How Can We Understand and Describe “Non-Narrative” Narratives? A Qualitative Study of Workers with Recurring Sick Leave

This study explored methodologies enabling us to hear the “non-narrative” voices of participants in narrative research. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven Japanese workers with recurring sick leave, and the data were analyzed using thematic analysis (TA) and dialogical narrative analysis (DNA). In narrators' apparently chaotic and fragmented statements, TA identified three divided self-images that remained disconnected: image of present self with a sense of setbacks, image of past self, and image of ideal self. As the last two self-images ceaselessly negate the first, these workers had lost a sense of autonomy and self-confidence. On the other hand, DNA described their desperate endeavors to organize their sick leave experiences by appealing to the typology of the illness narrative; however, this effort remained a failure. Through two qualitative analyses that suspended the premise that each narrative enables the narrator's construction of self, we were able to understand the real status of participants who could not narrate their experiences. The ethical obligation of researchers to respect the “unfinalizability” of narrative and remain open to continuous dialogue is discussed.     

Being authentic is the new image: a qualitative study on the authenticity constructions and self-images of Christian millennials in Africa

The article is a qualitative study that focuses on the authenticity and self-constructions of Christian millennials in Africa. While exploring how 15 respondents manifested their authentic self-behaviours using a case study design, the hallmark of the study was to observe the common coping mechanism of self-regulation, adopted by respondents to deal with their internal crisis. This coping strategy was employed as they remained true to self by creating new “authentic” images of themselves in the forms of the borderline self, the promissory self, the hyphenated self, and the religious self. By implication, looking at the issue of authenticity from an African context has produced an African conceptualisation of authenticity. I argue that African authenticity can be understood by interpreting Africa’s voices of self-expression and images of self-definition, resonating within various African contexts in hope for some kind of cathartic and authentic living experience.     

Working with suicidal clients: The person‐centred counsellor's experience and understanding of risk assessment

Background: Client risk assessment within the person‐centred paradigm is traditionally seen as squarely opposed to its ethos. Aim: To determine how the person‐centred counsellor experiences and understands the issue of risk assessment within the confines of their work ethos. Method: Semi‐structured interviews with seven person‐centred counsellors using thematic analysis were conducted. Findings: Three main themes emerged following thematic analysis: The impact of the risk assessment process on self; The counsellor's experience of self, and The therapeutic process in relation to risk assessment. Discussion: The findings suggest that person‐centred counsellors conduct risk assessments taking a holistic approach involving not only individual risk predictors and characteristics of the client but also individual factors related to self.     

As It Was in the Beginning: Death and Re-membrance and the Christian Intuition

The author argues that the psyche crafts an affective metaphor for death out of the separation drama of infancy. Emergence of self from the mother–infant dyad can accomplish cohesion of fragmentary unconscious mentation strong enough, following Winnicott, to make possible a belief in God. Through developmental synergy between female and male elements, a sense of participation in an eternal principle of being can be achieved, sustaining the ego against anxieties over disintegration, and death as its analog. Myths of the child god illuminate the equation of fragmentation with death of self. Christianity expresses how the cohered self can transcend fragmentation.     

Self-Awareness without a Self: Buddhism and the Reflexivity of Awareness

In this paper, I show that a robust, reflexivist account of self-awareness (such as was defended by Dignāga and Dharmakīrti, most phenomenologists, and others) is compatible with reductionist view of persons, and hence with a rejection of the existence of a substantial, separate self. My main focus is on the tension between Buddhist reflexivism and the central Buddhist doctrine of no-self. In the first section of the paper, I give a brief sketch of reflexivist accounts of self-awareness, using the Buddhist philosopher Dharmakīrti as my example. In the next section, I examine reductionism as it relates to accounts of the self. I then, in the third section, argue that a reductionist account of persons can account for the unique features of first-person contents and our deep and multi-layered sense of self.     

Introspection and perception

Sydney Shoemaker argues that introspection, unlike perception, provides no identification information about the self, and that knowledge of one's mental states should be conceived as arising in a direct and unmediated fashion from one's being in those states. I argue that while one does not identify aself as the subject of one's states, one does frequently identify and misidentify thestates, in ways analogous to the identification of objects in perception, and that in discourse about one's mental states the self plays the role of external reality in discourse about physical objects. Discourse about any sort of entity or property can be viewed as involving a domain or frame of reference which constrains what can be said about the entities; this view is related to Johnson-Laird's theory of mental models. On my approach evidence, including sensory evidence, may be involved in decisions about one's mental states. I conclude that while Shoemaker may well be right about different roles for sense impressions in introspection and perception, the exact differences and their significance remain to be established.     

