distinctions, based on the division
oI labor, institutions, etc.. When they analyze the personal signiIicance
oI participating in a particular context, they, thereIore, subsume it to the
societal Iunction which they presume that the particular context IulIills.
Even a theorist oI social practice such as Bourdieu categorizes and de-
Iines social Iields (art, economy, power, etc.) according to the diIIerent
Iunctions they are assumed to serve as units in a division oI labor (e.g.
Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). Thereby he subsumes the signiIicance oI
the socio-spatial arrangement oI social practice and oI members` partici-
pation in it to a secondary and derivative status. Some theorists try to get
away Irom a kind oI social theory which is dominated by a notion about
an overall socio-structural determination. One example is Strauss (1993)
who tries to achieve this by introducing a concept oI social world. Yet he
does not deIine social worlds as an interrelated set oI places Ior partici-
pating in the structure oI social practice, but merely as groups oI people
with shared commitments to certain activities, shared resources and ide-
ologies. Social worlds have no places in the world, it seems. It doesn`t
matter where these social worlds oI groups and their interactions are lo-
cated and which particular relations they have to the structure oI social
practice. Other theorists conceptualize social practice as a duality be-
tween an overall system and an everyday liIeworld (e.g. Habermas,
1987; Holzkamp, 1983) with matching bipolar modes oI practice and
understanding (Kleinman, 1995). But 'the everyday is certainly no
longer, iI it ever was, one homogenous world in which immovable per-
102
sons are located. Such an abstraction prevents us Irom unIolding a diI-
Ierentiated theory about the structures oI personal social practices in and
across diverse social contexts.
In and around psychology notions about context are becoming more
widespread. But they are not clearly directed at conceptualizing the
structure oI social practice and subjects` situated participation in it. In-
stead the concept oI context Iunctions as a placeholder Ior the lack oI a
systematic grasp on the relationship between persons and structures oI
social practice. For instance Markus & Herzog characterize 'the relation
between the individual and the social world by stating:
Each person is embedded within a variety oI sociocultural contexts or cultures
(e.g., country or region oI origin, ethnicity, religion, gender, Iamily, birth co-
hort, proIession). (Markus & Herzog, 1995, p. 39)
They simply list a number oI diverse phenomena which are not inte-
grated into a systematic theoretical understanding oI social practice. The
list rather continues the tradition oI homogenizing all sorts oI social di-
versities which we recognize Irom the way role theorists shuIIle all sorts
oI diIIerences into roles or the psychology oI variables mounts all sorts
oI arbitrary variables. Another example is Burkitt who criticizes social
constructionists oI the Wittgensteinean branch (oI whom he mentions
Harre and Shotter) because
... their theories tend to stop short oI a study oI the contexts oI linguistic practice
and remain Iirmly within the bonds oI conversation. ... (T)hey have not yet been
able adequately to theorize the practical contexts in which language and conver-
sation may be enveloped and developed. In contrast, what I am suggesting here
is that because there is something beyond the text, a social context in which lan-
guage and texts play their part, then these are equally important in the way that
selves are Iormed and also conceptualized (Mead, 1934). People are located not
just in texts but also in social relations and practices: the elemental Iorms oI
context`. (Burkitt, 1994, p. 15)
Burkitt ends up abstracting social context Irom its local materiality and
dissolving it into social relations instead oI taking the study oI language
into local social practices as Hanks (1990, 1996) does.

103
3. A complex subjectivity in a complex social practice
In the Iirst section we argued why we must conceptualize individual
subjects as participants in a local social context with particular positions,
social relationships, scopes oI possibilities and personal concerns Ior
them. The second section shows why we need to complement this notion
in one important respect: In the social structures oI modern societies
subjects take part in more than one social context oI action. They partici-
pate Ior longer or shorter stretches oI time, on a regular or one-time basis
and Ior various reasons in a diverse set oI social contexts. In the conduct
oI their lives they move across these contexts. Personal social practice is
translocal. Hence we must recombine categories oI psychology and so-
cial theory so as to conceptualize subjects as participants in structures oI
social practice. A theory about subjects in social practice must conceptu-
alize how subjects become able to manage to take part in heterogeneous
social contexts. It must include subjects` changing personal modes oI
participation and diverse potentialities. It must replace notions about an
abstract, individual agency with a contextual understanding oI their per-
sonal modes oI participation and potentialities. And it must consider a
complex and varied personal social practice to be enriching and not only
a burden, in contrast to traditional theories oI the subject which, iI they
do at all acknowledge multiple personal participations, implicitly assume
that it is a burden Ior subjects not to live a simple liIe in one homoge-
nous world (Dreier, 1993).
As subjects move across contexts their modes oI participation vary
because these diverse contexts embody particular positions, social rela-
tionships, scopes oI possibilities, and personal concerns Ior them. Hence
they must act, think, and Ieel in Ilexible ways. Their conduct can be no
mere execution oI schemata, procedures and rules. Subjects rather need
to interpret and locate standards and rules in order to include them in
concrete situated action (Taylor, 1995b), and a subject`s behavior oIten
gets its meaning by intentionally diIIering Irom such standards. This pre-
supposes that subjects are basically able to relate to their social circum-
stances and discourses in various ways, to exert inIluence upon them, to
be critical oI them, to contribute to their change, etc. (Holzkamp, 1983).
And it calls on us to theorize subjects` changing modes oI participation
and diverse potentialities. Theories oI personality mostly operate with
104
notions about a Iixed internal structure oI traits, goals, liIe plans, needs,
or the like while we need to conceptualize complexly changing subjec-
tive structures in structures oI social practice. Most personality theorists
also insist that individual integration or coherence is the basic hallmark
and achievement oI personality, selIhood, and identity. But they do not
convincingly ground the practical necessity, possibility and reasons Ior
this basic need and achievement (Dreier, 1993). They rather stipulate it.
Certainly subjects need to relate their various practices and concerns Ior
primarily practical personal reasons, but that does not necessarily entail
that they reach a complete personal integration or coherence. Such a
stipulation underestimates the complexity oI personal social practice and
the robustness oI those social diversities which give subjects good rea-
sons to participate in diverse ways and lead multidimensional lives. It
can, thereIore, come as no surprise that such a state seems easier to
imagine in others whom we admire, blame, or don`t know too well and
harder to recognize in ourselves.
In their present context subjects participate in a particular way com-
pared to their modes oI participation in other contexts. This is because
that oI which they are now a part and their position and personal scope
oI participation are diIIerent. Their concerns also oIten diIIer Irom the
ones they direct at other contexts. In Iact, some concerns they usually
pursue in particular places and not (at all or in the same way) in other
places. To participate Iully in the present context also presupposes suit-
able abilities Ior its particular social practice and knowledge about its or-
ganization into social positions, modes oI access and exclusion, distribu-
tion oI authority and tasks, arrangement oI normal procedures, as well as
about concerns oI other participants to be taken into account.
But the particular way subjects conIigure their participation in the
present context does not depend on that context alone. Since social con-
texts are interrelated in the structure oI social practice and since subjects
conduct their lives by taking part in several contexts, these interrelations
and subjects` concerns in other contexts matter to them. Their reasons to
participate in a particular way in the present context are also related in
various ways to their concerns in other parts oI their lives in other con-
texts. Their local modes oI participation are thus not only grounded in
the immediate context. Subjects may even do what they do in the present
context in order to achieve certain ends or changes in another context.
105
OIten subjects have something on their mind in the present context
which they need to pursue and want to pursue across contexts. Many
concerns can only be realized by being pursued across contexts, utilizing
possibilities which cut across and bridge contextual boundaries oI time
and place. Still, while subjects pursue these concerns across contexts,
their modes oI pursuing them change because their contextual scopes oI
participation change and/or because other Ieatures oI these concerns
matter more to them in other contexts.
When subjects address comprehensive concerns and issues Irom a
particular context, their involvement is not complete and all-covering. It
is a particular and partial one. AIter all, comprehensive issues do not
have the same impact in diverse contexts, and these contexts are not im-
plicated in the comprehensive issues in the same way. In locating and
conIiguring their involvement in comprehensive issues subjects, there-
Iore, need to consider the particular reach oI their involvement iI they
address the issue Irom the present context as compared to Irom other op-
tional contexts, and they need to consider that others may be addressing
similar concerns and issues Irom other contexts, in common, diIIerent or
contrary ways.
