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2010 20: 342Theory PsychologyMatthew Adams

Losing One's Voice : Dialogical Psychology and the Unspeakable

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Losing Ones VoiceDialogical Psychology and the Unspeakable

Matthew AdamsU NIVERSITY OF BRIGHTON

ABSTRACT. The portrayal of the self as constitutionally dialogical is fastbecoming an established and familiar feature of the psychological land-scape. With growing influence and recognition comes a necessity to engagewith critical dialogue, which has marked the concepts more recent devel-opment. Drawing on insights in psychology and Judith Butlers 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-reflectiveintersubjectivity, unspoken and unspeakable aspects of self-dialogue, andactive psychological processes of disavowal raise profound cultural and

psychological questions about the role of the voice in the dialogicalachievement 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 narrativeeven outside

of what can be spoken. (Frosh, 2002, p. 135)

articulations of all kinds have their necessary limits, given thestructuring effects of what remains persistently inarticulable.

(Butler, 2005, pp. 5960)

The portrayal of the self as constitutionally dialogical is fast becoming anestablished and familiar feature of the psychological landscape; it is makinginroads too into sociological terrain and the expanding interdisciplinary space

in between. With growing influence and recognition comes a necessity toengage with critical dialogue, which has marked the concepts more recent

development (Baressi, 2002; Blackman, 2005). In this article one possible

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ADAMS: LOSING ONES VOICE 343

direction for the conceptual development of the dialogical self is considered:the case is made that the linguistic and narrational connotations of self-dialoguemay be limiting a more complex understanding of the intersubjective constitu-

tion of self-experience. It is argued that processes of pre-reflective intersub-jectivity and more or less active dynamics disavowing self-reflexive capabilities

indicate a more disintegrated grasp of the psyche (Frosh, 2007).

Voice and the Dialogical Self

Hermans conceptualization of the dialogical self stems from Bakhtin, in par-

ticular his account of Dostoeveskys polyphonic novels (Hermans, 1999).

In such novels, the authors voice does not preside over the characters created,but is expressed through them. An utterance is never isolated from the con-sciousness of a particular character (Hermans, 1999, p. 109). The combinedexpression of many voicespolyphonyreflects the authors voice. In its

simplest sense the dialogical self equates to the polyphonic novela plural-ized collection of voices, spatially and temporally organized, which together

form the self. There is no meta-voice guiding these voicesthe self, as in thenovel, is expressed through the voices of particular characters in dialoguewith each other within the self, and with the voices of other selves. Thus

the dialogical self is a dynamic multiplicity of I-positions in the landscapeof the mind, intertwined as this mind is with the minds of other people(Hermans, 2002a, p. 147). Functional multi-voicedness is achieved by

allowing a healthy play of voices within ones self, rather than seeking toimpose monologism or a restricted number of dominating voices. Thus in

therapeutic applications of dialogical psychology, different, often conflicting,voices are encouraged to be spoken/listened to and brought into open dialoguewith each otherself-discrepancies and self-contradictions between voices

are seen as intrinsic to a healthy functioning of the self and as contributing toits innovation (Hermans, 1999, p. 128).1

The dialogical perspective may more readily accommodate multiple voicesinto the psychic system than mainstream psychological approaches embeddedin methodological individualism, but it will be claimed here that, as yet, there

are still important elements of self-psychology which escape its explanatoryreach. A key absence stems from the necessary primacy granted to voice in

conceptualizations of the dialogical self (Hermans, 1999; Hermans &Kempen, 1993). The agency of the self lies primarily in the ability of a shift-ing I to voice the perspectives it moves between: the I has the capacity

imaginatively to endow each position with a voice so that dialogical relations

between positions can be established (Hermans, 1999, p. 133). Thus the dia-logical self is described in terms of aurality:

It permits one and the same individual to live in a multiplicity of worlds,

with each world having its own author telling a story relatively independent



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of other authors and other worlds. The voices function like interacting

characters in a story, involved in a process of question and answer, agree-

ment and disagreement. As different voices, these characters exchange

information about their respective Mes, resulting in a complex, narratively

structured self. (Hermans, 1996, p. 33)

In fact, Hermans main problem with a divergent number of self-theories isthat a comprehensive understanding of voice is rather neglected (p. 38). For

those cognitive and narrative theories which he assigns more hope, a fulleracceptance of voice as guiding premise is prescribed as necessary for futuredevelopment. But in granting voice centre-stage, does the non-voiced,

non-narratable, or unspeakable slip unnoticed into the wings, when it mightmore fruitfully share the spotlight? The primary assertion of this paper is that

there is a marginalization of the unspeakable in dialogical accounts of self-hood which rest on an unequal binary of voiced/unspeakable, and that this isin need of remedying if a fuller picture of subjectivity is to emerge.

In making this distinction, we must take care not to read dialogical psy-chologys use of voice too literally or exaggerate the exclusivity of its focus.

Hermans conceptualization of self-structure includes both latent andmanifest aspects of the self, mediated by affect (Hermans, 1999). However,in his work and others, voice is envisaged as the vehicle for expressing inner

(or outer) basic motives and affective valuations (Hermans, 1999). Thus wespeak ourselves into existence, via dialogue with ourselves and others

(Burkitt, 2008, p. 119). The key critical issue here is with the emphasis onvoice as a normative teleological end-point of psychodynamics. Here anyunconscious or unspeakable dynamics are rendered simply as voices-in-

waitingsleeping voices that can be awakened by attention, concentrationand training (Hermans & Kempen, 1993, p. 165).

