Assimilation of Problematic Experiences in Linguistic Therapy of Evaluation: A Case Study

In this article the process of assimilation in the problematic experience of tiredness of one patient, María, is shown. María was treated with linguistic therapy of evaluation (LTE), a therapy midway between constructivist and cognitive therapies based on the theory of General Semantics, for 14 sessions. María was one of the most successful cases of LTE. Aims of the study were to show the process of assimilation in a case with good outcome and to explore if this process shows an irregular pattern, with setbacks or jumps between stages. This process is analyzed by the Assimilation of Problematic Experiences Scale (APES), an eight-stage scale that shows the process of assimilation from an experience being warded off, avoided, in vague awareness, clarified, understood, solutions applied, and finally resolved and integrated into the self. Results showed, first, that the process of assimilation reaches APES Stages 5 (application) and 6 (problem solution), and, second, that the process of assimilation showed a clear sawtoothed, irregular pattern.     

Assimilation Setbacks as Switching Strands: A Theoretical and Methodological Conceptualization

This paper offers a theoretical and methodological formulation of setbacks in the process of assimilation of problematic experiences in psychotherapy. It is based on a series of theory-building case studies, in which case observations were used to modify and confirm an evolving understanding. Assimilation typically follows a sawtoothed progression in which advances alternate with setbacks. Research has identified two main types of setbacks, called exceeding the therapeutic zone of proximal development, and the balance strategy, which occur under systematically different conditions. Both types of setbacks can be understood as switching strands within a problematic theme. This formulation defines and elaborates the methodological concepts of topic, theme, and strand, as well as the underlying theoretical concepts of internal voices and sub-voices. These are illustrated with examples from a clinical case. This elaboration of the assimilation model is related to other perspectives that emphasize people’s multiplicity of internal voices and used to suggest further studies.     

Laboring and Hanging Out in the Embodied In‐Between

In this essay I describe how my involvement in the political struggles of an immigrant domestic workers' collective inspired me to hang out not only with the workers, but also with the writings of María Lugones and Hannah Arendt. The essay invites the reader to engage in a playful rereading of Arendt's notion of the worldlessness of laboring in the private realm by putting her into dialogue with Lugones's notion of the hangout that defies the public–private split Arendt adamantly insists on in all her writings. By following the complex physical, mental, and emotional itineraries of immigrant domestic workers to, from, and in‐between a number of places and spaces, I demonstrate how their stories blur the line between public and private, and therefore also between the unfreedom of the body and the presumed escape into the political public. I describe the women's experiences as the living promise of a world that allows for an embodied fluid movement between labor, work, and the freedom “inherent in action” (Arendt 193, 153).     

Book Review

Throughout different civilisations and historical epochs, anthropological and religious texts have been replete with accounts of persons who have reported anomalous experiences in the form of visions or voices. In these contexts, such experiences are considered to be a “gift” that can be spiritually enriching or life enhancing. One such group of individuals are mediums who claim to receive information from spirits of the deceased in the form of auditory or visual perceptions. This study explores how mediums come to interpret their experiences as mediumistic and how they describe their relationship with spirit voices. In-depth interviews were conducted with 10 Spiritualist mediums using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Three themes were identified: “Childhood anomalous experiences”, “A search for meaning: Normalisation of mediumship”, and “relationship with spirit”. These themes illuminated aspects of the mediumistic experience that have therapeutic implications for individuals who have similar experiences but become distressed by them.     

心理咨询中当事人的改变过程：同化模型的视角

摘 要 目的：选用心理咨询中获得成功改变的中国当事人,验证美国学者William B. Stiles等提出的同化模型。方法：采用同化分析这一用来追踪心理治疗中当事人问题经验发展进程的研究方法,对案例的会谈逐字稿资料进行分析。结果：三位研究者追踪到了两个主题（两对声音）,摘录了68个段落。其对两个主题摘录段落的同化评分与三位独立评定者的评分具有较高的相关（0.90和0.85）,同化的评分随着会谈的进程而提高（相关分别为0.89和0.91）。当事人在心理咨询中的改变过程遵循同化模型有关治疗改变的发展序列。结论：中国当事人的心理咨询改变过程支持同化模型的理论构想。     

Re-expanding the phenomenology of hallucinations: lessons from sixteenth-century Spain

The paradigm within which hallucinations are studied, and the explanatory frameworks employed, may bias the phenomenological analysis of these experiences. After introducing the new term, hallucination, this paper undertook an inter-disciplinary study of the phenomenology of hallucinations identified by the sixteenth-century theologians, St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila. It was examined whether the phenomenological properties they highlighted are identified and addressed by contemporary psychological research. Many of these properties were indeed found to be acknowledged and studied by contemporary research in psychiatric patients, as well as in healthy individuals during hypnagogia, near-death experiences and at times of stress. However, many experiences, such as “internal voices,” “soundless voices,” and “voices that save,” were found to be neglected by contemporary research, as was the potential for hallucinations to communicate novel/original information. Finally, it was examined how these phenomenological insights may be “front-loaded” into future experimental designs.     