When subjects move Irom one context into another, their structure oI
personal relevance changes. Which particular structure oI social condi-
tions matters Ior them depends on their present location. Strauss (1993,
p. 42) suggests that we construct a conditional matrix to depict the whole
structure oI social conditions Ior, say, a particular person Irom the nar-
rower, more directly impacting conditions to the broader, more indirect
ones. But, I would argue, that structure only remains the same as long as
the subject stays on a Iixed location. As soon as the subject moves into
other contexts, the matrix would have to be redrawn. The idea oI a Iixed
matrix oI structural conditions presupposes an immovable subject or an
homogenous world. Likewise, which social relations would be direct and
which indirect ones (Calhoun, 1995) shiIts as the subject moves into
other places. Social relations can only be direct in relation to a particular
place, and they can only be indirect because they cut across places Irom
a particular place.
Comprehensive social diversities, such as race, class, gender, and
ethnicity, are encountered in diIIerent ways and have diIIerent meanings
in diIIerent contexts. Their Ieatures appear and are addressed in varying
106
constellations alongside varying other dimensions oI meaning in diIIer-
ent contexts. Co-variations oI these Ieatures challenge and guide subjects
to grasp how they are interrelated in complex conIigurations oI racial,
class, gender, and ethnic issues. It is relevant Ior subjects to grasp this
complexity in Iinding out how to address these complex issues in par-
ticular contexts and how to achieve impacts on them in other times and
places.
A contextual practice includes several participants on diverse posi-
tions with diverse perspectives on it. Their personal perspectives also
diIIer because this context is a diIIerent part in their overall personal so-
cial practices, and because they pursue diIIerent concerns in it. Partici-
pation in social practice, oI course, involves processes oI understanding,
orientation and coordination between co-participants in a particular so-
cial context and between co-travelers across them. The understanding
between participants and the interpersonal dimension oI personal under-
standings draw upon the basic possibility oI understanding others by
putting oneselI in somebody else`s place, that is, by transposing one`s
perspective onto their location and position. What is more, contextual
practices and particular participants` positions in them become contested
because they are riveted by various social conIlicts and contradictions.
The diverse perspectives and conIlicts may both complicate understand-
ings and propel a better and richer personal understanding oI the context
and oI individual participants` part in them.
All this in no way eliminates the need Ior the personal 'dialogues
with oneselI which we call reIlection. In Iact, dialogues between people
in many ways Ieed personal dialogues and vice versa. For a variety oI
reasons the complexity oI personal social practice calls Ior varied, com-
plex and multidimensional personal reIlections. Persons` multiple par-
ticipations and concerns call on them to address the interrelationships
between them. They must relate, weigh, balance oII, and contrast their
diverse participations and concerns in their complex personal social
practice. And they must reconsider and reconIigure them as they move
Irom one context into another. Because their participations and concerns
are interrelated, this involves complex probings oI realities and selI-un-
derstandings.
Such personal reIlections unIold by relating diverse experiences
Irom diverse participations in diverse times and places. Our personal ex-
107
periences and our reIlections upon them are part oI a multiIaceted per-
sonal social practice. Indeed, the very multiplicity oI participations in di-
verse contexts allows us to reIlect on their commonalties and contrasts,
and these reIlections on commonalties and contrasts enable us to reach
broader and richer understandings oI the complex interrelationships in
social practice and in our personal social practice. In other words, it is
not primarily experiences Irom within one context, but particularly the
varied and diverse experiences Irom diverse contexts that Iuel our per-
sonal reIlections. Being a Iull participant in one context, in Iact, easily
makes us overgeneralize our understanding Irom that context onto other
contexts. AIter all, contextual practices are diverse, they rest on diverse
premises, and we pursue diverse concerns in them. Being a Iull member
oI one particular practice makes us understand that practice, our own
concerns, and other practices Irom our position in that context. We then
easily Iorget what it involves and what it Ieels like to take part in other
contexts oI a diIIerent kind. This peculiarity oI being a Iull participant in
one particular context in a social structure oI heterogeneous practices in-
dicates that it is signiIicant Ior our understandings and reIlections that we
take part in several, diverse contexts and that comparisons across these
contexts play a signiIicant role in our reIlections.
OIten there is also a kind oI 'core blindness (Lave & Wenger,
1991) associated with (mainly) being a Iull participant in a particular
context so that we easily take Ior granted and no longer see particular
key premises and Iunctionalities oI that social practice. We may break
with this core blindness by participating in other, contrasting contextual
practices and by contrasting and comparing experiences Irom these di-
verse positions. In some sense the concept oI core blindness plays a
similar role in a contextual theory oI social practice as the concept oI
habitus does in Bourdieu`s theory oI social practice (Bourdieu & Wac-
quant, 1992). One important diIIerence is that in a contextual theory oI
social practice the cross-contextual diversity oI personal social practice
allows persons a leeway oI reIlection and change in relation to their core
blindnesses which remains ambiguous and doubtIul in Bourdieu`s over-
arching culturalist notion oI habitus, and that there are several, distinct
and interrelated, core blindnesses in the social practice oI the same per-
son and in a given society.
108
We cannot complete our personal reIlection once and Ior all, nor
relegate it to a particular - secluded - place. The heterogeneous, chang-
ing, and interrelated qualities oI personal social practice makes persons
reIlect in diIIerent times and places triggered by the complexities and
variations oI their personal social practice. These personal reIlections are
a part oI our personal liIe-trajectories (see section 4 below). They are in-
timately and variously related to our orientation and realization oI our
participations in structures oI social practice. In the course oI our trajec-
tory oI participation we re-Ilect, i.e. re-consider, re-evaluate, and re-con-
Iigure our participations and concerns in the changing composition oI
our personal social practice in and across varying constellations oI social
contexts. We also re-Ilect and re-conIigure our primary concerns in rela-
tion to those oI others in hitherto un-re-cognized ways. Phenomena and
events are re-cognized on the basis oI changing premises so that other
aspects oI meaning and other possibilities and interrelationships are
Ioregrounded.
Dialogues between people and with ourselves may be related in
problematic ways, but basically spur each other on. There is a common
Ieature to both oI them on which they both rest and thrive: They both
work by contrasting and comparing transposed perspectives though this
is oIten not recognized in theories about internal dialogues. In both we
see and compare things Irom diIIerent locations in personal social prac-
tice(s). In this sense Calhoun points to Bakhtin`s understanding oI the
modern novel as
... a reIlection oI a human capacity to carry on an interior dialogue, indeed the
constitution oI the human being through this dialogicality. (Calhoun, 1995, p.
50; see also Holzkamp, 1995 and Leudar, Thomas, NcNally & Glinski, 1997).
Our approach to reIlection takes it back into complex personal social
practice in liIe-trajectories and allows us to conceive oI personal and in-
terpersonal reIlection and dialogue along similar lines. In neither case is
reIlection a distancing Irom the world, but seeing things Irom the per-
spectives oI diIIerent locations and positions, be it my own perspectives
in other contexts or others` perspectives in our common or other con-
texts. In contrast to this understanding oI reIlection, its classical root
metaphor draws on the separation between manual and mental labor, on
109
thinkers secluding themselves - in barrels iI need be. It assumes that
gnostic distance` (Holzkamp, 1983) is the condition oI possibility Ior re-
Ilection. In our analysis to be at a distance rather means to be somewhere
else, not outside oI everything in the privileged nowhere oI pure thought
a notion which would blind us to the social qualities oI knowledge and
its part in social practice. Diversity oI practices and perspectives replaces
distance as the key condition oI possibility Ior reIlection. The interrelat-
edness oI practical diversities allows us a notion oI reIlection which un-
Iolds on an horizontal axis, so to speak, and not on a vertical metaphor oI
a higher level liIting itselI oII the ground oI practice. The second order
volitions, assumed by a split level theory oI the selI (FrankIurt, 1971), do
not constitute a Iixed level in a stable hierarchy, but a complex and
shiIting constellation oI contrasting and comparing which may lead to
generalizations based on perspectives Irom local participations.
I have argued that we need to theorize how subjects compose and
structure their complex personal social practices in the structures oI their
ongoing social practice with its relations to speciIic others, speciIic
commitments, speciIic places, speciIic organizations oI rhythms oI ac-
tivity, etc.. In order to accomplish this, subjects must develop and adopt
personal stances on what they take part in, do, and want. They must Iind
premises oI action which reach across and relate their participations in
diIIerent times and places. They must make up their minds so as not to
trip themselves and each other up in their diverse participations and con-
cerns and, thus, get stuck or prevent the achievement oI other important
ends. Such stances may, oI course, be more or less clariIied or conIused
and more or less ad hoc or long-term. To adopt stances also means to
take sides in the conIlicts and contradictions oI social practice.
