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Positioning theory opens up a new dimension in the psychology of interpersonal encounters, through explicit attention to the role of rights and duties in the management of action. People are positioned or position themselves with respect to rights and duties to act within evolving story-lines, and on the basis of claims about relevant personal attributes, the discursive process of prepositioning. Some recent applications of positioning theory are presented, ranging from simple interpersonal encounters, through positioning in a complex public but limited legal struggle, to the positioning techniques used to justify civilian causalities in warfare, to the analysis of examples of the discourses by which large-scale social entities position themselves in relation to others.

The loss of self in Aizeheimer's Disease is examined from a social constructionist view of the nature of the self. Empirical evidence derived from the structure of the discourse and behaviour of three Alzheimer's sufferers is presented to show that self1, the self of personal identity, persists far into the end stage of the disease. Self2, the multiple personae that are projected into the public arena, and which require the cooperation of others in order to come into being, can be lost, but only indirectly as a result of the disease. The primary cause of the loss of self2 is the ways in which others view and treat the Alzheimer's sufferer. Recommendations are made regarding interactions between Alzheimer's sufferers and caregivers.

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