THE PLACE OF THE PSYCHE IN A CONSTRUCTED WORLD

The vast majority of social constructionist writings have been critica l of psychological science-on both ideological and conceptual grounds. The constructionist emphasis on microsocial processes also functions oppositionally to psychological accounting. The existing animus grows, however, from a realist metaphysics and a correspondence view of lang uage, neither of which constructionism endorses. Viewing the relations hip between constructionism and psychological science in more pragmati c terms, we find three significant ways in which constructionism contr ibutes to a more fully enriched and broadly effective psychology. Firs t, critical constructionism functions to denaturalize psychological ac counts, opening them to reflexive deliberation, and democratizing the field more generally. Second, constructionist metatheory invites a res uscitation of marginal or suppressed discourse within the field, and i nvigorates societally engaged efforts to forge new and more useful dis courses of the mind. Finally, social constructionism offers the possib ility for a fundamental reconceptualization of the self. Illustrative is the family of theories conceptualizing the self as either constitut ed by or constituting relationships.