2 Time and the dialogical self

Although time is recognized as an important factor relating dialogical selves, space is the primary metaphor used when discussing alternative I-positions in dialogical relations (e.g. Hermans 2001, 2002; Hermans and Kempen 1993; Raggatt 2000). However, more recently, there has been a growing theoretical interest in the temporal dimension of dialogicality (e.g. Bertau and Gonçalves 2007; Bhatia and Ram 2001; Gillespie 2005, 2007; Hermans and Dimaggio 2004; Hermans and HermansKonopka 2010; McAdams 2006; Märtsin 2010; Raggatt 2010; Valsiner 2001). This interest has taken several forms. For instance, Hermans and Hermans-Konopka (2010) devote a chapter of their review of dialogical self theory (DST) on the historical development in the West in conceptions of self, from traditional, to modern, to postmodern, all of which they see as embedded in our current understanding of the self. Taking a more ontogenetic approach to the temporal dimension, Bertau and Gonçalves (2007) recently edited a volume of papers devoted to the early development of the dialogical self and the forms it takes from preverbal to early verbal development. A longer, life-historical perspective on temporal transformations in the representation of the dialogical self is found both in clinical (e.g. Hermans and Dimaggio 2004) and in non-clinical case studies (e.g. Gillespie 2005; McAdams 2006; Raggatt 2010, in press). Finally, although short-term change through time in dialogical relations has often been described, the micro-dynamics of change through time in dialogical relations and structural variations of I-positions has increasingly become theorized in a variety of models of change (e.g. Hermans and Hermans-Konopka 2010; Märtsin 2010; Valsiner 2001). In a previous paper, I presented a three-dimensional model of the dialogical self (Barresi 2002a), which added a reflective dimension and a temporal dimension to a spatial dimension of I-positions. The vertical dimension of themodel represents the individual’s degree of self-reflection,