The experience of ‘healing stories’ in the life narrative: A grounded theory

‘healing stories' are part of an emergent narrative literature in psychology and counselling. This research explored the subjective experience of ‘healing stories’ within the context of individual's life narratives. A grounded theory (Strauss and Corbin, 1990) method of analysis was used to generate and analyse six participant's life narratives. Analysis of these accounts revealed three categories. The first is the context of struggle that preceded the healing process. participants told of struggle in their relationships with others as well as turmoil in their experience of themselves. The second category, the healing process reflected the participants' growing awareness of life's existential givens (Yalom, 1980). This represented a personal exploration that opened lparticipants to a ‘healing story’ that offered them an insight into choices and possibilities for liberation. The third category illustrated that in the ongoing struggle the ‘healing story’ has continued to provide inspiration in the participants' lived experience as an ‘evoked companion’ (Stern, 1985). This research posited a core dynamic whereby participants' experience of their ‘healing story’ provided not only an initial inspiration that was healing but also, in their ongoing struggle, the ‘healing story’ continued to inspire their lived experience.     

The power of being heard: The benefits of ‘perspective-giving’ in the context of intergroup conflict

Although hundreds of dialogue programs geared towards conflict resolution are offered every year, there have been few scientific studies of their effectiveness. Across 2 studies we examined the effect of controlled, dyadic interactions on attitudes towards the ‘other’ in members of groups involved in ideological conflict. Study 1 involved Mexican immigrants and White Americans in Arizona, and Study 2 involved Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East. Cross-group dyads interacted via video and text in a brief, structured, face-to-face exchange: one person was assigned to write about the difficulties of life in their society (‘perspective-giving’), and the second person was assigned to accurately summarize the statement of the first person (‘perspective-taking’). Positive changes in attitudes towards the outgroup were greater for Mexican immigrants and Palestinians after perspective-giving and for White Americans and Israelis after perspective-taking. For Palestinians, perspective-giving to an Israeli effectively changed attitudes towards Israelis, while a control condition in which they wrote an essay on the same topic without interacting had no effect on attitudes, illustrating the critical role of being heard. Thus, the effects of dialogue for conflict resolution depend on an interaction between dialogue condition and participants' group membership, which may reflect power asymmetries.     

‘Bodies (that) matter’: the role of habit formation for identity

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences - This paper will interpret Judith Butler’s theory of performativity and materialization as a theory of identity, and so put it into dialogue with a...     

“I Don’t feel like melting butter”: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of the experience of ‘inorgasmia’

Inorgasmia is under-studied in the domain of sexual health psychology. This study explores women's experiences of inorgasmia and the meanings giving to this experience. Interviews with six inorgasmic women were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The analysis showed that the absence of orgasm was experienced as problematic and disturbing. A search for reasons for their condition, and its effects on self-image and self-confidence underpinned the experience of inorgasmia as a problem. The spectrum of meanings surrounding female orgasm demonstrates that, far from being perceived as a merely physical experience, the moment of orgasm takes on relational significance and it has implications for the women's identities. The paper identifies areas for future research and theorising.     

‘Truths that Set Us Free?’: The Use of Rhetoric in Mind-Body-Spirit Books

This article provides a critical qualitative analysis of popular mind-body-spirit books. Typically, these books present a hybrid combining spirituality with self-help and popular psychology. They promise to soothe, heal, and liberate the reader from what is construed as a mundane, desolate life and an environmental and social context of despair. Constructions of transformation and liberation are pervasive in these books. The analysis attends to meaning and rhetoric. Three discourses are delineated, each of which constructs transformation and liberation. In addition, while it is assumed that the authors produce a particular version of spirituality in these books rather than present the truth in a value-neutral way, this analysis attends to the rhetorical strategies that can work to make the authors’ message appear as literal and factual to the reader.     

Internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety in an outpatient specialized care setting: A qualitative study of the patients’ experience of the therapy

Knowledge about user experiences of internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy (iCBT) has mostly been drawn from non-clinical groups or with iCBT offered via self-referral. The present study therefore focused on patients who had undergone iCBT with minimal support while actively awaiting outpatient psychological treatment in the form of face-to-face CBT. To seek out barriers to adherence the study also included patients who had withdrawn from the iCBT treatment before completion. The study was performed in an outpatient clinic for anxiety disorders where twelve participants with a primary diagnosis of either social anxiety disorder or panic disorder were recruited from an ongoing randomized control trial for semi-structured interviews. Statements from the interviews showed that the iCBT treatment was unfavorably compared to the usual face-to-face treatment at the clinic. Despite this, a majority of the interview participants still expressed to have experienced various benefits from the treatment. Some participants did however, experience difficulties putting the materials to practical use. Furthermore, a large majority of the participants expressed a need for additional support, with a strong tendency for non-completers specifically expressing a need for face-to-face contact with a clinician. Implications for future research and implementation of iCBT in clinical practice are discussed.     

‘Strong European emotions’: The politics of culture in the EU

In 2007 four video clips released by the European Union Media Programme achieved overnight popularity in their ability to present and capture the emotional core of being European (the clips can be seen on EUtube). The clips were designed to promote the Media Programme (2007–2013) and to encourage European citizens to identify with something that all of them have in common: ‘Love’, ‘Romanticism’, ‘Joy’ and ‘Sadness’. The clips have gained considerable interest. The video clip titled ‘Love’ has become the most watched European Union video clip ever. It shows eighteen couples having sex.In this paper I analyse the way in which such images mobilize the pleasures of fantasmic identification with the embodied agents of love and sex – images that viewers enjoy as consumers of popular culture – and how these pleasures are linked to the processes of supranational (European) identity building. In doing so, inspired by Sara Ahmed's work on the cultural politics of emotions and Ernesto Laclau's work on populism, I open a set of questions about the libidinal character or the affective dimensions of identification which images employ in order to construct identity formations. I argue that these clips are mechanisms that attempt to contribute to the construction of European supranational identity. They are part of the big network of projects established by European public policy makers that strive to produce ‘European culture’. They are designed not so much to give information about so-called ‘European emotions’ but to construct a European public. Each clip represents ambiguities which surround concepts of European culture and identity.     

The snake in the mandala: dialogical aspects of Jung’s ‘A study in the process of individuation’

Jung’s study centres on the amplification of pictures painted by a woman patient and posits their sequence as evincing the initial stages of the individuation process. His text performs a dialogue with its audience whereby Jung persuades us of this truth, and also reveals Jung’s dialogue with his patient and with his own ideas. The present paper revisits the clinical material first with a focus on the interaction between Jung and his patient. The second part compares the 1940 and 1950 versions of Jung’s study with attention to tensions that traverse them, such as Jung’s attitude to the animus and his two voices as a practitioner and a theorist.     

It’s All About the Relationship: The Role of Attachment in Child-Parent Psychotherapy

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology -     

Metaplasticity rendered visible in paint: How matter ‘matters’ in the lifeworld of Human action.

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences - Recent theoretical and philosophical movements within the study of material culture are more carefully attending to the variety of ways in which human...     

It ain’t over ‘til it’s over: The effect of task completion on the savoring of success

The present research investigated a common yet to date unexamined assumption that individuals are unlikely to savor success when they have not yet fully completed a task. In Study 1 (N = 83), we assessed savoring responses of soccer players who were either winning or were tied at the end of the first half (in progress) and at the end of the match (completed). In Study 2 (N = 121 undergraduates), performance feedback (successful vs. average) and task completion (in progress vs. completed) were manipulated and savoring was assessed. In both studies, successful individuals reported savoring their positive experience less when the task was in progress as compared to completed. Results of a third study (N = 152 undergraduates) showed that lower savoring of success was due to individuals’ focus on and worries about future performance as well as the perception that positive emotions have limited utility. We discuss these findings in terms of the consequences for performance and well-being.     

Top‐star’ priests and the catholic response to the ‘explosion’ of evangelical protestantism in brazil: The beginning of the end of the ‘walkout'?