Reflecting some of Hermans terminology back upon his own arguments

indicates how an emphasis on voice can be problematized initially. In a dis-cussion of the significance of collective voices, he discusses Sampsons

analysis of societal relationships, which the latter argues are governed bypolar opposites (Hermans, 1996, pp. 4647; Sampson, 1993). These are dis-cursive creations built upon mutually dependent but unequal, asymmetrical

definitions of character. One tends to be built upon positive characteristicswhile the other comes to be defined by what it lacks in relation to it positive

other, with the consequence that it becomes devaluated (Hermans, 1996, p.46). Hermans understands the master term and its relationship to its binaryother to be an important way in which collective discourses are expressed as

part of the dialogical self:

the master term represents a socially and institutionally established positionthat is devaluating, suppressing, or even splitting off the opposite position.

This structure reflects an asymmetrical dialogical relationship not only among

positions between different people but also among positions within the indi-

vidual self. (Hermans, 1996, p. 46)

344 THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY 20(3)



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The validity of this assertion is not disputed. However, the possibility that thevoice may itself be a master term in the collective and dialogical dynam-ics of selfhood is not considered. Can the above quote be reread assigning

voiced as the master term and unspeakable as its marginalized otherwhen applied to dominant accounts of the dialogical self? For Blackman

(2005), it is in dialogical psychologys use of voice as a master term that ahierarchy of the senses is naturalized (p. 193). The privileging of voice andcommunication reinstates some of the most entrenched dualisms within the

discipline (p. 199), the mind/body split at the heart of psychologys che-quered history: a mind/body dualism is reified through the location of com-munication within the mind, with the body becoming the container for

experiences which are viewed as developmentally inferior and ultimately

abandoned in the achievement of dialogicity (p. 193). Assigning value to theunspeakable besides a motivational role in becoming voiced, in the normativeteleology which has voice as desired end-point, may simply be outside therange of convenience of dialogical psychology as it standsas Hermans

(1996, p. 35) claims an emphasis upon voice is for some self-theories. It mayalso reflect a broader issue with the discursive turn, in which there is a

refusal to engage with the psychological other than through its location withinlanguage (Blackman, 2002, p. 133). Rather than seeing becoming voiced asthe desired end-product of self-experience, the role of unspeakable dimen-

sions in self-dialogue may be a necessary complication.

Things That Cant Be Said

There have been attempts to develop polyphonous approaches to subjectivityelsewhere, notably Froshs (2007) recent discussion of qualitative researchmethods. Initially, Frosh reiterates his own earlier claim that things that cant

be said are at the core of our experience (Frosh, 2002, p. 149), pointedlyexpressed in the quote which opens this paper. From here he questions

whether rebuilding narrative coherence is always an estimable goal forthose who find themselves on the margins of hegemonic discourses (Frosh,2007, p. 637). Frosh claims that the unsaid needs to be defended as an impor-

tant aspect of subjectivity, without having to fall prey to essentialism or spir-itualism (p. 639). To advise qualitative researchers on how to make sense of

experience that cannot be captured in narrative in such a way, Frosh charts anunderstandably uneasy and uncertain path. Language remains centre-stage:rather than failing to reflect or express the sum of experiences, language

itself produces gaps and difference (p. 641). Froshs reasoning here echoes

Billigs concept of the dialogic unconscious, in which the unconscious isreformulated as the location of the dynamic repressions of language learntthrough dialogue (Billig, 1997, 1999). Conversation represses the temptationfor rudeness and other unwanted verbalizations. Thus, language constructs




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its own morality of talk the temptations of impoliteness do not stand outsidethe dialogical process, but are constituted within it (Billig, 1997, p. 151).Im/politeness is one example of unconscious repressed desire which is

dialogically constituted (p. 151).For both Frosh and Billig, then, we need not venture outside of language

or discursive explanations to make sense of things that cannot be said; weonly need to develop more complex understandings of the machinations andoutcomes of language use. Frosh (2007) moves to embrace multiple and

polymorphous processes against the individualizing, essentializing, pathol-ogizing and disempowering dangers of imposing a single, authoritative nar-rative on subjectivity in the process of research: Any fixing of the meaning

of the subject in this way risks the loss of the polymorphous tendencies that

that upset claims to truth and hence maintain the healthy marginality of aresistive subject (p. 643).Polymorphousness is here understood to mean the acknowledgment of more

voices in the play of the self: additional layers of speech out of which the

complexity of experience can emerge, whilst refusing to hold on to any one,specific narrative (Frosh, 2007, p. 642). Frosh may be more explicit about the

challenge polymorphous narratives pose for normative interpellations ofsubjectivity in the healthy marginality of a resistive subject (p. 643); but henonetheless reproduces the issues outlined here in relation to dialogical psy-

chology. Ironically, despite Froshs ambivalence towards narrativism, he reit-erates the normative primacy of the voiced, only in a polyphonic sense, thus

allying him with dialogical psychology. Blackmans critical point thus remainsand is worth repeating: there is a refusal to engage with the psychologicalother than through its location within language (Blackman, 2002, p. 133).

