The Person In Narrative Therapy: A Post-structural, Foucauldian Account (palgrave Studies In The Theory And History Of Psychology)

Palgrave Studies in the Theory and History of Psychology publishes scholarly books that use historical and theoretical methods to critically examine the historical development and contemporary status of psychological concepts, methods, research, theories, and interventions. The books in the series are characterised by an emphasis on the concrete particulars of psychologists' scientific and professional practices, together with a critical examination of the assumptions that attend their use. These examinations are anchored in clear, accessible descriptions of what psychologists do and believe about their activities. All the books in the series share the general goal of advancing the scientific and professional practices of psychology and psychologists, even as they offer probing and detailed questioning and critical reconstructions of these practices. Who is the person in narrative therapy? In this book, Michael Guilfoyle notes that narrative practice does not have a coherent formulation of personhood in the way one finds in other fields, such as psychoanalysis and cognitive-behavioural therapy. The book critically examines the post-structural principles that underpin narrative practice, which make available powerful conceptual tools for theorizing the person. But there are significant tensions to be resolved: How can the person be endowed with personal agency, as narrative therapists claim, while simultaneously being seen as a 'product of power', as Foucault famously argued? Exactly what is the person's relationship to power, and on what condition can he or she resist? Using several detailed case examples, the book discusses the ideas of White, Epston, Foucault, Nietzsche, and others, to tease out the threads of these questions, and opens up new avenues for narrative practice and thought Front Matter....Pages i-vii Introduction....Pages 1-7 The Problem: Constitution versus Agency....Pages 8-15 Power/Knowledge: The Social....Pages 16-44 The Constituted Subject....Pages 45-77 A Constitutionalist Account of Resistance....Pages 78-104 Embodied Resistance....Pages 105-132 Narrative Empathy and the Resisting Figure....Pages 133-166 From the Resisting Figure to the Ethical Subject....Pages 167-211 Back Matter....Pages 212-227 Michael Guilfoyle uses post-structural thought to sketch a narrative formulation of the person, using therapeutic case material throughout. The book explores power's capacity to tie persons to unwanted identities, the emergence of resistances in relation to power, and the role of personal ethics in the generation of a preferred sense of self. This book argues that narrative practice does not have a coherent formulation of personhood in the way one finds in other fields, such as psychoanalysis and cognitive-behavioural therapy. It examines the post-structural principles that underpin narrative practice, which make available powerful conceptual tools for theorizing the person.