Brazil's ‘new’ style of Catholicism, essentially the creation of a group of young, charismatic clergy—'pop‐star priests’ or ‘stars of the altar’, as they have become known—appears to have set in train a reversal, in that Latin American country at least, of the ‘walkout’ to evangelical Protestantism that David Martin analysed in Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Pentecostalism in Latin America (1990). In that volume Martin described the rapid development of Protestantism in Latin America in the twentieth century and particularly from the 1960s as “... an explosion of conservative evangelical religion, a shift toward Pentecostalism, a rejection of ecumenism, and the manifestation among many of those involved of the evangelical capacity to unite modern technology with political conservatism”; (Martin, 1990: 54). During the past year millions of lapsed Catholics, and former Catholics some of whom were part of that ‘explosion’, have become involved in the ‘new’ Catholicism whose emergence illustrates the indispensable role of the media in religious reform and conversion in contemporary society. The article examines the superstructural elements of the ‘new’ Catholicism and compares its positive ‘cosmology’ and worldview with the emphasis on demonization in the teaching and ritual of the controversial, but highly successful evangelical Protestant Church, the Igreja Universal do Reino de Dens (the Universal Church of the Reign of God). This presentation also considers the various responses to the ‘new’ Catholicism which, although responsible for the return to worship of millions of Catholics, has been strongly criticised by both Liberation Theology and the more theologically and liturgically conservative wing within the Roman Catholic Church in Brazil.     

The ‘Divine Names’ and the ‘Attributes of Deity’: On the (Infinite) Analogical Interval in Forty-Six Aphorisms

For the modern tradition of analytic philosophy of religion (that this article rejects), goodness, beauty, wisdom, and so on are divine attributes, whereas, for the classical tradition of Christian theology, they are divine names. This crucial distinction between attributes and names helps to explain why feminist philosopher Grace Jantzen’s charge of an identification of the male self with the divine self in Anglo-American philosophy of religion leads on, directly, to a critique of the ‘doctrine’ of analogy. Jantzen’s critique of ‘classical theism’ is directed against the (largely modern) reduction of God to a (male) superbeing. Here, God’s ‘attributes’ are merely human ones, even if extended to a superlative degree. I distinguish the analogical reflections of Aquinas (following Dionysius) and his heirs from the anthropomorphic dissolutions of the divine in contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. Theology’s analogical speech, I argue, has the potential to answer – at least partially – the feminist critique of God as a ‘pure projection’ of ‘man’. For Aquinas, God’s perfections must be qualitatively different and not merely quantitative maximisations of our own. I contend that feminist philosophy of religion cannot afford to dismiss the potential of the way of analogy, especially in its negative or apophatic dimensions.     

‘It’s about having exposure to this’: investigating the training needs of therapists in relation to the issue of anomalous experiences

Two focus groups, consisting of six participants each, were conducted to explore the training needs of therapists when working with clients reporting anomalous experiences (AEs). AEs are those that ‘depart from our own familiar personal experiences or from the more usual, ordinary, and expected experiences of a given culture and time’ [Braud, W. (2012). Health and well-being benefits of exceptional human experiences. In C. Murray (Ed.), Mental health and anomalous experience (pp. 107–124). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers.]. A thematic analysis revealed four themes: ‘Quite often we get taken by surprise because it’s a subject we don’t talk about’, ‘It’s just having this in our vocabulary’, ‘Demystifying and valuing AEs as normal human experiences’ and ‘To ask or not to ask?’. Most of the participants felt that they were unequipped to work with clients reporting AEs and suggestions were made for overcoming this.     

The ‘Renaissance of the University’ in the European knowledge society: An exploration of principled and governmental approaches

A ‘renaissance of the university’ in the European knowledge society is regarded today as a necessity. However, there is an ongoing debate about what that renaissance should look like. The aim of this article is to take a closer look at these debates, and in particular, the disputes related to the public role of the (future) university in the European knowledge society. The aim however is not to assess the validity of the arguments of each of the protagonists but to place the discussion within a broader socio-historical context. From a genealogical point of view, and drawing upon the work of Foucault and Hunter, it is possible to distinguish two kinds of milieu, each embodying their own “intellectual technology” and each leading to a specific conception of the public role of the university: firstly the principled milieu (with the persona of the academic as critical intellectual), and secondly the governmental milieu (with the persona of the state official or governmental expert). From this genealogical point of view, I will argue that the modern (research) university was from the very beginning a hybrid institution due to the claims and scopes of both milieus. Furthermore, I will argue that the current discussions reveal the ongoing influence of both milieus and their respective gazes and approaches.