Sawdust For Brains: Definition and Disconfirmation After Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Abstract

Mild brain injury, despite its name, has lasting effects for many of its sufferers. This article is a firsthand account of one person's struggle with its onset and effects. Mot least of the symptoms is the sense of disconfirmalion and confusion that ensues because sufferers usually look “normal.” However, inside, their cognitive functioning and sense of self have changed markedly. Moreover, the effects often last longer than seem likely to medical professionals and laypeople alike, leading to evaluations of malingering or prior emotional distress. This first-person account is framed within the context of current literature on mild head injury.     

The will to be known: Toward a pastoral anthropology of the self

Explores the concept of the will to be known as a metaphor for the self as process in relationship. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theological anthropology and Heinz Kohut's self psychology provide the background for a multilingual pastoral anthropology that transcends a narrow focus upon the self as an autonomous unit of meaning. The discussions attends to four dimensions of the will to be known and to dynamics of shame within the emergence and existence of the relational self.     

Low‐status aversion: the effect of self‐threat on willingness to buy and sell

Consumption decisions are inherently rooted in both what to consume and what to forgo. Although prior research has focused on consumption, we instead examine what compels consumers to steer clear of particular goods. In two studies, we demonstrated that individuals experiencing self‐threat avoid low‐status goods to prevent further damage to their self‐worth. Individuals facing self‐threat showed a decreased willingness to buy (Study 1), and a correspondingly greater willingness to sell (Study 2) low‐status goods, as compared with nonthreatened individuals. Notably, these effects emerged even when such behaviors were associated with economic costs (Study 2). Together, these results highlight how the motive to preserve the self can affect market exchanges, thereby painting a more complete portrait of the relationship between consumption, status, and the self.     

Existentialism,Self Theory and the Existential Self

Self theory is reductionistic: it brackets off “real” reality and leaves it in metaphysical realms. Existentialism views both subjective and external reality as contained in existence. Rogers' theory is deterministic to the extent that it is built on causal constructs. The non-deterministic, holistic, and teleological assumptions of the existentialists may help strengthen self theories. For example the term existential self would combine self-as-doer and self-as-object, making such constructs as self-concept, self structure, individual, and organism unnecessary. The individual's experience or perception would not have to be caused by a self-definition, but would be for the purpose of something, i.e., his intentions or goals.     

Caught in the rejection–abuse cycle: are we really treating perpetrators of domestic abuse effectively?

This article proposes that some perpetrators of domestic violence respond to their partners' apparent rejection of them with abusive behaviour, and that there exists a cycle of rejection and abuse. The model posits that some men, having experienced rejection within their families of origin or in relation to past partners, become sensitive to potential rejection in their current relationships. The cycle for rejection‐sensitive men consists of an event that constitutes a threat to self, leading to a defence against this threat which in turn results in psychological or physical abuse. This model was tested on sixty‐six male participants of perpetrator group programmes who completed a survey designed to measure each point in the proposed model through path analysis. There was support for the following model: rejection, threat to self‐defence against threat, abuse. Other paths were tested, but were not significant. These results are discussed in terms of the implications for treating perpetrators.     

Four components that sustain teachers’ commitment to students – a relational and temporal model

Teacher commitment is a key factor for explaining how and why teachers care about their students’ learning and well-being, and it is a well-known fact that teachers invest emotionally in their work and their students. The purpose of the article is to contribute to the conceptual underpinning of commitment in relation to the teacher-student relationship and to suggest a conceptual model based on empirical material. Eight teachers were selected for interview, all of whom had been in the profession since 1993 and had reported high commitment throughout their careers. The content of the teachers’ accounts were analysed, with attention to how commitment to students manifested itself in their stories. The analysis resulted in a model consisting of four temporally related components of teacher commitment to students: moral, action/motivational, knowledge/self-confidence and reward/self-esteem. Understanding teacher commitment is important for preventing teacher attrition. Rather than applying general measures to boost commitment, this model provides conceptual bases for addressing deficits in particular components of teacher commitment.     

Reconsidering Self and Identity Through a Dialogue Between Neuroscience and Psychoanalytic Theory

The terms self and identity have figured prominently in psychological and psychoanalytic writings despite a lack of consistent definitions. Whereas most attempts to clarify the terms have been in the context of a particular theoretical model such as ego psychology, self-psychology, or object relations theory, these clarifications were limited to that particular frame of reference. This paper presents evidence from the dynamic systems models of neuroscience as a foundation to inform psychoanalytic theory toward a clarification of these terms. The neuroscience data supports a distinction between self and identity relative to right hemisphere, reflexive, nonlinguistic experience and left hemisphere, reflective, linguistically mediated experience. A parallel between the empirical study of consciousness in terms of ownership, agency, unity, and continuity is also made with contemporary psychoanalytic concepts and their relationship to self and identity. Additionally, the article offers suggestions for a mutually informing dialogue between psychoanalysis and neuroscience in the hopes of promoting interdisciplinary research.     

