Social and Gendered Readings of Illness Narratives

This essay recognizes that the interactions that define medical care are problematic and that narrative is invoked to overcome these strains. Being grounded in science, medicine, too, might be influenced by a particular world-view that arose in the natural philosophy of the Scientific Revolution. If narrative responds to this sort of medicine, it may retain traces of this mindset. A feminist approach responds to this viewpoint and may used beneficially to analyze both the story of medicine and the stories within medicine. Tensions discussed from this perspective are those between sickness and health and those between patient and provider; also questioned are suitable form(s) of narrative and whose narratives are valued. Suggestions for broadening narrative to address these issues include letting the body speak for itself, overcoming the power differential in the patient/provider interaction and using standpoints to foster a more equal and just medical system.     

Sexual Orientation as Gendered to the Everyday Perceiver

Sex Roles - We present an integrated interdisciplinary review of people’s tendency to perceive sexual orientation as a fundamentally gendered phenomenon. We draw from psychology and other...     

From Social Construction to Relational Construction: Practices from the Edge

In this paper, I talk about Ken Gergen??s influence in the communication discipline. Beginning with his ground-breaking publications in the 1970??s (Gergen 1973, 1978), we see him challenging the taken for granted separation of theory and practice, scholar and practitioner. One of Ken??s many contributions?Cregardless of disciplinary domain?Chas been the nurturing of forms of practice being developed by creative and innovative practitioners and young scholars alike. There are several key resources that are woven throughout Ken??s work that have continued to inspire and influence practitioners working in mental health, healthcare, organizations, schools, communities, and peace building endeavors. The most central of these resources include (1) centering relational processes which, in turn, generate the expansion of (2) collaborative, participatory practices that embrace alternative worldviews through a (3) a reflexive stance. Ken has challenged himself and all of us to stay on the edge because it is on the edge that new relational possibilities can be created. He has invited us to embrace the edge as the place of great comfort; comfort in knowing that there will always be possibilities for forging new ways of making meaning together.     

Social Construction of Illness

Abstract

There is no question that a diagnosis of cancer has a significant impact on anyone, however, certain aspects of American culture and particularly the medical culture exacerbate the impact. This article supports the notion that a woman's experience of cancer is, at least in part, socially constructed, political in nature, and therefore, uniquely disempowering to women. Those cultural forces affecting women with cancer include the stigma, the socially-embedded self-definitions, and the practices that dominate the medical-industrial complex. This article demonstrates how the use of social constructivist therapy can assist women in disengaging from these cultural forces while engaging in new ways of thinking and behaving that, in empirical studies, have resulted in decreased progression of disease, longer survival rates, and more effective coping with cancer.     

The Experience of the Holy: A Relational Psychoanalytic Analysis

The title of this paper, The Experience of the Holy is a direct reference to Rudolf Otto's book Das Heilige. The paper begins with Otto because he lays out many of the important issues involved in a psychological investigation of the experience of the holy, especially the question of whether the sacred is a unique object of experience, or a characteristic of our experience of ordinary objects. The paper then discusses three contemporary relational psychoanalysts (D.W. Winnicott, Hans Loewald, and Christopher Bollas), and the ways in which their theorizing illuminates the psychology of the sacred.     

《癌症病房》与疾病的隐喻

俄罗斯作家索尔仁尼琴的《癌症病房》在出版的过程中经历曲折,主要的焦点就是作者是否用“癌症”作为斯大林主义的象征。作品本身的内容、俄罗斯作家协会在1967年会议上对该作品的解读、苏珊·桑塔格对疾病、特别是癌症的隐喻的定义、以及西方国家争相出版这部小说的历史事实都说明了《癌症病房》是一部典型的用疾病来影射社会邪恶的作品。     

The Role of Relational Contextual Cues versus Relational Coherence Indicators as Response Options on the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure

The Psychological Record - Recent research has indicated that the results of the implicit relational assessment procedure (IRAP) may be affected by certain facets of the measure. The current...     

Relational humility: conceptualizing and measuring humility as a personality judgment

The study of humility has progressed slowly due to measurement problems. We describe a model of relational humility that conceptualizes humility as a personality judgment. In this set of 5 studies, we developed the 16-item Relational Humility Scale (RHS) and offered initial evidence for the theoretical model. In Study 1 (N = 300), we developed the RHS and its subscales--Global Humility, Superiority, and Accurate View of Self. In Study 2, we confirmed the factor structure of the scale in an independent sample (N = 196). In Study 3, we provided initial evidence supporting construct validity using an experimental design (N = 200). In Study 4 (N = 150), we provided additional evidence of construct validity by examining the relationships between humility and empathy, forgiveness, and other virtues. In Study 5 (N = 163), we adduced evidence of discriminant and incremental validity of the RHS compared with the Honesty-Humility subscale of the HEXACO-PI (Lee & Ashton, 2004).     

