Expectation and burnout in the developmental disabilities field

Psychological burnout was assessed in staff members at workshops and community residences for the developmentally disabled. Participants also rated expectations for client progress and for their own contribution to clients. They reported on change in expectation since they entered the field. High expectations were related to low burnout; workers who reported experiencing large negative expectation change were most burned out. Burnout seemed to be prevented when staff members made an expectation shift from reliance on client progress to a sense of personal efficacy. This finding is discussed in terms of personal causation, internal control of reinforcement, and adaptation-level theory. There was little evidence of client depersonalization, a usual component of burnout. Such a burnout pattern may be a function of the ethic of community care for the developmentally disabled.     

Discourse, action, rhetoric: from a perception to an action paradigm in social psychology

This article provides a personal account of how discursive social psychology has been used to understand social and political change in South Africa and to reflect on the strengths and limitations of the approach. While celebrating the shift from the perception paradigm to the genuinely social constructionist focus on discursive interaction, the article also argues for an expanded focus on embodied action.     

An Exploration of the Dynamics of the Overlapping Worlds of Work and Family

The relationship between the working lives and family lives of people in our society is a concern to both families and corporations. This article describes a research project that yielded theoretical statements about the interactions between organization life and family life for members of large corporations; grounded theory methodology and a systems theory approach were used. Data were obtained in a large multinational corporation from managers and their families who were undergoing three different kinds of organizational stress: international transfer, extensive travel, and job change to facilitator of personal and organizational change. The findings give reason for viewing organization and family as interacting systems and for considering the uniqueness of each individual's response to stressful events. They also indicate that an individual's feeling of influence over stressful events at the organization-family boundaries are significant for both organizational and family effectiveness.     

To Live Is to Know,to Know Is to Change: Change in Personal Construct Psychology and Psychological Constructivism

This article deals with the subject of personal change. As such, one could be tempted to say that it deals with psychology as a whole: What else should psychology be concerned with? But this is not exactly how things are, as I will argue by answering a first question: Is psychology, as a discipline, mainly concerned with the study of human change? To a second question—whether personal construct theory (PCT) in particular is mainly concerned with the study of human change—I give an affirmative answer, after some necessary qualifications. I would like to dwell particularly on answering a third question: Can the way personal construct theory deals with change be regarded as centering around a peculiarity? I am convinced that the revolutionary and cutting-edge nature of PCT can be fully appreciated only by pinpointing and highlighting such a peculiarity. In discussing this, I find it convenient to answer a last question: Is the way PCT deals with change akin to the way other theories handle it? After having discussed personal change as it is treated in PCT, I give a bird's eye view of the contribution of personal construct psychology to the fields of psychology more concerned with change—namely, developmental and educational psychology. The last part of the article will focus on the role of change in clinical psychology, and on what Kelly pointed out as the focus of convenience of his theoretical construction: personal construct psychotherapy as a relational process aimed at favoring a personal change.     

A World of Systems: The Role of Systemic Patterns of Experience in the Therapeutic Process

This article underscores and expands on a contextualist, complexity theory perspective in conceptualizing the organization of personal, subjective experience and the therapeutic process. It emphasizes that one's personal, lived experience originates and continues to evolve from within a relational matrix, with affect as its primary currency, and reevaluates what, exactly, is being analyzed and potentially transformed in the clinical setting. An extension of intersubjective systems theory, this article focuses on two complementary themes: the concept of the interpenetration of multiple worlds of experience and the idea of systemically derived organizing principles. These ideas enhance our understanding of the positive transformation of subjective experience and expand our perspectives about therapeutic change in psychoanalysis.     

Health promotion from the perspective of social cognitive theory

Abstract

This article examines health promotion and disease prevention from the perspective of social cognitive theory. The areas of overlap with some of the most widely applied psychosocial models of health are identified. The models of health promotion and disease prevention have undergone several generational changes. We have shifted from trying to scare people into health, to rewarding them into health, to equipping them with self-regulatory skills to manage their health habits, to shoring up their habit changes with dependable social supports. These transformations have evolved a multifaceted approach that addresses the reciprocal interplay between self-regulatory and environmental determinants of health behavior. Social cognitive theory addresses the socio structural determinants of health as well as the personal determinants. A comprehensive approach to health promotion requires changing the practices of social systems that have widespread detrimental effects on health rather than solely changing the habits of individuals. Further progress in this field requires building new structures for health promotion, new systems for risk reduction and greater emphasis on health policy initiatives. People's beliefs in their collective efficacy to accomplish social change, therefore, play a key role in the policy and public health approach to health promotion and disease prevention.     

The Underlying Theory: Drawn from Experience with Individuals and Groups

This article is based on a presentation Carl made at the University of California, Irvine, on November 8, 1986. Carl focuses on the conditions that facilitate change—both in individuals and groups. Carl connects his theory of personal change with the process for achieving peace.     

The Client's Theory of Change: Consulting the Client in the Integrative Process

This article casts a critical eye upon the integration literature and asserts that, as in psychotherapy in general, the client has been woefully left out of the therapeutic process. An alternative that privileges the client's voice as the source of wisdom and solution is presented. It is proposed that conducting therapy within the context of the client's own theory of change offers ways of integrating multiple therapy perspectives. An argument is made for not only recasting the client as the star of the drama of therapy, but also giving the heroic client directorial control of the action as it unfolds.     