Reading Cristina García's The Agüero Sisters as Latina Feminist Philosophy

Through an analysis of the interconnections or lack thereof between gender and epistemology, I present Cristina García's The Agüero Sisters as a text of Latina feminist philosophy. First, I use the works of Linda Alcoff and Walter Mignolo to illustrate the political nature of epistemology and how women and people of color in particular are disenfranchised from such a political endeavor. Then I examine the connections among the concepts of origin, absence, inheritance, and knowledge‐construction in García's novel to further a critique of standard epistemology and point to an emphasis on reconnection with feminine and maternal knowledge for this text's female characters. Moreover, a depiction and elaboration of María Lugones's ideas of the “coloniality of gender” and “decolonial feminism” in this novel augments this critical examination of epistemology and places emphasis on women as knowledge‐producers.     

Longing for the Feminine: Reflections on Love,Sexual Orientation,Individuation, and the Soul

This article is a collaboration that represents several years of dialogue about our topic, alongside the individual depth work done by each of us to overcome the negativities that often poison collaborations and feeling connections: envy, enmeshment, and passivity. It is the unique expression of two women working together in a co-creative process pulsed by feminine principles. Diane is a Jungian analyst and has spent her life close to the unconscious. Fran is a writer, educator, and lifelong student of mystical paths. The article gives an account of Diane's longing for the divine feminine and the particular meaning it has for her as a lesbian in this time of global upheaval. In particular, her story highlights the psychic suffering that individuals go through when their same-sex attractions and love orientation are judged as psychologically “immature” or religiously “sinful.” Neither Christian-based “conversion therapy” nor Jungian analysis turned Diane into a heterosexual woman. Her story reveals the benefit of Jung's depth psychology even as it underscores the singularity of every person's individuation process. The article's unusual format is a tandem of Diane's first-person sharing of her soul's journey and Fran's witnessing of the journey's profound significance. We found that both voices were needed. Truth requires not only the one who lives a journey with courage but also the one who witnesses it with a loving heart. Ultimately, we see the personal journeys of gays and lesbians as significant to the larger context of the evolution of human consciousness.     

Lucy's dividing family: My discovery of the person in the subject

Abstract

This essay is excerpted from a larger project the author conducted with adolescent and preadolescent children of divorce. It tells the personal story of the author's first interview experience with her first participant in this project, here called Lucy. At the time of the interview, she was 11 years old and her parents had been divorced for 3 years. In the effort to engage the reader as an outside interpreter of her story, this essay invites the reader in, to the “raw data” of Lucy's experiences, as described in her words. Presented here in dialogue are the two voices of participant and researcher, as well as researcher reflections and recollections of this memorable experience.     

心理咨询中好坏效果案例的同化水平对比:基于同化模型的视角

目的:通过对比心理咨询中4例好效果案例和4例坏效果案例同化水平的差异,对同化模型有关成功治疗改变过程的理论构想进行检验,并寻找区分好坏案例的关键点。方法:选用7位经过培训的评定者组成三个研究小组,采用同化分析这一用来追踪当事人问题经验发展进程的研究方法,对8个当事人完整的咨询逐字稿资料进行分析,并对涉及当事人问题经验的段落进行摘录。依据同化问题经验量表和同化标识手册对摘录的段落进行同化评定。结果:8个案例的核心问题得到一致确定,三组评定者评分的组内相关系数ICC(1,1)在.64~.86之间,ICC(1,K)在.84~.96之间。好效果案例结束时的同化水平均分(M=5.50)和同化进展均分(M=4.25)高于坏效果案例(2.13和-.13)。好坏效果案例的同化进程均出现前进中倒退的情形,但好效果案例能够在倒退中保持上升,而坏效果案例未能完成上升。好效果案例最终的同化水平均达到了4(理解/领悟)及以上,坏效果案例最终的同化水平均未达到4。结论:研究结果基本支持同化模型的理论设想,即症状强度的减少同更高的同化水平相联系;并初步确定区分好坏效果的关键点是同化水平4;但从同化进程来看,可考虑对模型的发展序列进行修改完善。     

A Girl's Loyalty to her Mother

This paper explores the alliance between the analytic couple and the analytic process. The patient doesn't ally only with the analyst, but also with the unfolding of an experiential world. The developmental origins of this alliance are described in terms of infant and child being inside a forming intelligence; womb, mother and family—transforming the mental state of the subject. The structure of the experience is pictured by the resemblance to a simple—experiencing—self being inside a dream, and a rhetoric “I” speaking in an internal dialogue to an unanswering, but present, “you”. The writer describes the negative therapeutic reaction as an attempt to break into this forming intelligence; as an attempt to see who is the creator of the experiential universe. Staying inside the unfolding process is further investigated through the experiences of aloneness and presential immediateness.     

