Psychological research on sex trafficking has largely focused on trauma and vulnerability. This study broadens that focus by adopting a phenomenological-existential, social constructionist, and dialogical perspective to explore survivors' lived experiences beyond a trauma-centered lens. Using reflexive thematic analysis with eight women survivors, four themes were co-constructed: General distrust of others, (Re)constructing trust through social support, Pathways of coping, and Relationship with the body. Findings reveal processes of trust restoration, coping, and re-embodiment, highlighting spirituality, creativity, and motherhood as sources of resilience and meaning. Integrating phenomenological-existential insights with social constructionism and Dialogical Self Theory, the study proposes recovery as a multidimensional process in which the self is embodied, relationally constituted, and narratively evolving. These insights offer guidance for practitioners and researchers seeking to promote trust, agency, and growth among survivors of trafficking.
This paper proposes the Evaluative Narrative Negotiation Model (ENNM), a constructivist framework that reconceptualizes the job selection interview as a site of identity construction rather than attribute detection. Integrating Dialogical Self Theory, narrative psychology, and constructivist epistemology, the model challenges the signal detection paradigm while maintaining a complementarist meta-epistemological stance. The ENNM comprises four conceptual building blocks-Narrative Identity Space, Dialogical Self-Regulation, Interpretive Evaluation Framework, and Negotiated Fit-elaborated through seven formally stated propositions, each illustrated with a fictional vignette. The model theorizes how candidates navigate multiple I-positions under evaluative exposure; how interviewers function as relational co-constructors whose judgments are shaped by their own I-position systems; and how person-job fit emerges as narrative resonance rather than objective correspondence. The paper additionally confronts the ethical tensions inherent in applying a dialogically grounded framework to a structurally asymmetric evaluative context, positioning the ENNM as an analytical lens rather than a prescriptive technology.
Grief can be viewed as a frequently anguished attempt to reaffirm or reconstruct a world of meaning that has been shaken or shattered by loss. This article reviews 25 years of research stemming from this constructivist premise, tracing its evolution through three phases of evolving methodologies in pursuit of a deeper, more empirically informed and practically oriented understanding of bereavement and its implications for professional practice. The article concludes by noting three growing edges of the research program calling for further development, in terms of (1) the process and outcome of meaning-focused grief therapy, (2) naturally occurring processes of meaning reconstruction in non-clinical contexts, and (3) the possible contribution of artificial intelligence (AI) in bereavement support and intervention.
This paper examines the contributions and achievements of constructivist approaches, tracing their development from their originators to prominent contemporary voices. Rooted in early philosophical and scientific contributions, constructivism emphasizes that knowledge is actively constructed rather than passively received. Its impact on mainstream psychology reflects a substantial influence on core assumptions across numerous subfields, mainly due to recent developments in neuroscience, including predictive coding and Bayesian models, which portray the brain as an active meaning-making system. Core constructivist themes-such as agency, meaning-making, identity, hierarchical organization, and self-regulation-are now widely present across psychological domains. However, recognition of constructivism's role in this evolution varies significantly by domain. Despite this integration, constructivism has not always been explicitly acknowledged. The article also identifies underexplored contributions, including the role of internal conflict and methodologies for studying subjectivity.
The article focuses on the social constructionism of Gergen, Harr & eacute;, Pearce, and Cronen which had the greatest influence on systemic psychotherapies. Thanks to this turning point, the focus shifted from the family to family-therapist interaction and to the therapist's reflexive practices and an extraordinarily broad corpus of dialogical techniques was developed. However, this epistemological change has also been accompanied by a loss of interest in psychological disorders and related family contexts. A line of research, initiated by Guidano and further developed by the Family Semantic Polarities Model, which instead focused on these issues is presented. It offers a constructionist interpretation of four main psychological disorders and utilizes reflexivity as a way to understand these disorders and the related contexts. The article concludes that the future of systemic-constructionist therapies depends on their ability to provide creative and sustainable solutions to mental health issues, which now require a change in perspective, as widely recognized.