The question persists whether a dialogical framework can account for thedynamics of experience which are residually, stubbornly, foundationallyunspeakable; dynamics which are not normatively reducible to a voice yet

maintain a sense of authorship; which retain dialogical foundations ratherthan retreating into biological reductionism; and which might be central to

healthy marginality and agency and intentionality more generally. Doubtsover the validity of existing conceptualizations of such dynamics in terms oflanguage, voice, and phonics, analytically or normatively, are immediately

raised. Whilst applicable as metaphor for the polyphony of voices whichmake up the dialogical self, it may be limited if extended too far in accounting

for the experiential reality of complex selves. As Blackman (2005) cogentlysummarizes, the restriction of the phenomenological experience of dialogicismto one sensory register in which listening and speaking are collapsed (the

oral/aural) abstracts embodied experience from the combination, co-operation

and augmentationof other modalities (p. 194).The purpose of what remains of this paper is not to explore these other

modalities in terms of differentiated sensory registers, but to pursue moregenerally the servant to the master term of the voicedthat of the




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unspeakablein the dialogical experience of selfhood, particularly interms of how it might relate to agency. It is the aim of this discussion notto reject the dialogical model, but to initiate a more inclusive version of it,

open to the possibility of relational processes other than language-baseddialogue. In other words can we engage with the psychological in a way

that suggests there is more to be considered than its location within lan-guage, whilst retaining an emphasis on the dialogical? To this aim, someexisting accounts of what can broadly be referred to as unspeakable

dynamics will now be surveyed.

Early Development

Where does the notion of a dialogue made up of something other than wordstake us? What might constitute it, and what is its relation to the voiced and,more broadly, to the dynamics of subjectivity? Studies of infant development

emphasizing the individuation of nascent subjectivity provide a useful start-ing point, in attempting to empirically demonstrate an innate capacity and

need to intuit the intentions of others with whom they engage (Layton, 2008,p. 62). Recent work in developmental psychology researching early infancyhas argued more specifically that there is a dialogical self from the first days

of life (Fogel, de Koeyer, Bellagamba, & Bell, 2002, p. 202; see also Rochat,Querido, & Striano, 1999; Schore, 1994; Trevarthen & Aitken, 2001). Fogelet al. (2002) in particular claim that the key attributes of the dialogical self

multiplicity of I-positions, embodiment of situated I-positions, and inter-subjectivity as constitutive of the dialogue between I-positions (p. 193)are

identifiable in early infant life prior to the development of any representa-tional or imaginary cognitive skills. This is achieved through the dialogue ofmultiple sites of spatial and temporal awareness, which arise from the infants

embodied experience of his or her environment. The infants perception of hisor her own hand for example, involves multiple I-positions from the begin-

ning: The infants psychological experience of the hand, from the handsproprioceptive and tactile perspective, is one I-position. The infants psycho-logical experience of viewing the hand, from the proprioceptive and visual

perspective of the eyes and head, is another I-position (p. 194).The coalescence of multiple positioning in embodied perception can only

happen via constant and dependent interaction with others. Only out of entan-gled circuits of embodied mutualitywhich extend out of something likeWinnicotts holding environment (1974) or Bions containercontained

(1962)can the development of the perpetual interrelationship between indi-

viduation and symbiosis occur. These initial self-dialogues are thus argued tobe positioned within communication frames (Fogel et al., 2002, p. 193); aproposition apparently supported by detailed neuro-physiological and neuro-psychological studies of perception (Trevarthen & Aitken, 2001). Wynn (1997),




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for example, emphasizes the foundational importance of embodied, sensual,pre-reflective relationship between m/other and infant in becoming-a-person.She emphasizes, as Forrester (2006) puts it, the intertwining and dehiscence

of the circle of touchingbeing touched, feelingbeing felt, hearingbeingheard (p. 797) that is, for Wynn, the particular history of each particular

motherinfant field (as cited in Forrester, 2006, p. 797).Fogel et al. (2002) conclude that non-verbal dialogue may be a vital pre-

liminary to the development of voiced positions and may even shape the par-

ticular trajectory of the latter, persisting as an underlying force. Thus:individual differences in the embodiment of self dialogues in infancy mayform predispositions toward particular adult developmental pathways that

lead to personality differences and psychopathologies (p. 202). Blackman

(2005) argues that Fogel et al.s study is one of a number which reproduce aproblematic mindbody dualism by reducing embodied states to precursors ofvoiced-ness. However, it could be read as lending itself to a more complexreading, particularly if we allow non-verbal dynamics not just a preliminary

developmental force, but as a persistent and dialogical one, as the quoteabove implies, in intersubjective accounts of selfhood. In this way it sails

close to a psychodynamic, object-relational understanding of development, towhich we now turn our attention.

Like the dialogical approach, object-relations theory defines a core subject

as constituted through discourse and relational experience rather than anabsolute universal substance (Hekman, 2000, p. 301). A prime example is

Winnicotts famous claim that there is no such thing as a babymeaningthat if you set out to describe a baby, you will find you are describing a babyand someone (as cited in Davis & Wallbridge, 1981, p. 34). Even in the

healthy adult, independence is never absolute, and the individual and theenvironment remain interdependent (Winnicott, 1965, p. 59). One exampleof such an object-relational approach can be found in the work of Laplanche

(1999). Phillips (2002) offers a particularly helpful interpretation, arguingthat behind Laplanches sophisticated conceptualization of the enigmatic

signifier lies a mercifully simple and compelling idea (p. 202); and onewhich has a direct bearing on this discussion.

