Reflective team and process-oriented supervision – a case study on differences

To meet the Swedish healthcare legislation’s requirements for evidence-based care, a work model for reflection has been developed, called a reflective team (RT). Because this RT model can be perceived as either a competitor of or a complement to caring supervision, this case study aims to explore what distinguishes these two in psychiatric care. Five members of one RT who are psychiatric nurses with previous experiences in caring supervision were interviewed. The transcribed interviews were analysed according to phenomenography. The findings reveal three qualitatively separated categories, which describe differences in focus, competencies, and relationships between confirmation and demands. It is concluded that an RT by no means replaces supervision. Instead, both can contribute to care improvement by complementing each other and increasing the professionalism of psychiatric nurses.     

The Colonization Thesis: Habermas on Reification

Abstract

According to Habermas’ colonization thesis, reification is a social pathology that arises when the communicative infrastructure of the lifeworld is ‘colonized’ by money and power. In this paper I argue that, thirty years after the publication of the Theory of Communicative Action, this thesis remains compelling. However, while Habermas offers a functionalist explanation of reification, his normative criticism of it remains largely implicit: he never explains what is wrong with reification from the perspective of the people whose social relations are reified. As a result, Habermas cannot explain why only some forms of colonization lead to reification effects. In particular, he suggests that reification effects result from the juridification of communicatively structured domains of action but not from the commodification of labour power. I criticize this argument and suggest that if the normative dimension of the colonization thesis is made explicit, a more nuanced explanation of reification becomes possible.     

Using lifeworld philosophy in education to intertwine caring and learning: an illustration of ways of learning how to care

Our general purpose is to show how a philosophically oriented theoretical foundation, drawn from a lifeworld perspective can serve as a coherent direction for caring practices in education. We argue that both caring and learning share the same ontological foundation and point to this intertwining from a philosophical perspective. We proceed by illustrating shared epistemological ground through some novel educational practices in the professional preparation of carers. Beginning in a phenomenologically oriented philosophical foundation, we will first unfold what this means in the practice of caring, and secondly what it means for education and learning to care in humanly sensitive ways. We then share some ways that may be valuable in supporting learning and health that provides a basis for an existential understanding. We argue that existential understanding may offer a way to bridge the categorisations in contemporary health care that flow from problematic dualisms such as mind and body, illness and well-being, theory and practice, caring and learning. Ways of overcoming such dualistic splits and new existential understandings are needed to pave the way for a care that is up to the task of responding to both human possibilities and vulnerabilities, within the complexity of existence. As such, we argue that caring and learning are to be understood as an intertwined phenomenon of pivotal importance in education of both sensible and sensitive carers. Lifeworld led didactics and reflection, which are seen as the core of learning, constitute an important educational strategy here.     

A Window Into Richard M. Zaner’s Clinical Ethics

This essay introduces a thematic issue focused on the contributions to clinical ethics and the philosophy of medicine by Richard M. Zaner. We consider the apparent divorce of Zaners philosophical roots from his recent narrative immersions into the blooming, buzzing confusions of clinical-moral lifeworlds. Our considerations of the Zanerian context and origins of the clinical encounter introduce the fundamental questions faced by Zaner and his commentators in this issue, questions about the role of ethics consultants, moral authority, and clinical truths.     

Beyond the twee: Thuy’s practical expression of living the Mercy Education Value of hospitality

This article utilises hermeneutic phenomenology as a theoretical framework for reflecting upon and interpreting the Mercy Education Value of hospitality. It describes an incident involving the author’s encounter with a member of staff upon his new appointment in a Catholic secondary college formed in the Mercy Tradition. Through this article, the possibilities opened by such an encounter for hermeneutic phenomenology are explored using van Manen’s lifeworld existentials as guides to reflection upon the described incident. The four lifeworld existentials are lived space (spatiality), lived body (corporeality), lived time (temporality) and lived other (relationality). In using these as guides to reflection, it is argued that some insights into the Mercy value of hospitality may be gleaned, namely that to be Mercy involves: (1) exceeding the carefully and socially programmed how are you – fine exchange; (2) an encounter with the other – the stranger – in whom is to be found the person of Jesus Christ, in which both participants are transformed; and (3) taking a risk – pushing boundaries so as to enter into relationship with the other.     

Die konstitutive Rolle von Technik in Der Konstruktivistischen Wissenschaftstheorie. Konsequenzen für die Technikphilosophie

Suumary   The constitutive role of technology in the constructive theory of science. Consequences for the philosophy of technology. Technology plays an important role in the constructivistic reconstructions of the natural sciences. However, there is no in-depth view or thorough explication of the term “technology” and its connotations and relations in those exercises. Technology, there, is seen as a more or less evident part of the lifeworld’s A priori of the natural sciences. This paper is dedicated to the reconstruction of the function of technology in the argumentations chains and proto-theories which shall, in the constructivistic (methodical) theory of sciences, provide the methodical fundament of the sciences. In a second step, the aspects of technology are identified which are indispensable to fulfil the functions of technology in the argumentation chains mentioned above. Finally, these aspects are related to current debates in the philosophy of technology.     

End of living: maintaining a lifeworld during terminal illness

The narrative responses of 32 people with AIDS or cancer with survival prognoses of 6 months to a year to monthly interview questions about their daily lives were analysed with a team-based qualitative methodology. Two groups emerged: (a) a Maintained Lifeworld Group characterised by one or more of the following: continued engagement with family, friends, and community; the ability to relinquish untenable goals and substitute new, realistic ones; engagement in spirituality and a spiritual practice; and, (b) a Lifeworld Interrupted Group characterised by one or more of the following: relocation just before or during the study, cognitive impairment, commitment to untenable goals, ongoing substance abuse. Understanding how people with a terminal illness can maintain a lifeworld and experience well-being while also managing the physical challenges of their illness could help inform the support offered by professional and family caregivers to improve care recipients’ quality of life.