The Remembering Self: Construction and Accuracy in the Self-Narrative

The central claim is that autobiographical remembering is a form of self-knowing, and that the self-narratives people construct are constructive achievements that are never fully consistent and often simply wrong [citation:1][citation:5]. The book rejects the assumption that self-narratives are either simply accurate records of the past or merely fictional constructions with no truth-value. Neisser's opening chapter confronts the 'false memory syndrome' directly, treating the paradox of the self-narrative—remembering gives meaning to our lives, yet the memories we construct are unreliable—as a serious scientific problem rather than a contradiction to be dissolved [citation:1][citation:3]. The volume insists that accuracy and construction must be studied together rather than treated as opposing frameworks.

The book applies the ecological/cognitive approach that organized Neisser's earlier volume The Perceived Self to the problem of the self-narrative [citation:1][citation:5]. This approach treats the remembering self not as an isolated information processor but as an embodied agent engaged with a social and cultural world. The volume relates ideas from experimental, developmental, and clinical memory research to insights from postmodernism and literature [citation:3][citation:5]. Contributors include Jerome Bruner, Alan Baddeley, Kenneth Gergen, Peggy Miller, and Daniel Albright, bringing together literary studies with multiple branches of psychology [citation:1][citation:4]. The result is described as the first broad interdisciplinary study of the self-narrative [citation:1][citation:3].

The reception was largely positive, with reviewers praising its interdisciplinary range and provocative content. John A. Robinson, writing in Contemporary Psychology, called it 'a treat to read a book when its arguments are presented with such zest and clarity' [citation:3][citation:5]. R.E. Osborne in Choice described it as 'an admirable book on the self-narrative' whose major strength is that contributors do not always agree with each other, allowing readers to reach their own conclusions [citation:3][citation:5]. Harris Chaiklin in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease called it 'a valuable contribution' that 'should point the way to further research and theory development' [citation:3][citation:5]. The International Journal of Psychology highlighted its synthesis of memory research with postmodernism and literature [citation:3].

The Remembering Self is the sixth volume in the Emory Symposia in Cognition series and directly extends the framework developed in Neisser's earlier edited volume The Perceived Self (1993) [citation:1][citation:14]. Where The Perceived Self focused on the ecological and interpersonal selves as directly perceived in infancy, The Remembering Self turns to the extended and conceptual selves that depend on memory and narrative. The book also extends the ecological critique of laboratory artificiality that Neisser developed in Cognition and Reality (1976) and Memory Observed (1982), applying it specifically to the study of autobiographical remembering. The volume thus completes a trilogy of Neisser's edited works on self-knowledge, moving from perception through memory to narrative.

A frequent misconception is that the book treats self-narratives as purely fictional constructions with no relation to truth. In fact, Neisser's opening chapter on false memory syndrome takes accuracy seriously as a scientific problem, and several contributors examine whether and when memories can be authenticated [citation:1][citation:5]. Another misreading treats the ecological approach as a rejection of laboratory research, when in fact the volume includes experimental, clinical, and literary perspectives side by side. The book's distinctive position is that construction and accuracy are not opposed: self-narratives are constructed, and that is precisely why their accuracy varies and must be investigated rather than assumed. The reviewers' emphasis on productive disagreement among contributors reinforces this point [citation:3].

The volume's fifteen chapters cover a wide range of topics united by the self-narrative theme. Neisser's opening chapter addresses false memory syndrome. Jerome Bruner analyzes 'the remembered self,' Kenneth Gergen examines self-memory in social context, and Robyn Fivush discusses narrative construction in parent-child conversations about the past [citation:1][citation:18]. Peggy Miller writes on narrative practices in socialization and self-construction, Willem Wagenaar asks 'Is memory self-serving?', and Alan Baddeley contrasts the remembered self with the enacted self [citation:1][citation:18]. William Hirst examines the remembered self in amnesics, and Edward Reed closes the volume with an essay titled 'Perception is to self as memory is to selves' [citation:1][citation:18]. The range demonstrates the volume's interdisciplinary ambition.