Psychic Phenomena and Discourse: the Social Constructionism Perspective

The article analyzes the socioconstructionist view on psyche as a product of discourses. In the social constructionism perspective the psychological concepts are not viewed as «rigid designators». Their function is not to describe the objective processes and states, but to attribute meaning to them in accordance with the context of cultural meanings to which they belong. The social constructionism is focusing on the discursive nature of the psyche and its normative and semantic (not causal) relations. It orients psychology on the interpretational epistemology and on the conceptual and methodological framework construction close to that of the humanities (so called «understanding sciences»). The article also raises the broader issue of interrelation between language (or discourse, i.e. language in its socio-cultural and interactive aspects) and reality. The author argues that due to social constructionism that promotes the radicalization of linguistic nature of human experience, the reflection on discursive construction boundaries becomes relevant. The necessity of analysis of the other — extradiscursive — aspects of the «living world», and especially the practical component of being in the world, the phenomenology of corporeal and emotional connection with the world, and etc is explained.

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