Dialogical self
Inspired by the original ideas of William James and Mikhail Bakhtin, Hubert Hermans, Harry Kempen and Rens van Loon wrote the first psychological publication on the "dialogical self" in which they conceptualized the self in terms of a dynamic multiplicity of relatively autonomous "I"-positions in the (extended) landscape of the mind. In this conception, the "I" has the possibility to move from one spatial position to another in accordance with changes in situation and time. The "I" fluctuates among different and even opposed positions, and has the capacity to imaginatively endow each position with a voice so that dialogical relations between positions can be established. The voices function like interacting characters in a story, involved in processes of question and answer, agreement and disagreement. Each of them have a story to tell about their own experiences from their own stance. As different voices, these characters exchange information about their respective Me's and mines, resulting in a complex, narratively structured self.
Dialogical self
Closely related to this gap, there is the lack of connection between dialogical self research and mainstream psychology. Although the theory and its applications have been published in mainstream journals like "Psychological Bulletin" and the "American Psychologist", it has not yet led to the adoption of the theory as a significant development in mainstream (American) psychology. Apart from the theory-research gap, one of the additional reasons for the lacking connection with mainstream research may be the fact that interest in the notion of dialogue, central in the history of philosophy since Plato, is largely neglected in psychology and other social sciences. Another disadvantage of the theory is that it lacks a research procedure that is sufficiently common to allow for the exchange of research data among investigators. Although different research tools have been developed (see the above review of assessment and research methods), none of them are used by a majority of researchers in the field.