The development oI the Irame oI analysis I present in this paper led
me to distinguish between personal locations, positions, and stances
(Dreier, 1993, 1994). By location I mean the particular place in the world
where a subject presently is in a particular context and Irom where the
personal perspective reaches into the world. It marks the concrete situat-
edness oI personal practice. By position I mean the particular social po-
sition which a subject occupies in the present social context. Evidently,
both location and position change when the subject moves into other
contexts. II we only operate with concepts about locations and positions,
however, we loose our theoretical grounds to address issues about how
110
subjects relate to these locations and positions, weigh and balance them
oII, make up their minds and take sides in issues concerning them, aIIirm
and critique them, and contribute to reproduce and change them. We are
leIt with an impersonal and deterministic notion oI subjects in social
practice. To allow us to reIlect these personal aspects in theoretical terms
we need a third concept oI personal stances. By stances I mean the
standpoints a subject comes to adopt on its complex personal social
practice, on that oI which it is a part, and on its participations in it.
This concept oI personal stances is not tied to a particular, homoge-
nous practice out oI which a particular set oI perspectives are generalized
into particular personal standpoints. On the contrary, it is grounded in the
complex, heterogeneous, and contradictory character oI personal social
practice. Stances are elaborated by contrasting and comparing under-
standings and orientations Irom diverse local participations and con-
cerns. These understandings and orientations are re-Ilected, re-consid-
ered, and re-combined. In this way particular understandings are gener-
alized which orient the person`s participation in its complex personal so-
cial practice in and across diverse social contexts. Stances are grounded
in the person`s complex and diverse participations, and directed at ori-
enting the person`s participations in and across - more or less compre-
hensive reaches oI - social contexts. Stances do not (primarily) rest on
some - imported - pregiven higher grounds. Making up one`s mind and
taking a stance rather occurs by relating and comparing on a shiIting set
oI premises taken Irom the very same components which are thus related
and compared. The generalizing oI stances is composed, and the relating
and comparing oI contrasts play a key role in their identiIication.
Stances develop and sustain an orientation Ior subjects in the struc-
tures oI their complex, ongoing, personal social practice. This concept
emphasizes the practical anchoring and consequences oI personal reIlec-
tion. Stances are Iirst oI all necessary precisely because oI the complexly
heterogeneous character oI social practice and oI persons` participations
in it. They rest on and guide a person`s multiple involvements in multi-
ple practices with crosscutting concerns and issues oI an oIten conIlict-
ing and contested nature. The development oI personal stances, there-
Iore, draws on the existing interrelationships between social contexts in
the structure oI social practice. As we pointed out in section 2, particular
contexts depend on each other and reIer to each other in the structure oI
111
social practice. Subjects need to consider these dependencies and reIer-
ences when they conIigure their personal modes oI participation in and
across them and when they unIold their selective personal realizations oI
contextual participations. They have to make up their minds on how to
take part in these interrelated social contexts and relate their participa-
tions in them. In so doing they may become critical oI particular ways to
relate these practices, and turn into critical members oI or withdraw Irom
some oI these contexts. Still it is not possible to integrate all diversities
oI social practice and supersede them into a personal standpoint. The di-
versities persist in the structure oI social practice, and it may be impor-
tant and necessary Ior the person to take account oI and sustain diverse
qualities in its personal social practice. The person may have to balance
them oII in ways that bracket one or the other pole oI such diversities.
But oIten it is, indeed, the very existence oI contrasts which gives each
oI the poles their particular personal signiIicance and qualities to be sus-
tained.
In diverse social contexts personal stances are pursued by means oI
diIIerent modes oI participation. They too are no generalized schemata to
be executed rigidly in an identical way, but in ways Iitted to the contexts
in which the person is presently located, to its relations to other relevant
contexts, and to the modes oI participation oI other co-participants. Thus,
stances guide persons in their transitions between diverse contexts so
that they may reorient themselves and redirect their activities according
to their concerns in the present context, but also so as to keep on pursu-
ing particular concerns and stances across contexts. Stances guide sub-
jects to act Ilexibly without turning into chameleons.
Let me round oII this section by pointing out that my argument con-
cerning the concept oI personal stances or standpoints is similar to Cal-
houn`s critique oI Dorothy Smith`s Ieminist standpoint theory (e.g.
Smith, 1987) when he states:
The core idea oI standpoint theory is that a determinate social structural position
will create conditions Ior learning Irom experience that will be epistemologi-
cally privileged in producing certain sorts oI knowledge. ... On the one hand, the
idea oI standpoint is rooted in the notion oI concrete experiencing subjects. On
the other hand, the idea oI standpoint employs a categorial logic to analyze po-
sitions in social structure. (Calhoun, 1995, p. 171)
112
Calhoun points out that categories oI observation and reasoning are thus
abstracted Irom social structure and women`s experiences essentialized,
and he continues by quoting Harding:
Some thinkers have assumed that standpoint theories and other kinds oI justiIi-
cations oI Ieminist knowledge claims must be grounded in women`s experi-
ences. The terms women`s standpoint` and women`s perspective` are oIten
used interchangeably, and women`s perspective` suggests the actual perspec-
tive oI actual women - what they can in Iact see. ... For a position to count as a
standpoint, rather than as a claim ... we must insist on an objective location -
women`s lives - as the place Irom which Ieminist research should begin.
(Harding, 1991, p. 123, quoted in Calhoun, 1995, p. 172)
Note that, according to Smith, standpoints are grounded in actual sub-
jects, i.e. in located experiences, and that experiences are recognized to
diIIer according to the socio-structural position which a subject occupies.
But experiences seem to turn into standpoints already by virtue oI the
subject`s occupation oI a particular social position. It is as iI a standpoint
simply Iollows Irom occupying that particular socio-structural position
and, thus, Irom being a member oI a particular socio-structural cate-
gory/population. The combination oI experience and position seems to
determine a standpoint. So Smith does not distinguish suIIiciently be-
tween position and standpoint. This shows us what is at stake in distin-
guishing between them. II we do not draw that distinction, all persons
who share a particular position, i.e. who are members oI a particular so-
cial category oI persons, are believed to adopt a particular common
standpoint on social practice and their participation in it. But certainly
diverse standpoints can be drawn Irom similar positions, among other
things because everybody occupy multiple, diverse, interrelated and in-
tersecting positions in the course oI their personal social practice in the
structures oI social practice. The important issue oI how persons come to
terms with interrelated and intersecting diversities by elaborating par-
ticular stances on how to conduct their lives in such social structures oI
practice is bypassed.

113
4. The personal conduct of life and life-trajectory
Our arguments so Iar about complex personal practice in complex
structures oI social practice have a number oI consequences Ior the
elaboration oI our theoretical Iramework. In this section we shall intro-
duce two conceptual elaborations. We have emphasized that a liIe in di-
verse social contexts and across them implies a multiIaceted, varied, di-
verse and contrasting personal practice which raises particular personal
diIIiculties, challenges, and conIlicts, but also provides practical re-
sources Ior a rich liIe. These diversities and complexities cannot easily
be balanced oII against each other, nor resolved once and Ior all in an in-
dividual synthesis as traditional psychological notions oI personal inte-
gration and coherence would have it. On the contrary, everybody must
develop particular skills to handle a complex liIe in diverse contexts and
across them, and it calls Ior particular activities and abilities to manage
the diverse and interrelated participations and concerns across contexts.
The complexity and diversity raises personal conIlicts between one`s
concerns and participations in various contexts which intersect with the
conIlicts within speciIic contexts. These conIlicts raise personal issues oI
critique and change and turn personal stances into dynamic ones, siding
Ior or against change. Contradictions and conIlicts play an important role
in personal practice and development (Dreier, 1993; Holzkamp, 1983;
Osterkamp, 1990) which most personality theories whitewash with their
harmonizing notions about individual integration, coherence, a stable
structure oI goals, needs, liIe-plans, or whatever.
By presupposing a homogenous and unitary liIe traditional psycho-
logical theories oI personality neglect the Iundamental personal com-
plexity oI composing a personal social practice in diverse social contexts
and across them (Dreier, 1993, 1994). Persons, in so doing, must relate
their diverse participations in diverse social contexts, but these interrela-
tions necessarily remain problematic since the diversities and conIlicts oI
social practice and the complexity oI conducting a personal social prac-
tice can not be resolved simply by Iorming a personal synthesis. The
structuration oI a complex personal practice remains tied to and can only
be accomplished in relation to a complex, heterogenous, and contradic-
tory structure oI social practice. Issues related to these complexities call
on the person to develop personal stances with which to relate the vari-
114
ous personal participations and concerns in order not, at one time and
place, to act in ways which are blatantly harmIul to one`s concerns in
other times and places and to one`s overall social existence. But even
though it is necessary to elaborate and pursue such stances, they too must
be realized in diverse ways depending on the particular concerns and
possibilities, positions and constellations oI participation in various con-
texts. We must, thereIore, locate the Ioundation oI personality in the
structuration oI personal participations in the structure oI social practice.