Laplanche writes from an object-relations perspective, and enigmatic sig-

nifiers are a particular body of messages transmitted by the parents to theinfant; not just verbal messages [italics added] but also gestural, olfactory,

tonal and so on (Phillips, 2002, p. 202). From birth (perhaps even beforebirth), and as the child develops, s/he can translate some of these messagesand absorb them readily; but many are less amenable to comprehension and

remain enigmatic. They are enigmatic on two accounts: firstly because the

child cannot make sense of them due to an as yet nascent ability to understandthose messages; secondly because the parents do not understand them, nor arethey aware of them, because they are unconscious (Laplanche, 1999). The dis-crepancy between what can be communicated and what can be comprehended

means every child incorporates a substantial residue which constitutes an




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unconscious of foreign bodies (Phillips, 2002, p. 202). Laplanche builds acomplex account of cathexis, fantasy, and sexuality upon this claim, butPhillipss assertion that the basic insight is more straightforwardly plausible

is agreeable: that parents convey far more than they intend, and that childrentake in, in whatever form, far more than the parents or the children suspect

(Phillips, 2002, p. 203).What is vital about the process of enigmatic signification for our purposes

perhaps needs some explicit acknowledgement: it is part of a dialoguethe

developing self reacts and responds to significations, and both sides of thedialogue mutually constitute the ongoing conversation. The dialogicaldimension of enigmatic signification can be teased out further. Burkitt (2008),

for example, drawing on the insights of Laing amongst others, claims that

we respond not only to the others we currently act with, but from our expe-rience of past relationships and from habitual disposition we have acquired

in these contexts this history of relationships involves not only our rela-

tions to others. It also includes the relation we have to our own self through

self-dialogues. (pp. 12930)

Laplanches position is here stated in the more general terms of past dialoguesand relationships. Up to this point, Burkitts assertion is very much in line with

dialogical psychologysuch relationships might end up as the voices whichmake up the polyphony of the dialogical self. In developing his argument,however, he reiterates the object-relations-derived point that some aspects of

those relationships fall outside of conscious awareness, particularly in theearly developmental informing of our own subjectivity: because the wordsand actions of others does this informing, especially when we are very young

children, we may not be aware of exactly of how we are formed and preciselywhat motivates us (Burkitt, 2008, p. 130). More pointedly, he suggests that

aspects of the dialogue constituting subjectivity are fundamentally unspeak-able, and persist into adulthood: the aura, the atmosphere, the trace of a dis-tant message may structure the way we act and permeate all our relations

(Burkitt, 2008, p. 131). In accommodating pauses and displacements acrosstime, objects, and people, there is a stretching of the concept of dialogue here

beyond the register of aurality.Laplanche (1999) similarly argues that enigmatic signification does not

indicate an unconscious as another version of self, a more primal or authentic

one, but as the repressed residue of the other person (p. 202); returning us,in a sense, to Freuds notion of ego-identity being forged in the melancholic

introjection of lost others, initially the mothers body (Freud, 1914/1984a,1923/1984b)a structured sedimentation of lost objects; objects incorpo-

rated into the tissue of subjectivity itself (Elliott, 2000, p. 136). As Phillips(2002) states it, Laplanches reading is of a more generalized integration of theother: what is inescapable in the genesis and development of every person isthe presence inside themthe psychic forcefield, the aura, the atmosphere, the

messagesof another person (Phillips, 2002, p. 203).



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Such a conceptualization can potentially benefit from being brought intothe orbit of dialogical psychology. The presence of the other need not be con-veyed as a static residue, but can be seen as an active form of life, participat-

ing in the ongoing dialogue of subjectivity. How it contributes is still in needof analysis, but it could provide us with a strong initial sense of intersubjec-

tivity as foundational in the development of the psyche. Importantly,Laplanches decentring of the self brings a different kind of force into the dia-logical construction of self than that portrayed in terms of a voice; for it

gains its psychic power from its unspoken, illegible dimension.The claims Burkitt makes for relationships with external others also hold

true for the internal relationship of dialoguing others which constitute

subjectivity according to dialogical psychology:

the other may form an image of me different from the one I am trying toproject, perhaps picking up something of the aura of past relationships that

has in-formed me and is carried my embodied dispositions which are uncon-

sciously communicated to the other. (Burkitt, 2008, p. 132)

Taken together, these accounts support the claim that self is constructed rela-

tionally, along the lines dialogical psychology suggests, but the point of emer-gence for narratable voices, foundationally and routinely, is always obscured,

underpinned, and overlaid by the ambiguous and uncertain messages ofsignificant others and our responses to them; embodied in current dialogues

of the self without conscious awareness of them.

The Unthought Known

The emphasis on development from an object-relations perspective offerssome important insights into the notion of a dialogue or conversation made

up of something other than a voice. In the focus on the unspeakable as a kindof developmental prerequisite for the voiced, there is a danger of reproducing

a largely unhelpful hierarchy, however. The unspeakable may still too easilybe reserved as a residue of the past, with becoming voiced as the normativegoal for a healthy psyche. But object-relations approaches can also tell us

something about the central role a dialogue of the unvoiced might play in theongoing reproduction and maintenance of the adult self.