Aesthetic Chills as a Universal Marker of Openness to Experience

Aesthetic chills are transient emotional responses to music or other experiences of beauty. Item 188 of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) asks respondents if they have experienced these chills, and in American samples it is one of the best definers of Openness to Experience, one of the five basic personality factors. As part of the NEO-PI-R, the item has been translated into over 40 languages, and an examination of back-translations suggests that the phenomenon can be expressed in all the languages examined. Data from the Personality Profiles of Cultures Project show that Item 188 is one of the best definers of Openness in most of the 51 cultures examined. Aesthetic chills appear to be a universal emotional experience, although the functions they serve and the mechanisms that account for them remain to be discovered.

The Female Breadwinner: Phenomenological Experience and Gendered Identity in Work/Family Spaces

Although female breadwinners (FBWs) are increasingly common in industrialized society and challenge traditional western gender norms, little research has focused specifically on the experiences of FBWs. These experiences impact individual, family, and organizational decision making. Thus, this project uses a phenomenological method to explore the experiences and gendered identity negotiations of 15 FBWs from the eastern and midwestern U.S. who were recruited via electronic message boards and personal contacts. The study asks how these women experience the phenomenon of being the breadwinner, seeking common elements. Results indicate six essential elements of FBWs’ experiences: (a) having control, (b) valuing independence, (c) feeling pressure and worry, (d) valuing partner’s contributions, (e) feeling guilt and resentment, and (f) valuing career progress.     

Puja as One Dimension of a Sensitive,Relational Approach to Community Health Care Provision

This article compares two projects designed to train groups of rural Rajasthani women as community health workers. Through ethnographic research conducted during the training periods of each project I highlight stark differences in the management and structural approaches. The successful project recognised the importance of rituals, specifically puja, in the daily lives of participants. Both the NGO management and the trainees performed daily rituals that helped foster a supportive network. Sensitivity combined with a wider insight into the practical realities and constraints facing women in rural Rajasthan contributed to the long-term success of the second project. The first project has folded. I argue a lack of open dialogue and real connection with participants meant the project’s management were unable to adapt /tailor the program to the needs and experiences of the women involved.

Total Recall: Treating Chronic Mental Illness as a Memory

The ideas outlined in this paper developed from three separate strands of my work as a therapist treating older people. Firstly, I was concerned with reducing the number of patients not benefiting from therapy. In keeping with Pinquart et al.'s (Am J Psychiatry 163:1493–1501, 2006) recent meta-analytic survey concerning the use of psychotherapy and medication, 50% of the depressed patients treated by my team failed to respond adequately. Secondly, the ideas grew out of my attempts to determine why different therapies with older people have often been shown to have equivocal beneficial impacts (Davies and Collerton, J Ment Health 6:335–344, 1997). Thirdly, I was interested in integrating the relevant neuropsychological features, particularly memory, into my therapeutic work. These three strands have led me to propose a pan-theoretical model of distress based on memory functioning and existing information processing perspectives (Teasdale and Barnard, Affect, cognition and change: Remodelling depressive thought, 1993; Power and Dalgleish, Behav Cogn Psychother, 27:129–142, 1996).     

Resisting Gendered Smoking Pressures: Critical Consciousness as a Correlate of Women's Smoking Status

Gender is one of the social structures, along with social class and ethnicity, that shapes women's smoking behaviors. We examined how different responses to gender pressures (internalization and resistance) relate to smoking. We analyzed data from a national random digit dial survey of 945 women and found that never smokers scored high on resistance to gender pressure (indicated by high scores on feminist consciousness) and on education and Body Mass Index; current smokers had the reverse pattern. Ex-smokers scored high on one measure of resistance (advertising skepticism) and on two measures of internalization (embodied femininity and weight concern); they were also likely to have high household income and to be European American. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for smoking cessation programs and antismoking campaigns.     

关系复杂性和分类方式对个人关系类别间接性学习的影响

以144名大学生为被试,使用关系复杂性变化的三种虚拟外星生物实验材料,创设功能预测任务和自由分类、限定分类任务,探查关系复杂性和分类方式对个人关系类别间接性学习的影响.结果发现：（1）随着关系复杂性的增高,各学习阶段下,三种学习材料功能预测成绩彼此间均无显著差异;（2）关系复杂性和分类方式对个人关系类别间接性学习的分类结果存在交互影响作用,具体表现为,关系复杂性较低时自由分类和限定分类结果的杰卡德相似性无显著差异,关系复杂性较高和高时限定分类极其显著高于自由分类,自由分类方式下,关系复杂性不同的三种学习材料间差异不显著,限定分类方式下,关系复杂性较高和高两种学习材料分类结果的杰卡德相似性间无显著差异,但均极其显著高于关系复杂性较低的学习材料.     

Developing the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) as a Measure of Self-Forgiveness Related to Failing and Succeeding Behaviors

The Psychological Record - This study aimed to develop the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) as a measure of response biases related to emotional reactions and expected outcomes in...