The Dialogical Self Theory, among other theories, suggests that intrapersonal communication operates with the principles of interpersonal communication and yields comparable psychological benefits. This study examines the relationships between self-talk, internal dialogue, and prayer and further situates prayer among other intrapersonal communication domains. One hundred participants completed the Self-Talk Scale, Internal Dialogue Activity- Revised Scale, Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire-Revised, and Prayer Thoughts Scale. Results indicated a relationship between prayer, self-talk, and internal dialogue, where an increase in prayer co-occurred with an increase in self-talk and internal dialogue. Further self-reinforcement was the primary link between prayer and self-talk, while self-identity was the primary connection between prayer with internal dialogue. There were further differences in the use of intrapersonal communication based on cultural and social context, such as African identity, seminary affiliation, and frequency of prayer activity.
Horvath's paper leverages constructivist theory and research to further develop what is known or can be known about the therapeutic relationship. He argues that constructivism can provide a more dynamic perspective of the relationship and move beyond static, positivistic views that reduce relationship features to mere elements. According to Horvath, constructivism can help us access new territories of understanding that may explain what has thus far been left unsaid about the relationship in therapy. For this commentary, I take up one of Horvath's proposals for future research, which is to draw from the insights and growing work of conversation analysis (CA) to explicate how the relationship is dynamically accomplished in interaction. From a short extract of a psychotherapeutic conversation, I briefly illustrate how CA methodology can be used to reveal how the relationship is established, maintained, disrupted and repaired from moment-to-moment.
This paper examines the central question of why conducting research within the theoretical framework of the Dialogical Self renders the researcher vulnerable and what they are made vulnerable to. Dialogical Self Theory (DST) offers an objectivity critique by suggesting that researchers explicitly situate knowledge production rather than strive for a deceptive "view from nowhere." Starting from a dictionary definition of vulnerability as signifying susceptibility to attack, this paper bridges DST with Harding's feminist standpoint epistemology which offers an objectivity critique in terms of "strong objectivity" rather than vulnerability. The analysis of vulnerability in light of the concept of strong objectivity leads to the conclusion that the vulnerability referred to in the title of this special issue, The Vulnerable Researcher, is less about being susceptible to attack and more about the researcher being susceptible to change and transformation as research implies an intentional curation of dialogue, which makes one's me-positions (one's beliefs and knowledge) available for reexamination. Finally, the paper considers the context of the objectivity critique in a research environment characterized by a discrepancy between research methodology and epistemological underpinnings. The humanistic philosopher Montaigne's work on the self is considered as a way to anchor the objectivity critique presented by this special issue in a centuries-long debate.
When adverse life events occur, making sense of the experience becomes a central psychological task. While meaning-making has been widely theorized, how meaning is constructed in relation to non-penetrative sexual assault, particularly through narrativization itself, remains underexplored. The present study examines how meaning-making unfolds through narrativization rather than as an outcome of recovery. Using narrative inquiry and reflexive thematic analysis, this qualitative case study explores the narrative of a woman who experienced non-penetrative sexual assault. Analysis revealed four overarching themes that together reflected a recurrent pattern of disruption and rebuilding: shifting ideologies, challenges in making sense, gaining control, and negotiating impact. Meaning-making emerged as an iterative and ongoing process shaped by internal struggles, relational dynamics, and sociocultural narratives, rather than a linear progression toward resolution. By foregrounding narrativization as a meaning-making process, this study highlights the importance of attending to how survivors continually negotiate meaning, identity, and impact over time.
This study qualitatively explores types of self-dynamics using the Model of the Agonistic Self (MAS), which conceives the self as a field of struggle among inner and social voices. 25 students were selected based on extreme scores on the Dimensions of Identity Development Scale, and 13 completed interviews and cross-case analysis. The Tense Ideological Type exhibits predominance of ideological over evaluative voices and constructive tension supporting adaptive identity development. The Impermeable Type is marked by rigid dominance of few ideological voices and fragile stability. The Conflictual Evaluative Type is characterized by evaluator dominance and escalating inner conflicts, representing maladaptive identity dynamics. Based on these types, a successfully formed identity is defined as relatively stable ideological dominance over evaluators, maintained through selective silencing of certain voices while preserving openness to the dialogue with resistant or emerging voices. Findings highlight the relevance of the MAS for psychological interventions addressing youth identity problems.