A survey of smoking status and cancer risk perceptions among participants attending a hospital-based head and neck screening program

Abstract

Screening for head and neck cancer is underutilized. Given that lack of knowledge of the risk factors may partially account for screening underutilization. we surveyed subjective risk and knowledge of risk factors for head and neck cancer among 124 individuals who attended a free. hospital-based head and neck cancer screening. Few participants were current smokers. Most attendees perceived their risk as similar to others of their age and sex. Personal health habits comprised almost all of the risk-decreasing factors, yet less than half of the risk-increasing factors. generated. Personal habits were less frequently endorsed than factors such as pollution and heredity. Those who mentioned a risk behavior, or a family cancer history, reported higher subjective risk. Those who mentioned a personal health habit reported lower subjective risk. Results highlight needed efforts to increase screening among high-risk individuals through targeted education messages.     

The stigma of the self

Abstract

After recounting some personal life experiences that sensitized him to the kind of stigma that Erving Goffman systematically explored in his 1963 classic, Stigma, the author, who Is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, introduces hit concept of the stigma of the self. Paradoxically, the stigma of the self may occur when a person is treated as merely normal, and as only a social self and when, a? a consequence, there does not seem to be any recognition of what D. W. Winnicott has termed the true self. Drawing on his studies of the self [in his recently published The Singles Scene: A Psychoanalytic Study of the Breakdown of Intimacy(Alper, 1995)] the author explores the dynamics of what he calls intimacy hunger, an unappreciated but powerful need that, especially after a sufficient period of deprivation has elapsed, cannot be satuifed by a purely social substitute.     

Advances in Neuropsychoanalysis,Attachment Theory,and Trauma Research: Implications for Self Psychology

In 1971, Heinz Kohut, trained in neurology and then psychoanalysis, published The Analysis of the Self, a detailed exposition of the central role of the self in human existence. This classic volume of both twentieth century psychoanalysis and psychology was more than a collection of various clinical observations—rather it represented an overarching integrated theory of the development, structuralization, psychopathogenesis, and psychotherapy of disorders of the self. Although some of these ideas were elaborations of previous psychoanalytic principles, a large number of his concepts, including an emphasis on self rather than ego, signified an innovative departure from mainstream psychoanalysis and yet a truly creative addition to Freud's theory.     

THE BIBLICAL ROOTS OF LOCKE'S THEORY OF PERSONAL IDENTITY

Locke's consciousness‐based theory of personal identity resulted not only from his agnosticism on substance, but also from his biblical theology. This theory was intended to complement and sustain Locke's moral and theological commitments to a system of otherworldly rewards and sanctions as revealed in Scripture. Moreover, he inferred mortalist ideas from the Bible, rejecting the resurrection of the same body and maintaining that the soul dies at physical death and will be resurrected by divine miracle. Accordingly, personal identity is neither in the soul, nor in the body, nor in a union of soul and body. To Locke, personal identity is in consciousness, which, extending “backwards to any past Action or Thought,” enables the self, both in this life and upon resurrection for the Last Judgment, to recognize that “it is the same self now it was then; and ‘tis by the same self with this present one that now reflects on it, that that Action was done” (Essay II.xxvii.9).     

The God Beyond

This article is an attempt to describe the structure of imaging God at the adult level At the adult level of religious development, this structure has three interrelated pieces: first, there is an adult self;second, there is unfettered imaging; and third, there is the God the adult self is able to relate to in unfettered imaging, and this is the God Beyond. The article concludes with a brief look at how the adult self hears and speaks about the God Beyond.The author acknowledges with gratitude the invaluable help in writing this article of Neil J. McGettigan, Religious Studies Department, Villanova University, Villanova, PA.     

I,me, and mine—how products become consumers' extended selves

• Consumer research literature has recognized the consumers' use of products and brands as props to their self‐identity. While this literature has illuminated that products indeed serve to extend one's sense of self, the concept of ‘self’ itself is under‐identified. In this conceptual essay, we propose a set of components that make up one's sense of self. Then we identify processes through which possessions become associated with one's identity or self‐concept. We suggest the utility of using the proposed framework in practice for consumers' self‐concept profiles, and for linking brands to appropriate components of ‘self.’ Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.