We can now see that not only the issue oI personal integration and
coherence is at stake here. Persons are Iirst oI all Iaced with the practical
problems oI conducting a complex personal practice in complex struc-
tures oI social practice. Such a complex personal liIe does not unIold in
any simple and unproblematic way. Its movement does not, so to speak,
take care oI itselI. It must be composed, and subjects must conduct it in
various ways and to various degrees. It takes particular eIIorts to do so
which are crucial to what it means to be a person living in a complex so-
cial practice. Indeed, we argue that we should ground our theoretical un-
derstanding oI the Iormation and development oI personality in the ne-
cessities and challenges oI participating in such a structure oI social
practice (Dreier, 1993). In this vein Holzkamp (1995) picks up the con-
cept oI conduct oI liIe Irom the work oI a group oI sociologists in Mu-
nich (Jurczyk & Rerrich, 1993) and reinterprets it into a basic concept in
our theoretical understanding oI personality. It is argued that the com-
plex structure oI everyday personal social practice turns the development
oI a personal conduct oI liIe into a crucial Ieature oI what it takes and
means to be a person. In a social practice with complex time-space ar-
rangements and rhythms oI activities persons must conduct their every-
day lives by relating, ordering, combining, balancing oII, coordinating,
and contrasting their various activities in various contexts and with vari-
ous others. How persons unIold their everyday conduct oI liIe, oI course,
depends on their degree oI inIluence on the social conditions and ar-
rangements they live in and on the way in which they address and realize
the challenges and problems oI conducting it.
OI course, structures oI social practice develop historically. Some
sociologists argue that the change Irom traditional to modern societies
involved a 'pluralization oI liIeworlds which became 'more diverse and
segmented so that 'individuals typically move between diIIerent mi-
115
lieus or locales in the course oI their everyday liIe (Giddens, 1991, p.
83, with a reIerence to Berger, Berger & Kelner, 1974). In a similar vain,
Jurczyk & Rerrich (1993, pp. 26-7) argue that we can observe histori-
cally increasing demands at the organization oI 1) time, 2) tasks, chores,
and contents oI activities, and 3) social relationships. This increases the
demands which individuals Iace in their conduct oI everyday liIe and
which groups oI participants, say the members oI a Iamily, Iace in con-
ducting their liIe in common along with other parts oI their lives apart in
other places. Some authors conceptualize these historically changing re-
lations as a matter oI more complex demands being raised at individuals,
and some conceptualize changing Iorms oI individuality as iI they were
determined by these changed structures oI conditions and demands. But
such social changes mean more than that. They evidently imply changes
in the Iorms oI personal practice and in the abilities which persons need
to develop in order to become Iull participants in such Iorms oI social
practice. So these socio-historical changes call on us to readdress theo-
ries oI the subject and Iorms oI personhood into an historicized under-
standing oI the particular qualities, abilities, and Iorms oI personhood in
historical Iorms oI social practice in which issues concerning the devel-
opment oI a personal conduct oI liIe have gained particular prominence
and qualities. They also call on us to address a range oI speciIic histori-
cal challenges and problems to being a person.
For instance, in complex Iorms oI social practice it is deeply prob-
lematic in speciIic historical ways to have one`s participation constrained
to a small number oI social contexts, or to have one`s possibilities to
pursue concerns in relation to some contexts so constrained that only one
social context holds possibilities to pursue basically meaningIul con-
cerns. OIten, then, even the participations and concerns oI the remaining
context(s) may loose their personal meaning because their personal
meaning is bound up in a, socio-structurally arranged, composition oI
personal social practice which reaches across several signiIicant contexts
and holds possibilities to pursue important concerns in and across them.
Just like contexts are no islands, personal participations and concerns are
Iueled by being interrelated into a composition oI personal participation
and concerns across them. The personal meaning oI participating in one
particular context in important ways matters and stands out precisely be-
cause it is linked with and contrasts with the meaning oI taking part in
116
other social contexts with other qualities. Being excluded or constrained
in relation to signiIicant aspects oI the existing complex contextual
structure oI social practice means to be personally constrained in crucial
ways in relation to those Iorms oI personal social practice which it is
historically possible and meaningIul to unIold.
However, a concept oI the everyday conduct oI liIe is not suIIicient
to theorize the basic complexity oI personal social practice in the struc-
ture oI social practice and the challenges driving the Iormation oI per-
sonality. We also need a concept oI personal liIe-trajectory to theorize
how individual liIe-courses stretch across social time and space. Just as
everyday personal social practice stretches across social contexts, so
does the personal course oI liIe. The Ilow oI the liIe-course also has a
spatial dimension to it. Across the liIe-span the person participates in a
changing conIiguration oI particular social contexts, and the person
composes these changing contextual participations into a personal liIe-
trajectory. In the course oI this trajectory the person leaves some con-
texts behind, replaces them by others, and even the personal signiIicance
oI those contexts the person takes part in on a long-term basis changes.
Holzkamp (1995) characterizes the conduct oI everyday liIe by an inter-
nal polarity between a set oI cyclical routines Ior realizing what must be
done and 'the real liIe rising Irom its routine grounds. But aside Irom
this internal tension in the everyday conduct oI liIe, its structure oI con-
textual participations is not completely static. On the contrary, the eve-
ryday conduct oI liIe is broken up and changed, among other things be-
cause it is involved in the liIe-trajectory oI the person at a particular
'point in its course. The structure oI the everyday conduct oI liIe
changes as part oI the changing structure oI the liIe-trajectory, and the
changing structure oI the liIe-trajectory is brought about, among other
things by changing the everyday conduct oI liIe. The liIe-course, then, is
not merely projected into the Iuture, so to speak on an abstract dimension
oI time, but also across places oI present and Iuture participations that do
not remain the same. The liIe-course is both thrown ahead and across. I
chose the term trajectory to emphasize the neglected spatial dimension in
this duality oI projecting and transjecting.
As in the personal conduct oI liIe, there is also a historical dimen-
sion to the composition oI liIe-trajectories. Particular historical arrange-
ments, such as the development oI intimate, private Iorms oI Iamily liIe,
117
inIluence the conIiguration oI personal liIe-trajectories, their structure oI
meaning, and hence the structuration oI personhood. In a historical per-
spective liIe-trajectories have turned into less predetermined and pre-
shaped molds so that the Iashioning oI trajectories calls Ior more per-
sonal shaping, becomes more individualized, and calls Ior individual la-
bor` (Jurczyk & Rerrich, 1993). This gives new weight and new qualities
to the issues which surround the personal conIiguration oI a complexly
contextualized liIe-trajectory. Yet, social arrangements Ior evolving per-
sonal liIe-trajectories still exist, and observing how others unIold their
trajectories in particular ways plus advice Irom others guides or mis-
guides persons in how to realize their own personal trajectory. In other
words, the unIolding oI a personal trajectory is still arranged Ior in
many, historically speciIic ways.
For instance, school is a particular institutional context with a par-
ticular signiIicance in the students` composition oI a conduct oI liIe
across their various contexts which encompasses particular personal re-
lationships and meanings. At the same time, school is arranged Ior a
particular population which is obliged to participate in it Ior a particular
period in their liIe-trajectory. What is more, school is arranged Ior par-
ticular age- and track-graded trajectories through it. And through the stu-
dents` particular modes oI participation school polarizes them and the
students polarize themselves by adopting and developing particular po-
sitions and stances and by staking out particular (pro- and transjected)
liIe-trajectories Ior themselves in relation to the institutionally prear-
ranged molds oI educational trajectories and their presumed place and
signiIicance in personal liIe-trajectories. The students re-appropriate
such existing institutional landscapes Ior personal trajectories to become
particular vehicles in their composition and orientation oI a personal liIe-
trajectory (cI. Eckert, 1989). In so doing, they also use the arrangement
oI age- and track-grading to deIine where they are at in their trajectory.
