Tracking Epistemic Violence,Tracking Practices of Silencing

Too often, identifying practices of silencing is a seemingly impossible exercise. Here I claim that attempting to give a conceptual reading of the epistemic violence present when silencing occurs can help distinguish the different ways members of oppressed groups are silenced with respect to testimony. I offer an account of epistemic violence as the failure, owing to pernicious ignorance, of hearers to meet the vulnerabilities of speakers in linguistic exchanges. Ultimately, I illustrate that by focusing on the ways in which hearers fail to meet speaker dependency in a linguistic exchange, efforts can be made to demarcate the different types of silencing people face when attempting to testify from oppressed positions in society.     

Individual Self,Relational Self,Collective Self: Hierarchical Ordering of the Tripartite Self

The individual self comprise unique attributes, the relational self comprises partner-shared attributes, and the collective self comprises ingroup-shared attributes. All selves are fundamental components of the self-concept, with each being important and meaningful to human experience and with each being associated with health benefits. Are the selves, however, equally important and meaningful? We review a program of research that tested four competing theoretical views suggesting that the motivational hub of human experience is (a) the individual self, (b) the relational self, (b) the collective self, or (c) determined by contextual or cultural factors. The research furnished support to the view that the individual self is the primary form of self-definition. We discuss alternative explanations and implications. We end with the introduction of a theoretical model, the boomerang model, that has the potential to integrate the diverse literature on the topic.     

Inherent Self,Invented Self,Empty Self: Constructivism,Buddhism, and Psychotherapy

Constructivist and Buddhist approaches to counseling and psychotherapy share increasing popularity as well as similar epistemological assumptions and understanding of human dysfunction and its amelioration. These approaches can be seen as consistent with postmodern psychology, which is distinguished from a realist or foundationalist view. This article provides an overview of these 2 models and describes some of their implications for psychopathology and psychotherapy, including examples of specific therapeutic approaches drawn from each perspective that might mutually inform practitioners who wish to apply this perspective to a higher view of the human situation.     

From Theorizing Radicalization to Surveillance Practices: Muslims in the Cross Hairs of Scrutiny

There are several psychological analyses of the processes of radicalization resulting in terrorism. However, we know little about how those in authority (e.g., the police) conceptualize the psychological dynamics to radicalization. Accordingly, we present a detailed account of an official U.K. counterterrorism intervention, the Workshop to Raise Awareness of Prevent, designed to enlist frontline professionals in identifying and referring those at risk of radicalization. Specifically, we report data gathered during an observation of this intervention delivered by the police in Scotland. This provides insight into the psychological model of radicalization being disseminated in the United Kingdom, and we evaluate the merits of this model in the light of current psychological theory. First, we consider how this model may overlook certain social dynamics relevant to understanding radicalization. Second, we discuss how this neglect limits consideration of how the surveillance warranted by the official model may lead Muslims to disengage from majority group members. Our analysis points to how political psychology's analysis of social identities and citizenship can inform public policy and practice.     

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.     

Self and Identity in Later Life: Protecting and Enhancing the Self

Self and identity are central concepts in the social and behavioral sciences for multiple reasons. At least three major research traditions focus on the self. First, sociologists view the self as a primary bridge between social structures and individual attitudes and behaviors, as a mechanism by which social structures and individuals affect and are affected by each other. Second, self and identity are viewed as cornerstones of well-being. Thus, social and behavioral scientists have documented important links between the self and physical and mental health, role performance, the quality of interpersonal relationships, and subjective well-being. Third, the self is conceptualized as a central motivating force in human behavior. Issues as diverse as self-selection into specific environments, defense mechanisms, and the desire and ability to break addictive behaviors have been informed by attention to the motivational force of the self. This latter tradition serves as the conceptual bedrock of this paper. This paper examines three components of the self: self-efficacy, self-esteem, and a sense of authenticity. The first two have received substantial theoretical and empirical attention; the latter, much less. I argue that this unequal distribution of scientific inquiry is a result of too much emphasis on the motivation to protect the self, to the neglect of motivation to enhance the self. I make a case for the particular importance of examining self-enhancement in late life.     

Managing Physical and Sexual Assault Risk in Urban Nightlife: Individual- and Environmental-Level Influences

In this article we use interview and direct observation data to examine the experiences of young people in two Philadelphia nightlife scenes, and the ways in which they manage risk of physical and sexual assault. Our analysis reveals several environmental-level factors that shape risk exposure, as well as a number of individual-level tactics used to manage risk. Our observations are discussed in terms of their implications for developing a risk management framework that accounts for the role of individual- and environmental-level factors in shaping victimization.     

