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Notes

[Note 1]

I am aware of post-modern arguments against this notion (e.g., Gergen 1991). They seem to me to be constructed, however, as theoretical polemics rather than as empirically grounded arguments. Empirical studies show the demise of narrative coherence and continuity only in cases of distressed self-identity - e.g. the 'chaos narratives' of some seriously ill persons (Frank 1995) or the self-accounts of beggars who have yet to gain a regular place in their own setting (Mair- Dviri and Raz 1996). The great majority of empirical studies of life stories testifies not only to their narrative coherence but indeed to their relative stability, i.e., a degree of autonomy from the context of their telling (Bruner 1994), and to a practical consequentiality of the self-narrative for the subject's choices and actions (Irvine 1999; McAdams 1993). They are congruent with philosophical arguments for understanding human action in terms of narrative plots that give meaning to the passage of time (Polkinghorne 1988, 1991).