Storymaking: In-between anthropological enquiry and Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy

The author discusses the relationship between anthropological enquiry and Transactional Analysis (TA) counselling and psychotherapy practice. Both disciplines of anthropology and TA offer an exploration of the individual's story. The concept of in-between-ness can add an extra dimension to working with clients in acknowledging the place of the client's story and the psychotherapist's role in witnessing as a way of making meaning of the whole. Ethnographical extracts are examined to illuminate how the application of anthropological insights and concepts can enhance TA psychotherapy practice.     

‘Bricolage’: reclaiming a conceptual tool

This article provides the genealogy of bricolage and underscores the modifications it has undergone within the sociologies of culture and religion. It draws on the study of three new religious movements that teach unconventional versions of Hinduism and kabbalah, to show that the current understanding of bricolage in the studies of popular culture and religion over-estimates its eclectic and personal nature and neglects its sociocultural logics. It tends to take for granted the availability of cultural resources used in bricolage, and finally it fails to understand the social significance of individualism, overlooking the ways in which norms and power could be expressed through culture in the contemporary world. This article suggests that it would be best reclaiming bricolage's original meaning, prompting questions about the contexts that make certain elements available, social patterns that may organise bricolage, who ‘bricole’, what for, who is empowered, from what and by using whose tradition.     

Collective memory in the making of religious change: the case of ‘emerging Jews’ followers of Jesus

This study explores a facet of the construction of a new worldwide religious tradition that fuses the beliefs, rituals, and identity claims of both Judaism and Christianity. The Brazilian ‘Messianic Anussim’ comprise former Charismatic Evangelicals that adhere to a variety of Jewish practices. Unlike Messianic Judaism, where Jewish-born people identify themselves as believers in Jesus, or Christian Zionism, where Evangelicals emphasise the eschatological importance of the Jews and Israel this particular community maintains the veneration of Jesus and calls for a purification of Charismatic Evangelicalism while observing Jewish laws. Their calls for a ‘pious restoration’ are guided by a recovered Jewish identity that is inspired by the historical figure of the Bnei Anussim. Based on ethnographic research conducted between 2013 and 2015, this study explores the formation of a new hybrid religious group.     

The influence of the media on practice in mental health: a bricolage of a single case study

This paper has its genesis in the convergence of two individuals’ interests – one with a long-standing interest in representations of mental health and one with an interest in the use of bricolage as a research approach. These interests converged around the ways in which mental health care practitioners might react to and subsequently reflect on images of mental health they came across in the media. A bricolage was developed relating to newspaper coverage of a homicide carried out by someone with a mental health problem. The bricolage draws on the assumption that practitioners will have immediate reactions to material they come across, take a more considered overview of this material, and subsequently attempt to contextualize this reflection in terms of academic literature. The bricolage as presented mirrors this process for an experienced practitioner. Suggestions are made concerning the use of newspaper reports on mental health, to enable both novice and experienced practitioners to gain vicarious experience through reflection on these reports.     

BRICOLAGE AND THE PURITY OF TRADITIONS: Engaging the Stoics for Contemporary Christian Ethics

This essay is a response to C. Kavin Rowe's critique of my 2011 argument that certain dimensions of Roman Stoic ethics are at work in Jonathan Edwards's moral thought. Rowe raises questions about the act of selectively retrieving ideas from a philosophical tradition to support constructive work in another tradition. I argue for the importance of acknowledging how Christian thought has been shaped by what Jeffrey Stout describes as moral bricolage, the selective retrieval of ideas from various traditions, and I contend that this bricolage can continue to be a fruitful means through which Christian ethics engages external traditions. Moreover, the importance of Stoicism's retrieval in early modern philosophy makes the work of eighteenth‐century theologians such as Edwards a particularly valuable resource for exploring the plausibility of Christian engagement with the Stoics.