Se faire soi

Abstract

In today's industrialized societies, personal and career development interventions aim to answer the following societal problem: "How can individuals be helped to direct their own lives, within their own human society?" An implementation of personal and career development interventions aimed at addressing this problem supposes turning it into a scientific question. This question can be stated as follows: What are the sociological and psychological factors and processes underlying life-long self-construction? This paper outlines a general model intending to answer this. Its basic concepts are the following: identity offer, self-relating mode, system of cognitive identity frames, subjective identity form, "I - me" dual reflexivity, "I - you - s/he" trinity reflexivity. This theoretical model leads to differentiating universal and determined factors and processes of self-construction. Nevertheless, developing rigorous personal and career development interventions also implies defining their individual and collective ends in relation to moral and ethical consideration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved) (from the journal abstract)