Convenience in Criminal Entrepreneurship: The Case of a Norwegian Hashish Baron

The intent of this article is to study a case of criminal entrepreneurship, which reflects the key attributes of convenience theory in order to test that theory. The intent is also to show that the theory of convenience can be extended beyond white-collar crime to include criminal entrepreneurship. The theory of convenience is introduced in this article to explain why criminal entrepreneurship can be an attractive avenue for some people. Convenience theory suggests that a strong desire for financial gain to satisfy greed and solve problems, an attractive organizational opportunity to commit and conceal crime, as well as a personal willingness for deviant behavior can make criminal entrepreneurship attractive. The case of a Norwegian hashish baron illustrates convenience theory by the person’s ability to stay in the illegal drug business for two decades as a white-collar criminal.     

Heroes and Mentors: A Consideration of Relational-Cultural Theory and “The Hero’s Journey”

Derived from mythology around the world and over the ages, Campbell’s “The Hero’s Journey” provides a conceptual roadmap for confronting life’s challenges. The way in which clients navigate these challenges may also have a profound effect on their relational development. This article examines The Hero’s Journey through the lens of relational-cultural theory and illustrates ways in which counselors can aid clients in making sense of the struggles they face on their own personal journeys.     

学龄后心理理论的持续发展--从"获得"到"使用"的转变

心理理论发展是一个毕生过程,学龄后个体这一能力发展,主要体现在由学龄前的“获得”转变成日后的“使用”。该文从一致性和差异性两个方面探讨了学龄后个体心理理论发展的情况,并提出未来研究重点和趋势。     

Revisiting Bordin's Theory on the Therapeutic Alliance: Implications for Family Therapy

Because of the belief that relationships are a major contributor to problems as well as the avenue for bringing about change, the alliance between therapists and clients is important in family therapy. Writings and ideas on the therapeutic alliance from psychoanalytic theory were used by Edward Bordin to develop a working theory in 1979, and later adapted to the field of family therapy. However, the adaptation did not account for many variables unique and important to family therapy. This article describes the therapeutic alliance and the necessity of creating a theory of therapeutic alliance that accounts for family therapy concepts. Future ideas for scholarship are presented.     

Learning and Living Systemic: Exploring the Personal Effects of Family Therapy Training

Despite growing recognition that systemic family therapists need to be adept at personal reflection and managing the therapeutic relationship, little research has explored the effects of training beyond the development of skills. This article provides a report on a qualitative study focussed on the personal effects of family therapy training, with particular reference to the aspects of training that foster personal reflection and growth. Twenty three trainees from three training institutions were interviewed, utilizing the practices of grounded theory. Trainees reported a deepening relational awareness, which applied to both personal and professional domains and included shifts in perspectives on relationships with loved ones. Five aspects of training were identified as responsible: (1) personally challenging experiences with clients; (2) supervisors who live the paradigm; (3) the demystification of theory; (4) a safe supervisory space; and (5) the development of trusting peer relationships. Interns also described, in turn, how their personal development affected their clinical work, particularly in the development of compassion and empathy. This study serves to highlight training practices that support reflective practice in systemic family therapy.     

The Arrow of Time and the Cycle of Time: Concepts of Change,Cognition, and Embodiment

In this target article, I explore the thesis that both the natural and human sciences are undergoing—however gradually and reluctantly—a deep and broad paradigm shift. This shift is away from foundational, objectivist, atomist, nondirectional mechanistic category systems and toward interpretational, holistic, relational-dialectical, directional organic category systems. The contextual influence of each of these category systems on understandings of change (development), cognition, and personality is examined both historically and from a contemporary perspective across a wide band of scientific disciplines. The Arrow of Time is a deep metaphor entailing a relational field of both nonclosed cycles (spirals) and direction. The Arrow of Time metaphor emerges from the organic narrative. Within the context of this metaphor, and the broader organic metaphor that forms the wider conceptual context, development is understood as entailing both direction and variation. Within the organic metaphor, cognition and personality are understood as emerging from a fundamentally relational theory of the embodied mind. The Cycle of Time is a deep metaphor of closed cycles that reduce apparent directionality to nothing but variation. The Cycle of Time emerges from the mechanical narrative. Here development is understood as being limited to variation and only variation, and cognition and personality emerge from a theory of the computational mind. Theoretical and methodological implications of each of these broad contextual narratives are discussed.     

Life,Chaos, and Transdisciplinarity: A Personal Journey

This article uses an autobiography as an object of research, to both illustrate some principles of chaos theory in analytic practice, and give those ideas a personal and social context, thereby producing a unique but explanation-rich history of chaos theory and recent intellectual history of transdisciplinarity and social research in the West. The ideas from Chaos Theory it uses and illustrates include: three-body analysis (Poincaré); fractals (Mandelbrot); fuzzy logic (Zadeh); and the butterfly effect (Lorenz).     

Variations of the past. Reflections on memory in contemporary psychoanalysis

In Jewish thought, contradictory positions may be legitimate. This is seen in Freud´s position in relation to tradition and memory: remembrance is valuable, but so is a movement forward. The main claim of this paper is that psychoanalysis in this respect has changed. While in especially the early Freudian position, one could see a stress on the importance of going back to earlier times, object relation theory mainly stresses the importance of facilitating new functions. This change has been especially clear during the last two decades. As cases of example, the use of neurocognitive models in psychoanalysis as well as Fonagy’s theory are discussed. The consequences of the shift from a bidirectional to a unidirectional, forward-looking, psychoanalysis, are discussed.     

From landlines to cell phones: negotiating identity positions in new career contexts

This article uses metaphors to explore how changes in technology and the world of work affect the lives and identities of workers today. The author integrates theory from vocational psychology and cultural studies with personal narrative in order to consider positive and negative aspects of the shift from traditional linear careers to postmodern, boundaryless, protean careers. Career is framed as a dialogical construct that is mutually shaped by individual and social practices. Career counselors are invited to consider ways they might adapt their practice to better accommodate clients' lived experiences of evolving career contexts.