In institutional arrangements Ior trajectories transitions in liIe-tra-
jectories with their necessary processes oI personal reorientation may
also arranged Ior. These transitions must be accomplished in relation to
the existing social structure oI practice (cI. Hojholt, 1999), and they may
also be guided or misguided by observations oI others and advice Irom
others,
118
Some contexts are long-term parts in a person`s trajectory while oth-
ers are one-oII places and still others are part oI a person`s trajectory Ior
a particular period and then abandoned or replaced by new contexts. In
this way the personal structure oI participations across contexts changes
during the liIe-trajectory. What is more, the personal meaning and con-
cerns in relation to particular contexts the person keeps participating in
also changes. And so does the way the personal participations and con-
cerns are composed, ordered, distributed, balanced oII, and weighed in
reconIiguring one`s personal conduct oI liIe across the current constella-
tion oI diverse contexts. The dilemmas and stakes oI conducting a com-
plex liIe-trajectory change along with it. II we look at the signiIicance oI
a particular context and at the mode oI participation in it, it too changes
and is reconIigured through the liIe-trajectory. So particular contexts diI-
Ier in their arranged scopes and relevances, in which concerns and
stances persons want to pursue in them and across them, and all this
Iurthermore depends on a particular context`s place in that person`s con-
duct oI liIe and liIe-trajectory.
There are class, gender, and ethnic diIIerences concerning which so-
cial contexts are accessible and used and concerning the spread or re-
striction on the constellation oI social contexts in a personal conduct oI
liIe and liIe-trajectory (cI. Eckert, 1989). There are also class, gender,
and ethnic diIIerences in the ways in which persons combine or discon-
nect contexts in their conIiguration oI social relationships and concerns.
For instance, experiences with public institutions and authorities contrib-
ute to particular modes oI disconnecting and linking contexts.
It should have become apparent by now that comprehensive proc-
esses oI learning are involved in the unIolding and change oI a personal
conduct oI liIe and liIe-trajectory. This learning is in principle unending
and calls Ior many Iorms oI reconsideration and re-learning, but we can
not go into the topic oI learning in this paper (cI. Dreier, 1999a; Lave,
1997). Instead we shall round oII this section by pointing out that when
persons project their trajectories Irom any given point in them, it is com-
posed oI a particular structure oI participations and concerns. The sense
oI direction to a trajectory, thereIore, has a particular cross-contextual
complexity and composition to it. What persons mean by Iinding a di-
rection to their lives, normally not only means what they aspire to be part
oI in one context, but a particular 'throwout Ior a Iuture composition oI
119
their conduct oI liIe with attached modes oI participation and concerns.
When a person misses something or aspires to a change in his or her liIe,
mostly what is involved is not only a change in one context. Directly or
indirectly it is a change in the overall composition oI personal practice
with its interrelationships between participations in various contexts,
their relative weights and personal meanings. Likewise, what people
mean by getting into a new situation` or by their liIe situation` encom-
passes the whole conIiguration oI personal social practices and not just a
particular context. The quality oI Ieeling collected and Iocused as op-
posed to dissipated and conIused is a crucial Ieature oI such a Iorm oI
liIe, and it is related to the personal conIiguration oI a conduct oI liIe and
trajectory. We may, indeed, Ieel collected and Iocused in a complex per-
sonal social practice where many other things matter to us than the ones
around which we Ieel collected. The spread and variation oI participa-
tions and concerns may, oI course, make us loose our grip on Ieeling
collected. On the other hand, it may also be a precondition Ior Ieeling
collected that there are a variety oI participations and concerns in the
background to make the ones we Iocus on stand out and be signiIicant by
virtue oI there being others in the background. In between other pursuits
the primary concerns which we Ieels collected around, are then returned
to, picked up again, time is cleared and opportunities searched to keep at
them, advance them Iurther, etc..

5. The Life-trajectory, structure of personality, and identity
In the previous sections we introduced the concepts oI conduct oI liIe
and liIe-trajectory. They pointed us towards a wide range oI personally
important phenomena and issues which have to do with the personal con-
Iiguration oI participations and concerns and their relative personal sig-
niIicance. And they indicate that it is crucial to recognize the contextual
complexity oI personal social practice in elaborating a concrete theory
about the person. Subjects relate to their participations in diIIerent con-
texts in particular ways. Their engagement may be more or less long-
term, crucial to them or merely instrumental, related to clearly limited or
wide-ranging concerns, and include various bonds to particular others.
Persons may be (Iormal) members oI a context or come to see them-
120
selves as belonging there because oI the nature and reach oI their in-
volvements. In other words, through the history oI their participations
persons unIold a particular subjective composition to the signiIicance oI
their participations in particular contexts and with particular others. By
relating their various participations, concerns, and stances persons
gradually conIigure a particular subjective composition to the way they
Ieel located in the world. It seems to me that this is what is meant by the
term identity. The Ieeling oI belonging to particular practices and with
particular persons and places develops on the background oI being part
in them, oI reIlecting on one`s personal relationship to being part in
them, oI conIiguring those reIlections into personal stances and oI con-
Iiguring those stances into a mapping oI what one stands Ior and where
one belongs which is what we mean by identity.
In this section we shall compare our approach to a theory oI the per-
son through personal participation in structures oI social practice, every-
day conduct oI liIe and personal liIe-trajectory with prevalent modes oI
theorizing the person, identity, and the selI in the current literature.
Theories oI the person in psychology and beyond are traditionally domi-
nated by basic assumptions about personality as an integrated and coher-
ent unity. And most theorists construe this image oI the structure oI hu-
man personality by disregarding the structure oI the social world and so-
cial practice. They seem to consider it irrelevant Ior understanding the
basic structure oI human personality. Indeed, the preeminent Iunction
which psychological theories ascribe to our personality, identity, and selI
is the subjective construction oI a meaningIul individual coherence and
not the composition oI a personal conduct oI liIe and liIe-trajectory.
II the social world is considered in theories about the person, most
theorists stick to the assumption that human personality, identity, and the
selI are basically about individual integration and coherence. The practi-
cal diversity oI a contextually structured social practice is almost totally
neglected in notions oI personal liIe-courses, identity, and phases oI de-
velopment. Even in an activity theory such as A. N. Leontjev`s (1973)
the theoretically emphasized switch in dominant activity Irom play to
learning during ontogeny just happens to coincide with the age oI school
entry. The switch in dominant activity is not theoretically grounded in
the social arrangement oI children`s liIe-trajectories. This illustrates my
121
critique in section one that the concept oI activity brackets that oI which
it is a part. Activity and participation do not seem to go hand in hand.
In diIIerent strands oI theorizing about the person the abstraction
Irom the contextual diversity oI social practice may be accomplished by
several lines oI argument:
One line oI argument assumes the existence oI only one small, ho-
mogenous social world. This is mostly accomplished by reducing the
world in which human personality is assumed to be constituted to be
solely within the (historically constituted and thus not universalizable)
nuclear Iamily. The private shelter or individual retreat into private inti-
macy which is associated with this contextual Iorm is considered to liIt
the person above the signiIicance oI 'outside social determinants and
positions. So even iI these theorists are not blind to the world outside oI
the Iamily, they may consider the signiIicance oI private Iamily relations
so pervasive that it alone provides Ior and guarantees an integrated and
coherent identity. In this vain also social theorists such as Giddens
(1991) write:
... selI-identity is negotiated through linked processes oI selI-exploration and the
development oI intimacy with the other. Such processes help create shared
histories` oI a kind potentially more tightly bound than those characteristic oI
individuals who share experiences by virtue oI a common social position. (p.
97).

A second line oI argument in the abstraction Irom the diversity oI
social practice does acknowledge that the social world is complex, but
insists that it is all the same homogenous. Such theorists assume a social
and/or cultural coherence to the social world which either impinges upon
the person or allows the person to construct a coherent personal stand-
point. For instance, in reIerring to Dilthey`s concept oI 'liIe as an his-
torical and biographical concept, Mos (1996) argues:
Reality Irom the standpoint oI liIe`, as Dilthey would have it, is always one oI
vital involvement in the sense that our individual existence compels us to adopt
a stance in and towards liIe thereby bringing meaningIul coherence to our ex-
perience ... (p. 41)
122
Mos points to the
... pressing importance especially in a post-modern era oI constructionist dis-
course that we recover a conception oI the individual person not, in Dilthey`s
words, as prior to society and history`, but as a point oI interaction`, as a par-
ticipant with others embedded in those meaningIul relational coherences oI so-
ciety and culture that Irom the standpoint oI liIe are primordially lived. (p. 42)
He wants us to recover a
. sense oI those societal and cultural coherences whose massive objectivity`
both condition and are conditioned by our individual and collective participation
in them. (p. 42)
According to Mos, then, diversities, dilemmas, and contradictions oI so-
cial practice and oI our personal participation in it seem to be oI little
import Ior the individual person, or can at least easily be overcome in the
construction oI an individual personality.