Childhood trauma disrupts early meaning-making systems, shaping personal constructs, relational patterns, and emotional regulation across the life course. This study analyzes how such undermined construct systems are narratively reconstructed through autobiographical writing, reflective meaning making, and relational dialogue, using Shaka Senghor's Writing My Wrongs as a constructivist single-case narrative analysis. Rather than treating the memoir as a factual life record, the analysis approaches it as a performative act of present-time identity reconstruction, which is shaped through letters, mentorship, incarceration, and the presence of real and imagined audiences. Drawing on personal construct psychology (PCP) alongside narrative identity and constructivist trauma frameworks, the study maps how trauma-rooted constructs such as unloved-unworthy and power-as-protection are progressively destabilized and reorganized into meanings centered on responsibility, relational validation, and moral coherence. Findings demonstrate that autobiographical life writing, when supported by relational witnessing, enables emotional integration, moral accountability, and the restoration of self-coherence. The study further offers methodological implications for trauma-informed narrative rehabilitation, emphasizing constructive writing practices, relational validation, and meaning-based therapeutic intervention within correctional contexts.
This theoretical position paper advances a systematic social constructionist critique of the successful aging discourse and proposes an alternative framework for understanding later life. The analysis deconstructs the successful aging model along three intersecting dimensions-ableism, gender, and class/culture-revealing how it naturalizes culturally specific, structurally privileged standards as universal benchmarks. In response, the paper develops a constructionist meaning-making framework organized around four principles: meaning plurality, contextuality, relationality, and agency-within-discourse. This framework reconceptualizes good aging as the ongoing capacity to construct personally meaningful narratives rather than the attainment of predefined biomedical outcomes. The framework is brought into dialogue with narrative psychology, dialogical self theory, and personal construct theory, demonstrating the generative potential of cross-tradition conversation within constructivist psychology. Implications for psychotherapy, gerontological education, and aging policy are discussed, alongside a reflexive critique of the framework's own discursive positioning.
Opening with a parallel of poetry and personal narratives, this duoethnography draws on the theoretical framework of intersectional precarity to explore the entangled academic and personal journeys of how two Chinese female scholars experience and make sense of intersecting racialized, gendered, and sociopolitical inequities in the U.S. Through collaborative, qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews and sister talks took place on our daily running routes, we use metaphors from our long-distance running experiences to illustrate how intersectional precarity enacts as hills (e.g., daily exclusions), pains (e.g., financial and legal insecurity), and exhaustion (e.g., neoliberal academia). By explicitly theorizing and analyzing lived transnational academia and daily life through intersectionality and precarity, this study contributes a theoretical understanding of intersectional precarity as embodied, evolving, and context-specific. Investigating these dynamics through a metaphor-driven duoethnography demonstrates the necessity of reimagining solidarity and care within and beyond academic spaces.
This commentary recognizes the theoretical, empirical, and clinical contributions of metacognitive interpersonal therapy (MIT) as delineated by Dimaggio and Pasarella. Furthermore, it explores remaining challenges considering current developments in basic psychology, psychopathology, mental health care, and emerging cultural trends. In particular, four areas for further development are discussed: the explicit integration of broader conceptualizations of cognition (i.e., 4E cognition and predicting processing), greater attention to the social and cultural determinants of mental health and social justice, the implications of precision mental health care and artificial intelligence for treatment personalization, and the need for further research on stratification, process-outcome associations, cost-effectiveness and implementation. Addressing these challenges may contribute to consolidating MIT and strengthening its position within the evolving landscape of contemporary psychotherapies.
