Realities and Relationships

Kenneth J. Gergen is Senior Research Professor of Psychology at Swarthmore College. He is the author of The Saturated Self and Toward Transformation in Social Knowledge.

Critics and supporters alike of social constructionism will find Gergen’s volume an important contribution. It provides a cogent and powerfully rendered statement of the assumptions and claimed potentials of social constructionism...Realities and Relationships will likely emerge as a classic that will be cited widely for some time to come.

• Preface From Individual Knowledge to Communal Construction The Impasse of Individual Knowledge Crisis in Representation and the Emergence of Social Construction Constructionism in Question Social Construction and Moral Orders Criticism and Consequence Social Psychology and the Wrong Revolution The Cultural Consequences of Deficit Discourse Objectivity as Rhetorical Achievement From Self to Relationship Self-Narration in Social Life Emotion as Relationship Transcending Narrative in the Therapeutic Context The Communal Origins of Meaning Deceit: From Conscience to Community Notes References Index