Losing one’s voice: Dialogical psychology and the unspeakable

ABSTRACT. The portrayal of the self as constitutionally dialogical is fast becoming an established and familiar feature of the psychological land-scape. With growing influence and recognition comes a necessity to engage with critical dialogue, which has marked the concept’s more recent devel-opment. Drawing on insights in psychology and Judith Butler’s philosophy, it will be argued that the linguistic and voiced connotations of the dia-logical self may be limiting a more complex understanding of the inter-subjective constitution of selfhood. It is argued that pre-reflective intersubjectivity, unspoken and “unspeakable ” aspects of self-dialogue, and active psychological processes of disavowal raise profound cultural and psychological questions about the role of the “voice ” in the dialogical achievement of selfhood. KEY WORDS: dialogical, disavowal, narrative, subjectivity, unconscious, voice there exists a large variety of different psychological experiences of considerable emotional force which lie outside narrative—even outside of what can be spoken. (Frosh, 2002, p. 135) articulations of all kinds have their necessary limits, given the structuring effects of what remains persistently inarticulable. (Butler, 2005, pp. 59–60) The portrayal of the self as constitutionally dialogical is fast becoming an established and familiar feature of the psychological landscape; it is making inroads too into sociological terrain and the expanding interdisciplinary space in between. With growing influence and recognition comes a necessity to engage with critical dialogue, which has marked the concept’s more recen