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.     

Widows' Spiritual Journeys: Do They Quest?

SUMMARY

Two studies examined the spiritual experiences of older women shortly after their husbands' deaths. The central question was, in the process of becoming and being a widow, do the older women begin a reflective dialogue with existential questions and initiate spiritual journeys as recent widows? One study is based on the widows within a random sample of older adults. The second study involved in-depth interviews with 15 recent widows. Both studies included Batson's measures of means, ends, and quest religious orientations. There was more evidence of an “ends” (intrinsic) orientation among the widows than “means” (extrinsic) for religious involvement; there was also no change over time in these orientations. Their quest orientation, however, became significantly less prevalent in the follow-up. It seems that women indeed quested, and by follow-up engaged their faith for religious consolation. Data from Study 2 revealed two themes: religious involvement provided a sense of continuity and direction, and through faith and prayer the women were able to (re)find meaning and purpose to life.     

Women's Psychological Experiences in a Narrative Therapy-Based Group: An Analysis of Participants' Writings and Beck Depression Inventory–Second Edition

The purpose of this study was to explore women's experiences in a narrative therapy-based group conducted to help participants re-author their stories. Seven women who were either patients or individuals enrolled in Transition Support for Employment at a psychiatric clinic participated in the meetings, one every fortnight. Each session explored a theme based on narrative therapy techniques such as externalization. The participants wrote their reflections during each session, and completed the Beck Depression Inventory-Second Edition (BDI-II) during the initial and final sessions. An affinity diagram was developed to classify their written reflections into 22 lower categories (e.g., new understanding of self, forward-looking-understanding of life) and 4 upper categories (“Insight,” “Sharing with others,” “Changes with understanding of lives,” “Higher motivation”). The relationship among five lower categories comprising “Insight” was explored, and it became apparent that clarification of participants' own thoughts about social problems functioned as a mediator promoting the process. The largest portion of depressed feelings emerged during the initial session, and four participants had lower scores for BDI-II items such as self-criticism in the final session. The results suggest that the group's purpose was realized. However, future studies should examine participants' feelings more closely, especially during the initial session.     

The Shift from Monologue to Dialogue in a Couple Therapy Session: Dialogical Investigation of Change from the Therapists’ Point of View

As part of a larger research project on couple therapy for depression, this qualitative case study examines the nature of dialogue. Drawing on Bakhtinian concepts, the investigation shows how the conversation shifts from a monologue to dialogue. Among the findings are: first, the process of listening is integral to the transforming experience. That is, the careful listening of the therapist can evoke new voices, just as the experience of one of the partners’ “listening in” to the conversation between the other partner and the therapist can create movement and new trajectories. The latter is a qualitative difference between dialogic therapy with a couple and that with an individual. Second, the therapist not only acts as creative listener, but as the dialogue unfolds, actively contributes to meaning‐making. Third, the study upholds having a team of researchers as a polyphonic forum and the usefulness of Bakhtinian concepts in clinical research on dialogue in multi‐actor sessions.     

Spectral Perception and Ghostly Subjectivity at the Colonial Gender/Race/Sex Nexus

This article calls for an examination of the spectral operations of the perceptual architecture of colonization in conjunction with the enactment of a decolonial feminism as proposed by María Lugones. The first section discusses both the notion of ghostly subjectivity from Lugones's early work as well as the echoes of this notion in her recent work on the coloniality of gender that emphasizes the gender/race/sex nexus. Subsequently, through a photographic example, the article presents an analysis of the perceptual operations of specter‐making in practices of colonization in light of Lugones's understanding of the “light” and “dark” sides of the coloniality of gender. This analysis highlights not only the intricate nexus between racialization and gender and sex norms both in the past and in the present context, but it also points to the necessity for of a decolonial feminism attuned to perceptual practices or a decolonial aesthesis.     

Building capacity or enforcing normalcy? Engaging with disability scholarship in Africa

In contemporary South African academia, “community engagement” is a valued commodity. My work as a nondisabled white man with disability activists and as editor of the African Journal of Disability is viewed as good for my career, and as an appropriate form of engagement and empowerment. In this article, I engage critically with the question of the extent to which capacity building is simply about increasing capacity. I ask whether capacity building inevitably involves elements of disavowal of the experience and competencies of less powerful people. I compare capacity building to the enforcement of normalcy, a process which disability scholars criticize with justification. I ask whether it is possible in unequal social contexts to engage with the politics of voice without imposing a hegemonic narrative on nondominant voices. I suggest links between the politics of engaged scholarship and processes of domestication of troubling bodies and minds.