Bollas (1987), for example, utilizes a similarly foundational understandingof the other to Laplanche:

the concept of the self should refer to the positions or points of view from

which and through which we sense, feel, observe, and reflect on distinct and

separate experiences in our being. One crucial point of view comes through

the other who experiences us. (pp. 910)

Like Winnicott, Bollas identifies the importance of the first objectthebreast, but also the associated physicality of care provided by carersas a



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transformational object. Bollas portrays the pre-representational grasp ofthe other as a recurrent experience of being (p. 14); thus it is inseparablefrom the subjective experience of self and the mother, or, rather, significant

caregiver. The first object is experienced as a process of transformation (p.14), be it from hungry to full, cold to warm, discomforted to comfortable. The

other is perceived not as a separate object, but as a transformative element ofthe nascent self; akin to the caregivers provision of a nurturing holdingenvironment in Winnicotts (1965) account of development.

But Bollas (1987) also claims that the pursuit of symbolic equivalents tothe transformational object is in fact central to the identifications we make in

adult life (p. 17): in the persons search for an object (a person, place, event,

ideology) that promises to transform the self (p. 14). Bollas suggests that

there are traces of the transformational object in aesthetic experience, when a person feels uncannily embraced by an object, powerfully symbolizing thepervasiveness of the held environment (p. 8). Interestingly, the argumentapplies when the self is taken to be the object of transformation too (a selfself

relationship), more explicitly acknowledging the multi-positional nature of thedialogical self: we may imagine the self as the transformational facilitator,

and we may invest ourselves with capacities to alter the environment (p. 17).Bollas also asserts that the power to shape the psyche remains lodged in

object-relations established prior to the development of thought or language:

the experience of the object precedes the knowing of it (p. 39), as Fogel etal.s (2002) developmental study attests, if in different terminology. This non-

cognitive experience of being held and transformed is a vital aspect of thedeveloping subject. As a form of object-seeking that recurrently enacts a pre-verbal ego memory (Bollas, 1987, p. 16), it is based on a rapport with another

object which, to reiterate, depends for its power on a non-linguistic economy ofaffect: in our induction by the object we are suddenly captured in an embracethat is an experience of being rather than mind, rooted in the total involvement

of the self rather than objectified via representational or abstract thought (p.32). But again Bollas asserts the importance of these dialogical dynamics for

the adult self. He argues that the existential recollection of the intersubjectivityof the first object-relations lives on in an aesthetic of care we direct towardsourselves. The aesthetic mode in adult life is a key aspect of well-being, epit-

omized in an experience of reverie or rapport which does not stimulate the selfinto thought[italics added] (p. 35). What Bollas suggests here is that in the dia-

logue which constitutes subjectivitywith other people, or objects, includ-ing the selfreverie or rapport, which is vital for psychic health, goes beyondwhat can be voiced in any meaningful sense of that term.

The unvoiced foundations of dialogicism, which coalesce into the individ-

ual experience of the unthought known for Bollas, pose a challenge for thetheorization of the dialogical self. Non-reflexive, cognitively and discursivelyambiguous phenomena are seen to be of central importance not just to thefoundations, but also to the maintenance of a (healthy) dialogical self. We can



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thus problematize the normative ascendancy of multi-voiced capabilities intheir ability to master and transform the self. What is at stake here is not justa possible inability to reflect on all of our experience, but an ability to act

meaningfully and creatively in the world, and in relation to our own selves,based not only on cognition and reflexivity but also on the dialogical power

of processes of identification and relating rooted in an unvoiced past andpresent. Such a possibility offers a further, perhaps more profound, reconfig-uration of the related binaries of voiced and unspeakable in terms of the

agency of the dialogical subject, and it is to that possibility we now turn.

Disavowal

The concept of disavowal has the potential to rupture further the easy associ-ation between voice, agency, and normative functioning in the conceptualiza-

tion of healthy dialogicism already problematized. A useful starting point foran exploration of disavowal is Judith Butlers The Psychic Life of Power(1997a). This is a complex work which touches on many themes, one of

which is a persistent inquiry into the nature of human agency. Butler arguesthat all forms of self-narration are inevitably pre-structured by the discursive

regimes in which they operate. This is a claim which has been well supportedby work utilizing a Foucauldian perspective, and it is commonly argued that

self-narration is always at risk of being appropriated and re-routed accordingto institutional goals, rather than being a psychological dynamic which cansomehow remain aloof from them (e.g., Rose, 1990). Following Foucauldianlogic, for Butler, the very act of self-reflexivity is born out of a submission of

psychic life to the interpellatory power of pre-existing discursive formations.Agency, as constituted via self-awareness, is always already a corollary of

dependency. But this is troubling for Butler (1997a), because she wants tohang on to the possibility of agency outside of normative and regulatoryforces: if subordination is the condition of possibility for agency, how might

agency be thought in opposition to the forces of subordination (p. 10)?We are reminded here also of Froshs (2007) desire to avoid the narrative

fixing of the subject in maintaining the healthy marginality of a resistivesubject (p. 643). However, whereas Frosh emphasizes the value of multiplenarratives, Butler partially answers her own question by instating a degree of

what she later refers to as non-narratability in her model of opaque self-hood (Butler, 2005). Therein lies the possibility of a dimension of being

which remains uninterpellated:

we might reread being as precisely the potentiality that remains unexhausted

by any particular interpellation. Such a failure of interpellation may well

undermine the capacity of the subject to be in a self-identical sense, but it

may also mark the path toward a more open, even more ethical kind of

being, one of or for the future. (Butler, 1997a, p. 131)



