Dissociation as disorganized self-narrative: Tension between splitting and integration

Bakhtin's metaphor of the polyphonic novel, based on Dostoyevsky's writings, is starting point for a conceptualization of the self as multivoiced and dialogical. This conceptualization is illustrated with an actual case in which a client, at times, experienced herself as a witch. A self-confrontation method is used to enable the client to perform two self-investigations one from her usual position as Mary and another from the position of the witch. Following the client over a period of one year it was found that, after one year her self-narrative had incorporated elements that were earlier part of the self-narrative of the witch. The latter self-narrative was a combination of Mary and the witch with Mary as more dominant than the witch. Finally, two main features of dialogue, intersubjective exchange and dominance, were discussed.