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.
Four discourses
Lacan's theory of the four discourses was initially developed in 1969, perhaps in response to the events of social unrest during May 1968 in France, but also through his discovery of what he believed were deficiencies in the orthodox reading of the Oedipus complex. The four discourses theory is presented in his seminar "L'envers de la psychanalyse" and in "Radiophonie", where he starts using "discourse" as a social bond founded in intersubjectivity. He uses the term discourse to stress the transindividual nature of language: speech always implies another subject.