Culture, narrative, and the poetic construction of selfhood

Recent explorations of the relationship between narrative and self, particu larly those tied to social constructionism, have served as a valuable corre ctive to the still-prevalent tendency in psychology to divorce the self fro m its social surround. Yet certain of these explorations, by privileging th e social over the individual, have led to a vision of selfhood that is prob lematic in its own right. Specifically, it is argued that, even though the "tools" employed in the construction of selfhood are social in nature, the configurational acts through which this construction occurs are better conc eived in poetic terms, as imaginative labor seeking to give form and meanin g to experience. In considering the poetic construction of selfhood, this a rticle attempts to articulate further the relationship between narrative an d self, the cultural dimension of personal experience, and the importance o f the idea of narrative for expanding the scope of psychological knowledge.