A third way to maintain that personality, identity, and selI are all
about individual integration and coherence is to emphasize that their
structuration is a purely subjective accomplishment. Then the personal
social practice and liIe-trajectory may be diverse and complex, but these
diversities are overcome precisely by the individual construction oI a
personality, identity and selI. These theorists thus oversimpliIy what it
means and takes to achieve individual coherence. They consider it a one-
sidedly subjective aIIair and not a basically practical one. Such a one-
sided abstraction may be helped along by assuming that personal coher-
ence is a matter oI coherent meaning and not oI the structures oI personal
participation in structures oI social practices which are then reduced to
mere external practicalities oI that which really counts. In this way the
concrete signiIicance oI diversities and contradictions oI social practice
is downplayed, and the achievement oI coherence is attributed to the
subject as an eminently subjective concern and accomplishment. The
only psychologist in the group Irom Munich which studies everyday
conduct oI liIe is an example oI this type oI theorizing (Behringer,
1998). She argues that a person achieves individual coherence through
the individual construction oI a personal identity. Even though she and
the rest oI the group study individuals Iacing diIIerent demands Irom diI-
123
Ierent social contexts and reIer to the development oI a conduct oI liIe as
an individual necessity in such Iorms oI divergent social practice, they
all maintain that thanks to the accomplishment oI a personal conduct oI
liIe each individual is able to construct its own coherent identity. There
is a noteworthy historical shiIt at play in their combination oI the con-
cept oI conduct oI liIe and identity. The concept oI conduct oI liIe was
taken up by Weber and a group oI 'reIormers to address a crisis in the
Iorms oI liIe around the previous turn oI century (Barlsius, 1996). And,
just like the more recent Munich-group, they argued Ior the accomplish-
ment oI personal coherence and integration as a way out oI the crisis.
But while the Munich-group considers this coherence to be a purely
subjective construct, achieved by the more recent notion oI identity, We-
ber (just like later personologists such as Allport, 1961) considered co-
herence to be accomplished by adopting a philosophy oI liIe oI cultural
and religious values while the other reIormers were looking Ior a "natu-
ral" basis Ior conducting one`s liIe in the right way. We see here that the
more recently widespread notion oI identity goes hand in hand with in-
sisting that identity is an eminently individually subjective aIIair.
Finally, a Iourth way to arrive at a notion oI a coherent identity is to
consider social space to be insigniIicant and theorize the personal liIe-
trajectory merely in a dimension oI time. In this way theorists downplay
or disregard the diversity oI social practice and detach the history and
development oI the person Irom any robust anchoring in relation to
(changing) social structures oI practice and the complexly socially situ-
ated nature oI personal liIe. Nevertheless, this is the all pervasive ap-
proach in theories oI individual liIe history. We even come across it in
social theories which emphasize the concept oI social action. Thus Gid-
dens (1991) states that
... place itselI is undermined by the expansion oI disembedding mechanisms...
(p. 146).
Behind this statement lies his interpretation that to be situated means to
be situation-bound, thereby turning to be situated into what Holzkamp
(1983) calls to be 'immediacy-Iixated. Although Giddens (like Asp-
lund, 1983, ch. 11 & 12) picks up the concept oI trajectory Irom the time
geography oI Hgerstrand where time-space is a concept Ior the in-
124
terconnectedness oI time and space, his notion oI the abstraction oI time
and space and oI disembedding and globalization makes him end up con-
sidering trajectories as merely stretching over the time dimension oI an
individual past-present-Iuture. In this way Giddens looses the spatial di-
mension oI the contextual inIrastructure oI social practice and oI the per-
sonal conduct oI liIe and liIe-trajectory in his theoretical grasp oI per-
sonal liIe. In reIerence to a book, entitled 'Becoming your own thera-
pist, around which he grounds his argument, he then writes about the
'... dialogue with time - a process oI selI-questioning about how the in-
dividual handles the time oI her liIespan as the cultivation oI a reIlexive
selI-identity through selI-observation (Giddens, 1991, p. 72). His con-
cept oI trajectory has turned into merely being a matter oI time:
The selI Iorms a trajectory oI development Irom the past to the anticipated Iu-
ture. (And) The line oI development oI the selI is internally reIerential: the only
signiIicant connecting thread is the liIe trajectory as such. (pp. 75 & 76).
He deIines liIe plans as the substantial content oI a reIlexively organized
trajectory oI the selI (p. 85). LiIe-planning Ior Giddens is a way to pre-
pare a direction in relation to the biography oI the selI. But in his under-
standing oI planning the contextual complexity disappeared in his prior
analytic maneuvers so that he Iinally ends up claiming that
... selI-identity, as a coherent phenomenon, presumes a narrative. (p. 80).
Coherence is reinstalled, by means oI the creation oI a narrative. But nar-
ratives are a subjective (and/or cultural) imposition oI coherence on 'un-
shaped experience, oI a beginning, middle and end to disjointed events
in the plotting oI a story and the construction oI an identity through time.
Elsewhere I have argued that theories oI narratives conceptualize the
personal conduct oI liIe and liIe-trajectory onesidedly in an abstract di-
mension oI time and loose the relations oI time-space in persons` partici-
pation in the structures oI social practice (Dreier, in press). Thus, Ri-
coeur (1992) sees identity as an emerging temporal sameness with a nar-
rative core.
Another theorist oI social action, Strauss employs the concept oI
trajectory as a key concept. According to his conception a trajectory also
125
only reaches across time while the spatial structure oI social practice re-
cedes into insigniIicance. He deIines trajectory merely as
(1) the course oI any experienced phenomenon as it evolves over time ... and (2)
the actions and interactions contributing to its evolution (Strauss, 1993, pp. 53-
4).
Again the concept oI action goes hand in hand with an abstraction Irom
the contextual structure oI personal participation.
Finally, some theorists historicize the concept oI identity, but do not
explicitly include the diversity in the structure oI social practice and per-
sonal participations in their conception. Like Burkitt (1994) they Iocus
on the role oI the interpersonal relations in the Iormation oI identity.
They historicize their notion oI interpersonal relations in a more Iree-
Iloating manner and do not locate them anywhere in particular in the
structure oI social practice and personal participations. Their Iocus on
intersubjectivity comes close to conversational and relational perspec-
tives in current psychology in that it does not conceptualize how these
social relations are located parts oI a structured social practice. Let us
take Charles Taylor`s work as an example. In the chapter 'The Need Ior
Recognition in his book 'The Ethics oI Authenticity (Taylor, 1991) he
states that the modern preoccupation with identity and recognition has
become inevitable because oI two major historical changes. The Iirst
major change is the collapse oI social hierarchies according to which
... what we would now call a person`s identity was largely Iixed by his or her
social position. (p. 47)
The emerging ideal oI authenticity undermines this arrangement, he ar-
gues in the words oI Herder:
... it calls on me to discover my own original way oI being. ...(It) doesn`t mean
that I work it out in isolation but that I negotiate it through dialogue, partly
overt, partly internalized, with others. (p. 47)
So even though social dependence was always there, what is new is that
this recognition is now no a priori. The subject
126
... has to win it through exchange and it can Iail. And that is why the need is
now acknowledged Ior the Iirst time. In premodern times people didn`t speak oI
'identity and 'recognition, not because people didn`t have (what we call)
identities or because these didn`t depend on recognition, but rather because
these were then too unproblematic to be thematized as such. (p. 48)
The second major change has taken place on the intimate level:
On the intimate level, we can see how much an original identity needs and is
vulnerable to the recognition given or withheld by signiIicant others. ... Love
relationships are not important just because oI the general emphasis in modern
culture on IulIillment oI ordinary liIe. They are also crucial because they are the
crucibles oI inwardly generated identity. ... On the social plane, the under-
standing that identities are Iormed in open dialogue ... has made the politics oI
equal recognition more central and stressIul. It has, in Iact, considerably raised
its stakes. ... Its reIusal can inIlict damage on those who are reIused it. (p. 49).