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In Butlers initial formulation the psychodynamic driving force behind sucha potentiality is sketched in terms of individual narcissism. The I enters thesocial realm of being because I have a certain inevitable attachment to my

existence, because a certain narcissism takes hold of any term that confersexistence (Butler, 1997b, p. 104). Yet despite its apparently narcissistic ori-

gins, Butler posits the act of disavowal as a kind of resistant agency; for if thevoicing of self is always an act of submission, as Butler attests, then a wil-ful disavowal, the resisting of any interpellation, is the only remaining possi-

bility for a genuine assertion of agency.Amongst the possibilities for opposition to the performative utterance

demanded by dominating forcesthe short-circuiting of regulatory

powerButler (1997a) thus posits remaining silent, partial recitings,

and a postmoral gesture toward a less regular freedom, one that from the per-spective of a less codifiable [italics added] set of values calls into question thevalues of morality (p. 82). Butlers approach could be taken to suggest that,however hard it is to locate, an important element of agency or intentionality

in the process of dialogical self-construction is to be found outside of what isvoiced.

Applied to a dialogical model of selfhood, Butlers account potentially sup-ports but also extends the insights found in object-relations theory, amongstothers. Not only is the dialogical flux of tension and harmony between voiced

and the unspeakable a description of the process of subjectivity, the space ofthe unspeakable is a potential resource for the rather elusive healthy mar-

ginality of a resistant subject (Frosh, 2007, p. 643). Though fascinating, suchan argument enters into turbulent philosophical waters, reinstating, as itappears to, essentialist and individualistic claims at the heart of a construc-

tionist account, perhaps at the expense of the relational emphasis of the turnto language. In what remains of this paper, we will consider the potential inButlers more recent work for a revised dialogical psychology which more

explicitly accounts for the relationship between self and other in formulatingan ethical or critical subjectivity.

Contesting Legibility

In Giving an Account of Oneself(2005) Butler attempts to offer firmer ground

for a critical subjectivity by developing a conceptual space for the non-nar-ratable or illegible dimensions of the psyche. Addressing a perceived lack ofconsideration of the role of the other in Foucaults account of ethical subjec-

tivity (p. 23), she now considers subjectivity to lie in a primordial relationship

to others. In general terms Butler posits an indistinguishability between theother and myself at the heart of who I am (p. 75), in a similar vein to thedevelopmental and object-relational work discussed above. For Butler too,the formation of subjectivity lies in ways of addressing the subject which




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pre-date and pre-form the possibility of voicing our subjectivity (p. 63).Others represent a primary impingement in touching, moving, feeding,changing, putting the infant/child to sleep, and establishing her/him as the

subject and object of speech; such tactile signs register in the very forma-tion of the subject (p. 70). We might add that ways of addressing here

include how we come to address ourselves. The formative opacity of self-dialogue means it retains its imprint upon us: the past is present in the thereand now, structuring and animating the very contours of a default relational-

ity (p. 68). These patterns are clearly not features of narrative for Butler, theyprescribe it in an ongoing and dynamic sense.

However, it is Butlers emphasis on the potential of a fundamental opacity

for an ethical subjectivity that raises interesting questions for developing a

dialogical concept of self: a subject who can never fully give an account ofitself may well be a result of being related at non-narratable levels of exis-tence to others in ways that have a supervenient ethical significance [italicsadded] (p. 135). The ethical implication for Butler is that the conflation of

self-narration with veracity does violence to the opaquely interdependentrealities of subjectivity. We are opaque to ourselves because we are formed

out of a pre-discursive alterity which can never be voiced; but in acknowl-edging, embracing even, this inability, we can relax the imperative for egoicmastery and realize that we are stitched into the fabric of the purposeful sub-

jectivity of others, as they are ours. The fantasy of full accountability in nar-rative offers suspect coherence; it is a falsification, a break with

relationality at the core of our being (p. 63). It is thus ethically questionablebecause it avoids the truth of a person, a truth better revealed if we permit,sustain and accommodate interruptions in self-narration. Lest the reader

think that talk of truth and authenticity is an exaggeration of Butlers claims,let me quote her at some length on the matter:

If we require that someone be able to tell in story form the reasons that his

or her life has taken the path it has, that is, to be a coherent autobiographer,

we may be preferring the seamlessness of the story to something we mighttentatively might call the truth of the person, a truth that, to a certain degree

might well become more clear in moments of interruption, stoppage,

open-endednessin enigmatic articulations that cannot easily be translated

into narrative form. (p. 64)

Dialogical psychology has a more pluralistic understanding of the coherent

biographer than the target of Butlers suspicion of story-telling. Nonethelessin the context of the argument presented in this paper, her comments have a

parallel applicability to the normative assumption of dialogical psychology in

its focus on voicing and self-narration, and in posing the question of ethicsshe brings to the fore the relationship between narratability and normativity.

That said, the move from an account of the unspeakable in dialogical selfhoodto a defence of the ethical potential of that acknowledgement is not a smooth




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one, and there are numerous inconsistencies and uncertainties which at thisjuncture can only be articulated as emerging issues for future deliberation.

