Vozes em conflito: manual clínico-discursivo da dissonância cognitiva

Abstract

This work focuses on the manifestation of cognitive dissonance in clinical discourse and proposes, as a technical product, a clinical listening manual aimed at assisting psychologists in identifying and analyzing these manifestations in the context of individual psychotherapy with adults. This work articulates the theory of cognitive dissonance based on Festinger (1957; 1964), Aronson (2021; 2023) and Harmon-Jones (2015; 2019), moral psychology, based on Haidt (2001; 2013), Rest (1999), Bandura (2015) and Elster (1983), materialist discourse analysis, according to Pêcheux (1997; 2009) and Orlandi (2009; 2015; 2023), and argumentation theory, based on Toulmin (2006), Perelman (2020) and Fiorin (2024), understanding dissonance as tension between cognitions, affects, values and self-image that is inscribed in the materiality of speech. In methodological terms, this constitutes a theoretical- applied research of a qualitative nature, which systematizes the fundamentals of the phenomenon, articulates these fields in the construction of clinical-discursive categories, and examines them through clinical vignettes elaborated for analytical purposes. As a result, the manual organizes listening into two axes: the discursive manifestations of dissonance (contradictions, ambivalences, and ruptures of linearity) and the defensive strategies of discourse (denial, rationalization, displacement of responsibility, justifying comparisons, generalization, and dehumanization), and converts them into operational resources: listening movements, step-by-step procedure, checklist, levels of use, and clinical flowchart that together form the final product of the Dissonance Listening Manual. It concludes that the articulation between cognitive dissonance and discourse analysis offers an original contribution to clinical listening, recognizing suffering traversed by ethical, affective, and ideological dimensions, while also indicating limitations linked to the qualitative nature and individual focus, as well as perspectives for future in-depth study.