Empathic attunement and misattunement serve as critical resources within the client-therapist dynamic. Therapists' internal responses during practice are process signals that shape empathic attunement, therapeutic decisions, and overall alliance. However, these subjective experiences remain underexplored. This study seeks to examine empathic (mis-)attunement as it evolves, is understood, and navigated in psychotherapy, while highlighting the ways in which therapist subjectivity informs the experience. Adopting a constructivist lens, the present inquiry is anchored in a practice-based research framework. The author, through structured reflective writing, examines her experiences as a practicing clinical psychologist. The paper traces two moments of empathic (mis-)attunement transpiring in clinical work with a long-term client. The findings highlight how she negotiated dilemmas pertaining to therapist anxiety, directiveness, and empathic presence in these moments. They also reveal insights about the ways in which empathic (mis-)attunement unfolds latently and implicitly and how therapist internal experiences revealed clinically useful information to address therapist stance and facilitate repair. The study reframes misattunement as an opportunity for relational growth, rather than an error. While situated within a single case, these concerns remain pervasive in practice. Therefore, the study underscores how therapists can navigate the complexities of empathic (mis-)attunement, to facilitate improved decision-making and responsiveness.
Existing in the margins means inhabiting contradiction and complexity. What does it mean to be a researcher who belongs neither to the struggles of one's ancestors nor to the dominant frameworks of academia? As a brown scholar, I navigate binaries, Black and White, colonizer and colonized, that obscure the layered realities of my identity. This liminal position places me at the collision of the politics of identity and the identity of politics. My research interrogates the Eurocentric roots of academia and belonging while also reflecting my own positionality. I approach vulnerability as both a methodological stance and an existential state. Within constructivist psychology, I draw on autoethnography and Dialogical Self Theory (DST) to reflect on how I am simultaneously shaping and shaped by the research process. What happens when the very tools of analysis emerge from epistemologies that have long rendered people like me invisible? Through storytelling and critical analysis, I show how identity and knowledge are co-constructed and disrupt boundaries that exclude perspectives like mine. Vulnerability is not weakness but possibility, expanding what constructivist psychology can be. My work is an act of survival and transformation, insisting on new ways of imagining knowledge, identity, and belonging.
Mixed and controversial evidence demonstrates that some narcissists, particularly those with more grandiose features, do not necessarily exhibit intrapersonal deficits, whereas those with more vulnerable features do. To disentangle grandiose and vulnerable narcissists' self-deficits and intrapersonal views, the current study adopted George Kelly's repertory grid technique as an alternative methodology to examine how these two types of narcissists construe themselves in relation to their social environments. Using the self-identity-system approach, distinct self-identity plots and self-construal patterns were proposed for grandiose and vulnerable narcissists. Undergraduate students (n = 145) were given one of two repertory grids to complete and two narcissism measures. Results revealed that grandiose narcissists exhibited self-convergence, while vulnerable narcissists exhibited self-alienation. However, many grandiose narcissists did not exhibit social alienation, nor did vulnerable narcissists exhibit actual self-isolation. Despite the limited evidence supporting the proposed self-identity plots for each subtype, the self-identity-system approach proved to be an effective methodology for visually discriminating between the two subtypes' self-identities. Future directions and limitations of this study are noted, which include replicating this approach with a clinical population.
This article introduces a model of mental load by synthesizing and interrogating how the concept has been constructed across psychology, engineering, women's studies, and popular culture. Existing conceptualizations are fragmented and context- and discipline-specific. The divergent conceptualizations of mental load parallel the lack of interdisciplinary cross-pollination. Despite diverse adoption, the term often receives insufficient explanation. We extend prior literature by offering a broadened, interdisciplinary definition, as well as a model that highlights the ways in which mental load is influenced by social, relational, and contextual contributors, heightening attentiveness to subjectivity. This perspective opens an interrogation into how disciplines construct, define, and apply mental load, bringing diverse disciplinary perspectives into a framework that promotes a recognition of relationship. This article does not seek to revolutionize mental load research, but offers an expanded, inclusive perspective.
