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This essay critically reflects on the hegemonic conceptions of the self and its instrumentalization in modern psychology to fit modern Western society in general. Not only that various metaphysical, metatheoretical, theoretical and methodological commitments are seen as serious obstacles to fulfil the apparent epistemological desire for a paradigmatic shift towards a dynamic, relational and pluralist worldview as illustrated by Dialogical Self Theory in particular but also the conceptual confusion between various key categories of human subjectivity such as the self, identity, otherness, difference, alterity, sociality and the reductionism of position categories is drawn attention to. Departing from the Handbook of Dialogical Self Theory, Dialogical Self Theory's appropriation of Bakhtinian notion of dialogic is put into question. In order to accentuate the moral, historical and sociopolitical aspects of dialogical self-reflexivity and psychic, microgenetic, ontogenetic and socicogenetic processes, the concept of 'selfing' is introduced in three distinct relations with the concept of 'othering' for its significant implications for the post-/late-modern glocal world.

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Background Kenneth J. Gergen, a prominent name in psychology, has provided extensive commentaries on contemporary transformations in western cultural life, the basis of these changes in technological innovation, and the implications for our conceptions of self and the practices of human science more recently (Gergen, 1991, 1992, 1994). As a psychologist with interests in theory of knowledge, cultural variation and human change, it seemed important to me to address and deliberate with him on the relevant issues of postmodernism, and its implications for the study of culture and psychology. The discussion began in May 1994 at Swarthmore College, USA, and continued on electronic mail. A shortened and edited version of this dialogue is offered here in the hope of stimulating further relational thoughts and inviting 'joint action' (Shotter, 1980) in our field of intellectual inquiry.

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