Psychotherapy and the Embodiment of the Neuronal Identity: A Hermeneutic Study of Louis Cozolino\u27s (2010)\u3ci\u3e The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy: Healing the Social Brain \u3c/i\u3e

In recent years, there have been several ways in which researchers have attempted to integrate psychotherapy and neuroscience research. Neuroscience has been proposed as a method of addressing lingering questions about how best to integrate psychotherapy theories and explain their efficacy. For example, some psychotherapy outcome studies have included neuroimaging of participants in order to propose neurobiological bases of effective psychological interventions (e.g., Paquette et al., 2003). Other theorists have used cognitive neuroscience research to suggest neurobiological correlates of various psychotherapy theories and concepts (e.g., Schore, 2012). These efforts seem to embody broader historical trends, including the hope that neuroscience can resolve philosophical questions about the relationship between mind and body, as well as the popular appeal of contemporary brain research. In this hermeneutic dissertation I examined a popular neuropsychotherapy text in order to explore the historical fit between neuroscience and psychotherapy. The study identifies the possible understandings of the self (i.e., what it means to be human) that could arise from Western therapy discourses that are based on neuroscientific interpretations of psychotherapy theories. The methodology of this dissertation consisted of a critical textual analysis of Louis Cozolino\u27s (2010) The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy: Healing the Social Brain. The primary content, rhetorical strategies, and recurring themes in Cozolino\u27s book were outlined and interpreted from a hermeneutic perspective. This included a historical critique of Cozolino\u27s claims about the origins, purpose, and efficacy of psychotherapy, his assertions about the relationship between self and brain, and examples of his psychotherapy case vignettes. Rhetorical strategies in his writing included analogy, ambiguity, speculative language, and figures of speech such as metaphor and personification. A discussion of these findings addressed the implications of Cozolino\u27s efforts with regards to patient care, psychotherapy theory integration, and the possible effects that these efforts may have on the profession of psychology. The electronic version of this dissertation is at OhioLink ETD Center, www.ohiolink.edu/et

From Pervert to Predator: Law, Medicine, Media, and the Construction of Contemporary Sexual Deviance

This Dissertation examines how cultural and legal interactions shift the meaning and implications of “predatory” sexual behavior. Specifically, it explores how lawmaking processes, media coverage, and therapeutic jurisprudence have shifted the way that sexually predatory behavior is categorized and defined in California’s 1996 Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) Act. Drawing on fieldwork; interviews with experts working in law, medicine, politics, and advocacy; and legal and media content analysis, I develop three substantive chapters exploring different institutions’ impact on this law. Chapter Two of the dissertation introduces the SVP Act and examines changes to the law made via Proposition 83, a 2006 voter-initiated statute. Drawing on comparative analysis of legislative history, text, and debates, this chapter demonstrates how the Proposition system allowed for the incorporation of rhetoric that the legislative system did not, justifying different legal penalties for sexual predators at each point in time. Chapter Three uses content analysis of 323 Los Angeles Times articles about sexual predators over the span of 25 years to examine shifting representations of sexual predator victims, crimes, and offenders. Chapter Four examines how interactions between legal and medical actors and systems transform SVP treatment into punishment. Taken together, these chapters illustrate how different aspects of law, medicine, and popular opinion interact to construct sexual predators as increasingly monstrous, and provide a framework to begin to understand the impact and implications of this construction for both sex offenders and victims

Articulating the new normal(s) : mental disability, medical discourse, and rhetorical action.

“Articulating the New Normal(s): Mental Disability, Medical Discourse, and Rhetorical Action” studies the writing of people diagnosed with autism and post- traumatic stress disorder within online discussion boards related to mental health and outlines their unique rhetorical strategies for interacting with biomedical ideologies of psychiatry and activist discourses. The opening chapter situates this dissertation in relation to previous scholarship in Rhetoric, Disability Studies, and other fields. I also provide a summary of the set of mixed methods I use to gather and analyze my data, including rhetorical analysis, corpus analysis, and qualitative interviews. In Chapter 2, “Medical Terminology and Discourse Features of Online Discussions of Mental Health,” I explore the ways in which medical discourse appears in discussions of mental disability through medical terms that writers and speakers use when discussing a diagnosis. Using methods borrowed from linguistics, I demonstrate that the writers in my study make different linguistic choices than the general public, and that the most prominent differences are related to the social construction of mental health and medicine. In Chapter 3, “Inhabiting Biological Primacy with Chiasmic Rhetoric in Mental Health Forums,” I describe and analyze a variety of common topics in online conversations that connect mental health and expert knowledge of the brain. I argue that this connection of mental experience and brain science constitutes a chiasmic rhetoric. The writers foregrounded in this chapter acknowledge and accept much of the claims of medicine and neuroscience regarding the brain but, uniquely, work to divide that knowledge from the path of normativity and optimization. Chapter 4, “Classified Conversations: Psychiatry and Technical Communication in Online Spaces,” examines the practices of participants in online mental health discussion forums conversations as they interpret technical documents. I detail four salient forms of the manipulation of medical discourse in online communities. At the close of this chapter, I explain how these insights can inform academic study of writing in mental health contexts and transform the content and application of medical and technical texts. In Chapter 5, “Re-Forming Mental Health: Rhetorical Innovation and the Language of Advocacy,” I summarize and synthesize the core arguments of earlier chapters, with an extended caveat regarding the ethical dilemmas of this study. Finally, I offer a set of practical recommendations for different communities with which my research has been conversant, the fields of Rhetoric and Rhetoric of Health and Medicine, Disability Studies, and activism related to mental disabilities