Explaining Public Attitudes towards the Integration of Muslims in British Society: The ‘Solidarity of the Religious’?

There has been growing concern in recent years about the integration of Muslims and the emergence of ‘Islamophobia’ in Britain. But there has been a lack of research into the sources of public opinion towards Muslims in British society. This article contributes to emerging research in this area by using a nationally representative survey to examine public opinion towards Muslims’ efforts to integrate into British society. It examines the relative impact of social, religious, and attitudinal variables. Religious affiliation has no impact, while greater religious salience and pro-religion attitudes on religious–secular policy issues are related to positive views of Muslims’ efforts to integrate. Women and the university-educated are more positive in their assessments. A traditionalist view of Christianity, socially authoritarian beliefs, and anti-immigrant bias are related to negative views of Muslims’ efforts to integrate. Overall, the findings lend support to the ‘solidarity of the religious’ perspective and should encourage further investigation into attitudes towards religious groups in Britain.     

‘If I knew where the enemy,or even Germany was,we could have fired in that direction’: Bion's experience of war

The role of a child psychotherapist's gender is not often considered in terms of treatment outcome. This paper discusses how aspects of being a male child psychotherapist influenced the successful treatment of a very young boy with Asperger's Syndrome. The paper highlights how the nature of his very early relationship with his mother and the absence of his father were the basis of his difficulties resulting in that diagnosis. It shows that his desire to seize the opportunity of working with a male enabled him to understand his feelings about his father, why it was so difficult to want to be with him and not his mother, and why he could not be without her.

Le rôle joué par le sexe du psychothérapeute d'enfants dans les effets du traitement est rarement pris en compte. Dans cet article, l'auteur montre qu'à un certain niveau le fait d'être un psychothérapeute homme eut une influence sur la réussite de la thérapie d'un très jeune garçon présentant un syndrome d'Asperger. Selon l'auteur, la nature de la relation précoce entre ce petit garçon et sa mère, ainsi que l'absence de son père, étaient à l'origine des difficultés qui conduisirent à ce diagnostic. Il montre que le désir de l'enfant de se saisir de l'occasion ainsi offerte de travailler avec un homme lui permit de comprendre trois éléments essentiels : ses sentiments à l'égard de son père, la raison pour laquelle il lui était tellement difficile de vouloir être avec lui plutôt que de rester avec sa mère, et ce qui faisait qu'il ne pouvait pas se passer de celle-ci.

Die Rolle des Geschlechts des Kindertherapeuten wird nicht oft bezüglich des Behandlungsergebnis in Betracht bezogen. Dieser Artikel diskutiert, wie Aspekte dessen, ein männlicher Kindertherapeut zu sein, die erfolgreiche Behandlung eines sehr kleinen Jungen mit Asperger Syndrom beeinflussten. Der Artikel unterstreicht, wie die Art seiner frühen Beziehung zu seiner Mutter und die Abwesenheit seines Vaters die Grundlage seiner Schwierigkeiten bildeten, die zu dieser Diagnose führten. Es zeigt, dass sein Wunsch, die Gelegenheit zu ergreifen, mit einem Mann zu arbeiten, ihm ermöglichte, seine Gefühle seinem Vater gegenüber zu verstehen, warum es so schwierig war, mit ihm und nicht seiner Mutter sein zu wollen und warum er nicht ohne sie sein konnnte.

Riassunto: Il ruolo che gioca il sesso dello psicoterapeuta infantile non è solitamente considerato in relazione al risultato del trattamento. In questo articolo si discute come il fatto di avere un terapeuta maschile abbia influenzato per certi aspetti il risultato positivo del trattamento di un bambino molto piccolo che soffriva della Sindrome di Asperger. L'articolo illustra come la natura della sua primissima relazione con la madre e l'assenza del padre furono alla base delle sue difficoltà che portarono alla diagnosi. L'articolo mostra come il desiderio del bambino di lavorare con un terapeuta maschile gli ha permesso di capire i suoi sentimenti verso il padre, perché era così difficile voler restare con lui e lo stesso non succedeva con sua madre, e perché non poteva restare senza di lei.