This, according to Taylor, is the background on which
Not only contemporary Ieminism, but also race relations and discussions oI
multiculturalism are undergirded by the premise that denied recognition can be
a Iorm oI repression. (p. 50)
And that is why the culture oI authenticity has come
... to give precedence to two modes oI living together ... (1) on the social level,
the crucial principle is that oI Iairness, which demands equal chances Ior every-
one to develop their own identity which included (...) the recognition oI diIIer-
ence, ... and (2) in the intimate sphere, the identity-Iorming love relationship has
a crucial importance. (p. 50)
Taylor`s preoccupation with such common principles, standards, and
values, however, makes him overlook the diversities oI complex struc-
tures oI social practice and the challenges which Ilow Irom such diversi-
ties Ior the structuration oI personal social practice and identity. Actu-
ally, it goes unnoticed to Taylor that the two major changes he point to
themselves reIlect a changing contextual diversity and complexity to
personal social practice, even though he seems to be aware that he lo-
cates these two changes in diIIerent social contexts, probably seen as the
127
Iamily versus 'other places. He does not address the signiIicance oI
people conducting their lives in and across these two 'spheres Ior the
Iormation and dynamics oI identity.
A promising place to look Ior a current theorizing which is preoccu-
pied by issues oI the diversity to personal social practice in a complex
social practice is in the Ieminist literature. Here notions about authentic-
ity oI the person, selI, and identity may be introduced to emphasize
complexities inherent in the personal participation in social practice. For
example, in her book 'Feminisms and the SelI. The Web oI Identity
Morwenna GriIIiths (1995) studies identity by means oI autobiographi-
cal materials and by drawing on the concept oI narrative. She argues
against a static and essentialist notion oI selI and identity:
I have argued that the selI is constructed through time. Thus spontaneity, rooted
in the present, gives only a snapshot oI an authentic selI. There can be no un-
changing authenticity to be Iound in this way, since the selI is in a process oI
construction. (p. 175)
Indeed, the complex changes oI identity and selI make questions oI au-
thenticity more acute because authenticity cannot be resolved once and
Ior all, and because it becomes more diIIicult to decide in which chang-
ing selI authenticity is to be grounded:
'Is this my real selI that experiences, acts, is, Ieels, thinks, decides to do things
Ior herselI? Is it still really me aIter changes to my Ieelings and ways oI un-
derstanding and reacting to them? 'As I change, am I being true to myselI?
(p. 173).
(T)he recurrence oI questions oI authenticity ... show that such questions keep
imposing themselves. This is something which needs exploring and explaining.
(p. 175)
Here GriIIiths arrives at a turning point in her argument.
A Iurther complication is introduced by the view that the selI is Iragmented. ...
II 'the selI in question is actually more like 'the selves, the answer to Iinding
something more lasting is not to be Iound in seeking a coherent, transparent,
unity to the selI, oI the kind Descartes and Hume were looking Ior. II Irag-
128
mented selves want to be true to themselves, then they do not mean they want to
be true to some particular one clearly understood and uniIied selI. (p. 175)
She argues that there can be more than one selI in the same embodied
person.
In ordinary language it is commonplace to talk oI sides or streaks in a person:
She has an unexpectedly sentimental side to her character` or 'She is kindly,
but she has a real streak oI malice or 'I didn`t know that I would do that - but I
did. (p. 181)
Yet, one must ask, what sort oI unity is it that has all these sides or
streaks to it? GriIIiths continues:
The selI Ior which I argue ... is characterized by incoherence in its belieIs and
actions, is not easily understood by itselI. is only partly avowed. (And) ...the
selI is made up oI a number oI diIIerent, sometimes incompatible, 'selves, all
oI which, taken together, make up the selI as a whole. ... It is not unusual Ior a
selI to be surprised by itselI, as diIIerent 'selves take precedence. (p. 181)
ThereIore she maintains that:
It is essential to acknowledge that there exists no unity oI the selI, no unchang-
ing core oI a being. Such a belieI is a Iancy and will mislead the selI into seek-
ing to establish it. Being true to oneselI does not mean seeking aIter such a core.
It means undertaking the diIIicult business oI assessment and transIormation
within a changing context oI selI. Authenticity requires assessing a changing
selI, not preserving a sameness. (p. 185).
GriIIiths takes these ideas even Iurther arguing that we are all hybrids,
picking up a notion oI Stuart Hall`s. She speaks oI diIIerent Iragments
being at war with each other and oI coalitions (rather than consensus)
being Iormed through negotiation (p. 183). And she Iinishes her book
saying:
It is simplicity which has contributed to sameness and oppression. InIinitely
preIerable is the variety, conIusion, color, hotchpotch, kaleidoscope, medley,
motley, and harlequin oI patchwork selves. (p. 191)
129
To describe the work oI identity in a Iragmented subject GriIIiths uses
the metaphor oI 'weaving:
The metaphor oI a web is useIul in understanding both 'becoming and
'agency (with 'web understood here as tapestry, weaving, crochet and lace,
rather than as a spider`s web). At Iirst sight needlewomen seem Iree to create
whatever web they Iancy. A longer look shows that this impression is mislead-
ing. Webs are always made in a temporal and social context, and they get their
meanings Irom that context. There are only some patterns available. Still, a
needlewoman does have room Ior maneuver. (p. 178)
Her crucial idea is that the Iragmented bits and pieces are woven to-
gether into a web oI identity, and she extends it into a notion oI patch-
work identity, stating at the conclusion oI her book:
I started the book with a metaphor oI webs. I end with an extension oI that ini-
tial metaphor, a metaphor oI patchwork. ... (L)ike patchwork, making a selI is
relatively easy, though it always takes time and attention. However, again like
patchwork, making a good one is very hard indeed. Understanding which pieces
oI old cloth will Iit into the whole is a diIIicult and painstaking matter... (p.
191).

Celebrating diversity, like GriIIiths does, is stimulated by insisting
on the recognition oI crucial diIIerences such as gender diIIerences
which we can not sensibly aspire to dissolve in the process oI social
transIormation towards a more just society (Fraser, 1997). DiIIerence
must be recognized, also in the process oI social transIormation. But
there are some peculiar Ieatures to GriIIiths` argument concerning iden-
tity and diversity which I shall point out on the background oI my argu-
ments in this paper. Let us Iirst remind ourselves that GriIIiths grounds
Iragmentation in the Iact that the same person is a member oI diverse
communities and Iaces diverse social demands. She argues that the indi-
vidual person cannot integrate these memberships and demands into a
personal unity oI the selI and identity. Precisely this is the essential diI-
Ierence between her theory oI the selI and identity and traditional theo-
ries oI the selI and identity which argue that the selI and identity can and
should be unitary. GriIIiths does not notice, however, that in all other
130
crucial respects her theory and traditional theories share the same basic
premises. In Iact, she sticks to the same notion oI the Iunction oI the selI
and identity that we see in the traditional conceptions which she is criti-
cal oI: They all argue that the crucial Iunction oI identity and the selI is a
subjective ordering. GriIIiths merely does not believe that this subjective
ordering can and should accomplish a complete subjective coherence.
Like role theories she highlights the signiIicance oI diverse memberships
and demands, but while role theories insist that the subjective ordering oI
these diverse demands and memberships can lead to an integrated iden-
tity and selIhood, GriIIiths stopped believing it. She claims that the indi-
vidual can not bridge these diversities in its Iormation oI an identity as a
peculiarly subjective accomplishment and synthesis. Instead we Iind a
Iragmented subjective order.
However, to conceptualize identity as a subjective accomplishment
oI ordering - oI tying the streaks, sides, or patches together in and Ior the
individual subject - turns the whole idea oI what identity is about into a
primarily epistemological concern indebted to a dualist philosophy. The
question oI 'Who am I? basically becomes a matter oI representing the
world, with its diverse demands and memberships, in a matching subjec-
tive construct, while the basic praxeological question oI how to conduct
a liIe and relate and balance oII one`s diverse participations is not ex-
plicitly addressed - or better: assumed simply to Iollow Irom their repre-
sentation in the subjective order oI identity.
The patchwork, i.e. the pattern which the subject then construes out
oI the various pieces oI diverse memberships and demands, is a purely
subjective pattern oI subjective identiIications. Strictly speaking, it is
neither a reIlection oI the objective 'pattern, i.e. structure, to the social
practice oI which these memberships and demands are particular parts,
nor a reIlection oI the 'pattern, i.e. structure, to that subject`s personal
social practice in these structures oI social practice. This is revealed in
some peculiar Ieatures oI the metaphor oI selI and identity as a patch-
work. As we all know, in the construction oI a patchwork a) all pieces
are mutually unrelated ingredients, b) all pieces are diIIerent, but in and
oI themselves homogenous, a) all pieces in principle matter equally
much or little, and d) they are Iitted together by the subject, as a subjec-
tive process oI construction (with certain added constraints). ThereIore,
e) all pieces can be Iitted as you like, i.e. arbitrarily. There are, in other
131
words, no robust criteria oI Iit, only subjective criteria oI construction
and constructionism. And Iinally I) there is a constructing agent - an I -
at a higher level who does all the Iitting oI the pieces, all the patchwork-
ing, but who is beyond the reach oI the theorizing, and thus turned into a
God`s eye perspective aIter all.
