ABSTRACT
While conceptions of ‘self’ may seem self-explanatory and often appear to be taken as self-evident within health professions, the literature concerning how the self is constructed has been burgeoning in other fields. Various philosophers and theorists have, in recent years, drawn attention to conflicting conceptions of the self, and raised this as an important domain of concern at both a theoretical and practical level. Conceptions of the ‘self’ vary, from interpretations that focus on 1) the unitary rationalistic subject of the enlightenment project, to 2) decentred and fragmented poststructural and postmodern subjects, to 3) narrative and dialogic views. These three perspectives are considered in the first section, followed by discussions that highlight ethical issues revealed when one attends to a narrative and dialogic conception of the self.
