On Narrative Identity

In recent decades, attention to the issue of ‘narrative identity’, and problems connected to it, has seen an exponential development in different research fields, with the effect of significant connections and intertwining between various disciplines, both at the theoretical-reflective level and at the level of an applicative research. It is true that, in addition to the fields of narratology and the science of culture, narrative identity is mainly thematised in the psychological field. It is here, in fact, that it is considered by many ways: from personality psychology to social psychology, and from dynamic psychology to clinical psychology. The interest of psychological research goes beyond this general level of ‘mental functioning’, because narration forms one’s lived experience and the way in which one embraces, interprets and understands his/her existence and relationships with others and with their cultural values. Narration is the expression of a psychological reality and, at the same time, is generative of a psychological reality. Consequently, it mirrors a representation of oneself, human relationships and the sense of things so much in accordance with choices, ideals, dispositions and interests, as in accordance with deeper dynamisms, drive thrusts, traumas and topical experiences. Starting from the relationship between identity and narration in literature, this paper aims to investigate the question of narrative identity as the fulcrum of a scientific theorisation that operates between psychology and philosophy showing how the interrelationship between these two sciences is productive and fundamental.