GriIIiths` emphasis on Iragmentation makes her loose sight oI the
personal necessity oI becoming able to conduct a complex personal so-
cial practice and liIe-trajectory. Her standpoint oI analysis is contempla-
tive rather than practical. In practice, to be the kind oI Iragmented person
which GriIIiths cherishes, would be a deeply problematic and disoriented
state oI aIIairs. II a person were to stick to such a vision, many oI its vi-
tal concerns and pursuits which need to be located and conducted across
social structures oI practice, would be thrown oII their tracks, and the
person would turn into a sort oI chameleon. GriIIiths neglects that the
person must Iirst oI all relate the diverse claims and memberships in
practical, personal terms into a personal conduct and trajectory oI liIe.
This practical personal necessity can not be neglected without serious
personal consequences. Actually, GriIIiths does not address the ways in
which individuals conduct a personal liIe with such diverse inIluences
and in and across diverse contexts. She only addresses the issue oI unity
versus Iragmentation Ior individuals Iacing diverse demands and con-
templating these diversities. Contrary to GriIIiths, I emphasized that di-
versities are located in a structure oI social contexts in a structure oI so-
cial practice, and that these diversities primarily have to be dealt with in
practical terms by persons as a part oI the conduct oI their everyday so-
cial practice and liIe-trajectory. ThereIore, the theoretical understanding
oI the processes oI personal reIlection with which the issues oI identity
are concerned, must break with an implicit premise oI distance (see sec-
tion 3), and be reconsidered as a process oI Iinding oneselI where one
really already is located in complex social practice.
What, then, does GriIIiths have to say about the structures oI the so-
cial world which give rise to the subjective construction oI Iragmented
identities? She argues that some Iragmentation comes Irom political
structures oI oppression which create several divides that touch upon
everybody and lists gender, race, class, and sexuality. She then adds
other 'material conditions and experiences and interests that do not Iit
readily into categories oI oppressor and oppressed, listing regional diI-
132
Ierences, migration, parenthood, and aIIiliations oI interests (p. 182).
Yet, she does not ground these divisions according to the particular, in-
terrelated ways in which persons encounter and can address them in and
across diverse social contexts as a part oI their everyday conduct oI liIe
and liIe trajectory. She looses the grounding oI diversities and oI per-
sonal processes oI orientation in relation to them in that person`s partici-
pation in social practice. II the heterogeneous diversities in social prac-
tice which GriIIiths lists are to be conceived as pieces to a subjective
patchwork, they must hence be construed as a series oI internally ho-
mogenous, but mutually heterogeneous and disconnected cultures, com-
munities, contexts and Iree-Iloating inIluences. Indeed, when GriIIiths
speaks about a community she reIers to a group or a culture oI which a
person can construe herselI, or is being construed, to be a member. It is
not a community oI practice. She may, thereIore, very well cherish di-
versity and multiplicity as sources oI learning and developing, but what
she means is that:
The more we are members oI diIIerent communities and the more we are each
multilingual, the more opportunities we have Ior change. (p. 187)
GriIIiths also mentions 'context on several occasions. But it is a vague,
almost Iree-Iloating social context, and its practicalities and how to think
systematically about structures and variations in these contextual social
practicalities are missing. Her notion oI context comes closer to her pre-
occupation with language and social interaction than to structures oI so-
cial practice.

6. Conclusion
The examples oI current research on the person, identity, and selI in the
previous section show a remarkable neglect oI the signiIicance oI the
Iact that persons live their lives by participating in complex structures oI
a social practice and by conducting trajectories in and across diverse so-
cial contexts. They do not understand personality, identity, and selI Irom
the standpoint oI subjects involved in such a practice and as a means Ior
these subjects to orient themselves in it and reIlect on it. This critique oI
their shortcomings is part oI my theoretical argument Ior why we need to
133
develop theories about complex personal trajectories oI participation in
structures oI social practice and oIIer persons such analytic means Ior an
adequate selI-understanding.
As we have seen, this critique holds even Ior theories which recog-
nize that we must grasp the person, identity, and selI in a social world.
And we have seen that their theoretical shortcomings make them present
the person as a relatively Iree-Iloating and arbitrary agent and make their
theories Iit only too well into the Iashionable social constructionism oI
our day. The grounding oI people`s lives in social practice becomes so
thin and Iragile that their lives give the impression oI easily Ialling apart
into Iragmented bits and pieces, or multiple and Iragmented selves as it
is mostly called (e.g. Rowan & Cooper, 1999). Most narrative concep-
tions oI the person, identity, and selI seem similarly unconstrained and
without serious personal stakes in relation to the person`s structuration oI
a conduct oI liIe and liIe trajectory. Much current theorizing oI the per-
son is, in short, loosing its Ieet Irom the ground oI social practice, as one
may put it in a Marxist paraphrase. It leaves the impression that the
grounding in social practice is oI only trivial signiIicance Ior what it
means and takes to be and develops as a person. It is, indeed, odd to Iind
that precisely a theory oI the person, selI, and identity stops short oI
theorizing the eminently subjective aspects oI personal social practice
one would expect that concepts oI the selI and identity in a theory oI the
subject in social practice primarily were concerned with.
Contrary to this, I argue that iI we reduce the Iull grounding oI per-
sonal liIe in structures oI social practice, we loose what it is all about: its
concrete contents, what it is a part oI, involved in and concerned with,
the Iull signiIicance oI many oI its real possibilities, challenges, dilem-
mas, problems, and contradictions. And instead oI theories about these
rich contents oI personal liIe we build theories about abstract structures
oI personality or representations oI oneselI. We would, Ior instance, be-
come able to understand that being a many-sided person is not just hav-
ing diIIerent streaks, sides, or patches to oneselI, but a reIlection oI liv-
ing a many-sided liIe in which we pursue diverse concerns by partici-
pating in diIIerent ways in diverse contexts. But instead oI being con-
cerned with theorizing the person as a participant in a complex social
practice, most theories seem preoccupied with the question oI unity ver-
sus Iragmentation in the structure oI one`s own or others` representation
134
oI oneselI. What is meant by 'selI-understanding would then just be a
selI-representation, and not coming to an understanding with oneselI
about how to conduct one`s everyday liIe and liIe-trajectory which
would take us to another, both more complex and rich level oI what selI-
understanding means (Holzkamp, 1998). Let me brieIly point out that to
ground a conception oI the person in its participation in structures oI so-
cial practice in no way excludes to recognize the personal signiIicance oI
values and ideas about the good liIe. It only means to insist that values
and ideas are also encountered and will gain particular personal signiIi-
cances in diIIerent personal social contexts, and that we must grasp how
they become a particular part in the person`s conduct oI liIe and liIe-tra-
jectory. And let me also brieIly point out that this approach opens the
doors to seeing personal learning and development through participation
and as participation in structures oI social practice. Questions oI personal
stability and change are then tied to stable and changing structures oI
personal social practice and to participating within their given bounda-
ries or to taking part in changing them and going beyond them. My aim
in this paper was merely to lay some oI the most basic groundwork Ior
such a theory oI the person. It remains to be elaborated and detailed into
a richer and more concrete and lively understanding oI the person, para-
doxically, not by looking directly 'into the person, but into the world
and grasp the person as a participant in that world.

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Acknowledgments

'Personal Locations and Perspectives - Psychological Aspects oI Social
Practice was Iirst published in: N. Engelsted et. al. (red.) 1994: Psvcho-
logical Yearbook. University oI Copenhagen Vol. 1., Copenhagen: Mu-
seum Tusculanum Press, 63-90.
'Client Pespectives and Uses oI Psychotherapy was published in Euro-
'Subjectivity and the Practice oI Psychotherapy was published in Ch.
Tolman, F. Cherry, R.v. Hezewijk, I. Lubek (eds.): Problems of Theo-
retical Psvchologv. Selected/Edited Proceedings oI the Sixth Biannial
ConIerence oI The International Society Ior Theoretical Psychology.
York: Captus Press, 55-61.
'Psychotherapy in Clients` Trajectories across Contexts was published
in Ch. Mattingly & L. Garro (eds.): Narrative and the Cultural Con-
struction of Illness and Healing. Berkeley: University oI CaliIornia
Press, 237-258.
'Personal Trajectories oI Participation across Contexts was published in
Outlines. Critical Social Studies, 1, 3 32.

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