The Delight of Continuing the Conversation

Abstract

I thank my colleagues for the enlivening ways in which they sustain the conversation. In certain respects, the conversation moves in four different directions. With Churchill, I find myself in a learning mode, appreciating more fully the relational dimensions of phenomenology; with Clegg, I find us on a conversational route toward affinity; with Sugarman and Martin, I find myself curious as to how they can reconcile what appear to be individualist and relational views of the person; and with Slife and Richardson, we move into complex issues of constructionist metatheory. Yet in all cases, we converge on the profound significance of relational process.

Acknowledgments

This article was originally presented at the 118th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association in San Diego, August 2010. The presentation was part of a symposium entitled “Exploring and Critiquing Ken Gergen's Book Relational Being.”