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Towards a Semiotic PsychotherapySemiotic Objects and Semiotic SelvesSanta Rosa, CA, michaelb{at}sonic.net
Santa Rosa, CA, mkee{at}sonic.net The focus of the following article is on the generation of meanings that found the self in the context of psychotherapeutic exchanges. We want to outline the domain of semiosis as a proliferating, polysemic realm of meaning. We hope to suggest through this outline that clinical frames of reference, as well as everyday aspects of our language exchanges, are susceptible to an essentially shifting nature of meaning. As a result, what we take as definitive characteristics of classic diagnostic lexical items are also subject to the uncertainty of semiosis. And, finally, the construct psychology applies to the individual-a self-is best viewed as a semiotic object susceptible to the promiscuous nature of semiosis. When a practice such as psychotherapy takes the self as its object, and utilizes certain clinical frames of reference as its basis, practitioners should be aware of the shifting and labile ground upon which its constructs are erected. Semiotic analysis and its subsequent category of linguistic analysis can thus offer a ground for a theory of psychotherapy.
Key Words: linguistics • narrativity • psychotherapy • semiosis • semiotics
Theory & Psychology, Vol. 11, No. 5,
671-686 (2001) This article has been cited by other articles:
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