All in My Head: Beckett,Schizophrenia and the Self

This article will explore the representation of certain mental and somatic phenomena in Beckett’s trilogy of novels Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable, exploring how his understanding of schizophrenia and psychosis informs his representation of the relationship between mind and body. It will also examine recent phenomenological and philosophical accounts of schizophrenia (Louis Sass, Josef Parnas, Shaun Gallagher) that see the condition as a disorder of selfhood and concentrate in it on the disruption to ipseity, a fundamental and pre-reflective awareness of self that leads to a loss of ‘grip’ (in the term of Merleau-Ponty) on concepts and percepts. Beckett’s writing might, it is argued, make such disruptions more tangible and intelligible. The article will also consider John Campbell’s argument that immunity of the first person to error—Sydney Shoemaker’s foundational philosophical idea that we cannot misspeak the first person pronoun—is revoked in states of psychosis, and relate such states to the moments in Beckett’s writing where this immunity is challenged, and quasi-psychotic experiences represented.     

Abduction in the Public Sphere: Sadomasochism,Surveillance, and Counterpublics

Several years ago, a negotiated, consensual abduction scenario took place in downtown Toronto, Canada. Following the public abduction the captive was taken to a secure, private location and (consensually) subjected to physical and sexual aggression: ‘gang-rape’. The public abduction involved five queer and trans persons, some of whom are people of colour. In a Foucaultian context, an abduction scenario eludes surveillance and remains invisible until revealed. During the abduction scenario some citizens stopped, observed, and considered using their cellular phones, visibly concerned with what they were witnessing. At one point the scenario paused for consultation and explanation with bystanders troubled by what they interpreted as potentially criminal behaviour. This response can be understood as policing non-normative, public, physical activity. What are the limitations of Sadomasochism (S/m) in the public sphere? And how are identifications of class, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality positioned in this analysis? To those inexperienced with S/m, unfamiliar with consensually aggressive activity, there can be a questioning of psychological contiguity. In the twenty-first century there has been a mainstreaming of kink. Yet, there remain limitations of public tolerance for S/m as counter–conduct. Through the work of Warner and Munoz, this paper suggests the scenario can be interpreted as a counterpublic. This research is an autoethnographic account of the scenario and addresses the limitations on S/m scenarios conducted in the public sphere.     

Self-presentation, Representation and the Self

Chisholm held that some states of ourselves are self-presenting and provide a stopping place in the quest for justification. The justification we have for accepting that we are in those states is transparent to us in a way that enables us to answer questions about justification. Representation enables us to apprehend such self-presenting states through themselves in a representational loop. It is a loop of exemplarization wherein the state is used as an exemplar to represent the kind of state it is. The result is that the representation of the state provides the subject with a kind of representation that loops back onto itself escaping the bondage of stratified mentality. This form of representation by exemplarization is shown to resolve problems and paradoxes concerning subjectivity, consciousness and the self raised by the writings of Hume, Kierkegaard, Ferrier, Sartre and Frank Jackson.     

Happiness,Dispositions and the Self

I argue that happiness is an exclusively categorical mental state. Daniel Haybron’s inclusion of dispositions into his emotional state theory rests of a confusion of constituents of happiness in the narrow psychological sense with objects of prudential concern, to which obviously belong “mood propensities” and other dispositional states. I further argue that while it is probably correct to require of a constituent of happiness that it must in some sense be “deep” and belong to, or directly impact on, a persons’ self, the importance of depth may be overrated by the emotional state theory, which also ignores the possibility that mental states other than moods and emotions can be deep in the relevant sense.     

Self Psychology, Dreams and Group Psychotherapy: Working in the Playspace

This paper presents one leadership style within a self-psychological approach to working with dreams in group psychotherapy. It stresses an empathic attunement, the creation of safety, and an experience-near playful relationship. Playful is not used lightly here. It is used in the spirit of Winnicott's intermediate space where a mother suspends questions of what is real or not real and what is me and not me. Freud's analogy to a playspace forms a metaphor for the creation of a special atmosphere in a group, or for that matter in individual work as well, that encourages exploration, risk taking, and vulnerability. Working with dreams in this playspace deepens the curative process, not only for the dreamer, but for the entire group.