In Giving an Account of Oneself there is a persistent sense in which the

opacity of the self-to-itself is an inert domain. For Butler, the ethical poten-tial of our intimate otherness appears to depend on our acknowledgement of

itin our acceptance that we cannot fully know our selves; that self-knowledge is inevitably opaque, formed, as it is, and continues to be, out ofunconscious dialogical relations with others. In such a move we acknowledge

our own incompleteness and our reliance on the other to constitute us. Thusthe ethical potential of a profound unspeakable dimension flows from our

acknowledgementof its existence, more than from any active utilization of it

to resist, refute, enliven, or enrich the narration of self. There is a danger here

of missing the active role of unspeakable dynamics in acting meaningfully,provided by Bollas, amongst others. In this sense the earlier, less developedaccount of what is referred to in this paper as the disavowalof the interpella-tion to bring-into-voice may be worthy of further exploration, to get at the

degree to which self-opacity can be utilized as a resource in a revised subjec-tivity; one which embraces the humility of recognizing the other, but retains

the power to inscribe and articulate itself in relation to (and sometimesagainst) narrative and voice, rather than being cowed by it.

The apparent paradox of subjectivity becoming clearer for Butler in

acknowledging non-narratability might also be considered in this context. If thedisavowal of self-narration provides an ethical corrective to our subjectification

through language, does not its power, in some cases of healthy marginality atleast, lie in remaining illegible, rather than encouraging transparency on a new,improved register? Here again the potential of a dialogical framework is appar-

ent, in that it might more readily accommodate multiple positions in dialogue,to retain yet stretch beyond a focus on voice and narration.

In the power of Butlers rhetoric there is also a danger of over-valuing the

unvoiced other in the subject formation. In taking forward the argumentsmade in this paper, we must make more, perhaps, of Butlers own occasional

acknowledgements that the narration and voicing of life are still important:I do not mean to undervalue the importance of narrative work in the recon-struction of a life that otherwise suffers from fragmentation and discontinuity

(Butler, 2005, p. 52); there is no reason to call into question the importanceof narrating a life ... especially for those whose involuntary experience of dis-

continuity afflicts them in profound ways (p. 59); no one can live in a rad-ically non-narratable world or survive a radically non-narratable life (p. 59).However, comments such as these appear as corrective afterthoughts rather

than an element in an attempt at integrated dialogue. Here lies the potential

of dialogical psychologyto inquire further into the dialogical relationshipbetween voiced and unvoiced whilst striving to avoid the normative supremacyof either for a subjectivity that is ethically open to the others subjective expe-riences in relation to ones own.




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Further Dialogue

One possible path for a further development of a dialogical understanding lies

in pursuing alternative philosophical traditions. Dialogical psychology hasalways encouraged a parallel polyvocality in disciplinary dialogue, so such an

exploration seems well within its range of convenience. One area that haspursued the sense that a non-violent ethics follows from suspicion towardsthe coherence of the voicing of ourselves is the theory and practice of medi-

tation, and associated normative claims regarding subjective experience.Fundamentally, accounts of meditative practices such as Zen Buddhism com-monly portray excessive self-narration as doing violence to ones self, con-

versely valuing subject-formation that depends for its value on not being

self-narrated (see Claxton, 1984; Herrigel, 1953/2004). In a sense many reli-gious and philosophical traditions which emphasize the value of the practiceof meditation actually invertthe asymmetrical binary of voiced/unspoken whichis the focus of this discussion. The commanding power of voice is subsumed

in an emphasis on a more tacit level of processing (Claxton, 1984, p. 61).Whilst what such a state of mind consists of remains necessarily opaque

in terms of narrative frameworks of interpretation, the idea of articulatingthe unspeakable in an avowedly ethical form may be further developed byinquiring into the detail of these traditions, without exoticizing or exagger-

ating them. In Krishnamurtis teachings, for example, he regularly calls fora revolution in our way of thinking and living based on meditation(Krishnamurti, 1968, p. 14). From this state, it is possible to attain a tran-

quility that is not a product of the mind, a tranquility that is neither imaginednor cultivated (Krishnamurti, 1970, p. 28). Rather than a retreat to silence,

however, Krishnamurtis teachings build on meditative practices and anaccompanying philosophy to stress a radically enlarged understanding ofindividual psychological responsibility and mutual dependency, including

responsibility for others. Although taking a different route, like Butler,Krishnamurtis work emphasizes an active psychodynamics valuing the non-

narratable, which clearly has a supervenient ethical dimensionsuggest-ing that further dialogue between such apparently divergent traditions holds

potential for dialogical psychology.

