Abstract
The concept of human agency is fundamental to psychotherapy, and yet some postmodern theorists posit an exclusively social account of self that comes close to denying any sense of personal agency. A radically dialogical understanding of self and agency, from within the hermeneutic tradition, overcomes this problem. This research uses standardised questionnaires to examine this theory, measuring the association between an individual’s sense of agency and the reported quality of dialogues the individual engages in. 186 participants completed a questionnaire that included a measure of domain specific agency and Benjamin’s (2000) structured analysis of social behaviour rating scales. The results indicate that participants with higher agency report their social relationships as more affirming and more interpersonally engaged than participants with a lower sense of their own agency. Implications of these results for theory, practice and future research are discussed.