From sadomasochism to BDSM : rethinking object relations theorizing through queer theory and sex-positive feminism

This theoretical thesis explores the phenomenon of BDSM. BDSM is a type of consensual erotic experience that covers a wide range of interactions between or among people. Referencing the compound acronym BDSM, these interactions encompass: bondage and discipline; dominance and submission; and sadism and masochism. This project investigates psychoanalytic conceptualizations of BDSM, often called sadomasochism in analytic literature. In particular, object relations theory conceptualizations of BDSM are explored. Object relations theorists have tended to identify sadomasochism as pathology. This thesis explores and uses queer theory and sex-positive feminism to analyze two important object relations authors\u27 writings on sadomasochism (i.e., Otto Kernberg and Jessica Benjamin). Additionally, a history of sadomasochism\u27s entry into the psychological lexicon is given; its inclusion in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is discussed; the findings of empirical research on BDSM are reviewed; and discrimination against BDSM practitioners—including adverse experiences in psychotherapy—is described. Through this analysis, problems with object relations pathological framework regarding sadomasochism are discussed, and new adaptive object relations conceptualizations of BDSM are offered. Implications for clinical social work theory, research, and practice concerning BDSM and its practitioners are presented

From Transnormativity to Self-Authenticity: Shifting Away From a Dysphoria-Centered Approach to Transgender Identity

Transnormativity is a social ideology concerning the validity and perceived realness of transgender individuals and identities. In this thesis, I investigate current transgender issues through the lens of transgender medicalization and its resulting sociocultural impacts, prioritizing trans identities and individuals that surpass binary categorizations. Under transnormativity, nonbinary gender identity is continually made invisible and unintelligible in both popular and trans discourse, however, nonbinary users of social media find creative means to express their authentic sense of self nonetheless. The resulting implications of such work to socially, culturally, and psychologically resist and deconstruct transnormativity

Agonizing Identity in Mental Health Law and Policy (Part II): A Political Taxonomy of Psychiatric Subjectification

This is the second part of a two-part essay exploring the function of identity in mental health law and policy or more broadly the function of identity in the politics of mental health. Part one began with the Foucauldian exhortation to undertake a criticalontology ofourselves, and adopted the methodology of autoethnography to explore the construction or constructedness of the authors identity as an expert working in the area of mental health law and policy. That part concluded with a gesture of resistance to identification on one or the other side of the mental health/ illness divide (the divide of reason and madness), affirming instead an aspiration to carve out a space of contemplation-or rather multiple spaces: fleeting, episodic manifestations of what the author terms spectral identity -supportive of reflection on the relational determinants of one\u27s position along a continuum of shared vulnerabilities and capacities, shifting over time and across bio-psychosocial settings in defiance of simplistic binary categories. Part two builds out from these insights toward a political taxonomy of mental health identities. As such it deepens its engagement with the core question raised in part one: namely is mentalhealth working on us-on the mental health disabled, legal scholars, all of us-in ways that are impairing our capacity for social justice

Cultural Consultations in Criminal Forensic Psychology: A Thematic Analysis of the Literature

The importance of culture as a reference point in clinical practices such as forensic psychology has been considerably valued yet poorly understood, especially in an age where precision and sophistication outlast cultural authenticity and patient-clinician relationship. This paper looks at the gaps and inconsistencies that exist in current forensic psychology research. The topic is introduced by delving into the understanding of the phenomenon of culture and its influences on our everyday conditioning. Aspects such as language, biological development, traditions, rituals, and narratives are emphasized as potent tools that drive individuals to create and mold culture according to needs and requirements of the moment. These elements are then used for signifying the inherent ways in which culture can result in both despair as well as positive enforcement, thereby being a powerful element of consideration in forensic assessment practice. The essential concept explored in this paper involves the clinicians’ perspectives on the meaning of cultural values, norms and beliefs that shape the behavior of the patient. Through this exploration I attempted to understand how the clinical practice of forensic psychology can be made more authentic and less cold and calculated by consideration of cultural malleability. By using thematic analysis, I reviewed a large collection of the relevant literature in an attempt to understand the core concepts that drive clinicians in their cultural considerations. I emphasized attention to the malleable nature of culture and the intricate ways in which culture is related to biological, psychological, anthropological, and legal aspects of forensic psychology. The conclusions of the paper include specific considerations for creating a well-structured cultural consultation model, which emphasizes attention to aspects like clinical approach, patient’s family of origin, current community, as well as biological and psychological conditions of the patient and the patient’s cultural perspective on those conditions

Attention Deficit Identity Discourse: Exploring The Ableist Limitations And The Liberative Potential Of The Contested Adhd Self

The specific objective of this project is to elaborate general rhetorical resources and strategies that can allow for ADHDers to both cultivate/reclaim a positive sense of self in the face of multiple forms of stigmatizing discourse and begin the process of challenging that discourse. Working from a disability studies perspective, I identify both challenges and opportunities to develop a positive sense of self through the examination of nostalgia in ADHD discourse, polysemic ADHD medical discourse, and the use of counternarratives as a resource to reframe stigmatizing master narratives. This project concludes by emphasizing that those with what I identify as contested disabilities – those like ADHD that some argue as to whether they should be considered “legitimate” disabilities – can utilize a similar process of analyzing master narratives to determine strengths and weaknesses to strategically construct counternarratives. While each contested disability will have to address unique discursive/narrative challenges, this project provides an example of how that process can occur through the examination of ADHD