However welcome such an endeavour, it is unlikely to provide all theanswers to remaining questions concerning the value of the unspeakable in

conceptualizing a dialogical self. If such a conceptualization is to develop,we also need to draw on resources in psychology. Though they still have fur-ther potential as resources for conceptual development, the intention here

has not been to suggest that the theoretical and empirical resources for

accounts of selfhood incorporating unspeakable dimensions are only to befound in developmental psychology or object-relations theory. Whilst pre-senting a broad programme of critique, there has been an inevitable narrow-ing in providing illustrative support for an alternative; but this is a limitation

only on behalf of the discussion in hand, and there is potential for dialogical




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psychology to engage fruitfully with a number of other areas within and beyond psychology. For example, in their varied accounts Meads socialpsychology (Mead, 1934), Bourdieus sociology (e.g., 1979/1984), the tradi-

tion of transpersonal psychology (Davis, 2003), and psychoanalytic sociol-ogy (Clarke, 2006) all offer accounts of the reciprocity and tensions between

elements of self-psychology and dynamics routinely unspoken or unspeak-able which might contribute to such an engagement. They also suggest fur-ther complexities to how such dynamics might be conceptualized in relation

to the dialogical.Similarly, various narrative approaches and related theories of position-

ing and associated methodologies tackle the psychodynamics of what can

and cannot be spoken in relation to their own conceptual frameworks and

could contribute to further discussion and integration along the lines sug-gested here (e.g., Butt & Langdridge, 2003; Davies & Harr, 1990; Frosh,Phoenix, & Pattman, 2003; Lucius-Hoene & Deppermann, 2000; Morgan &Coombes, 2001; Nielsen, 1993). In moving forward, the specifically dialogi-

calrelationship between the unspeakable and the voiced in subject-formationrequires further emphasis; it is the undeveloped theoretical foundations for a

dialogical approach to the unspeakable that this paper has sought to address.Therein lies the potential to move beyond the assumed link between silenceor not-speaking and the marginalization of subject-positions, towards a fuller

consideration of the role of the unspeakable in the dialogical production ofsubjectivity more comprehensively.

Conclusion

The study of the dialogical self has long emphasized the role of culture inintersubjective development, and the role of culture in the development of

particular voices in ones dialogue (Hermans, 2001; Josephs, 2002). However,conceptualizations of the dialogical self may have inherited a cultural blind-

spot in their one-sided emphasis upon making-visible and orderly the voicednature of dialogue, a bias which, according to Blackman (2005), stretches backto the Enlightenment and the birth of modernist sensibilities. The valuing of

the unspeakable reinstates an important cultural and psychological balance inour appreciation of the nature of psychical dialoguerecognition not just of

different voices, but of different understandings and roles for the voiced andfor the unspeakable, within the dialogical dynamics of intersubjective selfhood.Processes of pre-reflective intersubjectivity and disavowal do not necessarily

refute the paradigm of the dialogical self. In fact they open it up to a more

comprehensive understanding of the dynamics involved in self-dialogue, andin particular the possibility of agency in contemporary settings.

Butlers fluent and sustained account of the necessary limits to narra-tivization can offer a parallel critique of the role of the voiced/spoken in dia-

logical psychologys concept of self. It returns us, perhaps, to one of the most



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important tenets of psychoanalysis: that the I cannot knowingly fully recoverwhat impels it, since its formation remains prior to its elaboration as reflexiveself-knowing (Butler, 2005, p. 85), which can now be applied to the potential

of polyvocality. In such a return we are required to consider anew the value ofemploying a concept of the unconscious in theorizing selfhood, and to explore

in more detail its cultural and social origins, beyond what has been outlinedhere as a dialogical and unspeakable psychodynamic based in part on a rela-tionship to the other; a task beyond the remit of the current discussion.

The intention in this analysis has been to question the values ascribed to thevoiced/unspeakable binaries: unsettling the sense of the former as the realmof the present, consciousness, intent, and volition; the latter as signifying the

dangerous, latent, and/or marginal. Such binaries need to be unsettled in a

meaningful critique, but not inverted. More specifically, if we aspire to tran-scend this binary, we must consider the origins of whatever we end up liter-ally voicing or thinking in words in dynamics which can be opaque to the self,as well as subjected to a high degree of effortful perspicuity; and that

unvoiced dialogical dynamics may be equally capable of reflecting a form ofagency, still understandable within a broad framework of dialogical psychol-

ogy. There is no need to bemoan the existence of the unspeakable as a yet tobe un-tapped resource in functional multi-voicedness, as a latent powerwaiting to be translated into the currency of the spoken, if we consider it to

reflect a form of healthy, perhaps even critical, subjectivity. Whereas Butlerprovides a strong basis for a conversation about how we might make room for

an ethical subject which embraces the non-narrational, perhaps dialogicalpsychology can further the conversation by developing not just an account ofthe interrelatedness of many voices in the dialogical self, but also a dialogue

between the voiced and the unspeakable, without retreating into silence alone.

Note

1. This is a very brief overview of accounts of the dialogical self. See Hermans and

Kempen (1993) for a detailed development, The Theory & Psychology specialedition on dialogical psychology provides a good sense of the development and

debates around the concept generally (Hermans, 2002b).

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MATTHEW ADAMS is Senior Lecturer in Psychology, School of AppliedSciences, University of Brighton. His research interests gravitate towardsissues of identity, and draw theoretically from contemporary sociological and

psychological conceptualizations of self/identity. His research locates forms

of selfhood and identity firmly in relation to social and cultural contexts. Heis a member of the Psychosocial Studies Group and the Consuming IdentitiesResearch Forum at the University of Brighton. His most recent book is Self& Social Change (Sage, 2007), and he has had work published in various

journals, such as Sociology, Culture & Psychology, and Theory, Culture &Society. ADDRESS: University of Brighton, School of Applied Social Sciences,Falmer, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 9HP, UK. [email: [email protected]]


adams (2010) losing ones voice - dialogical psychology and the unspeakable

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