Human ecological perspectives within a residential treatment setting for children

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44272/1/10566_2005_Article_BF01554427.pd

Drawing a line in the sand: affect and testimony in autism assessment teams in the UK.

Diagnosis of autism in the UK is generally made within a multidisciplinary team setting and is primarily based on observation and clinical interview. We examined how clinicians diagnose autism in practice by observing post-assessment meetings in specialist autism teams. Eighteen meetings across four teams based in the south of England and covering 88 cases were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. We drew out two themes, related to the way in which clinicians expressed their specialist disciplinary knowledge to come to diagnostic consensus: Feeling Autism in the Encounter; and Evaluating Testimonies of Non-present Actors. We show how clinicians produce objective accounts through their situated practices and perform diagnosis as an act of interpretation, affect and evaluation to meet the institutional demands of the diagnostic setting. Our study contributes to our understanding of how diagnosis is accomplished in practice.Wellcome Trust Investigator Awar

The body unbound: ritual scarification and autobiographical forms in Wole Soyinka’s Aké: the years of childhood

The scarification in Aké is invested with major significance apropos Soyinka’s ideas on African subjectivity. Scarification among the Yoruba is one of the rites of passage associated with personal development. Scarification literally and metaphorically “opens” the person up socially and cosmically. Personal formation and self-realization are enabled by the Yoruba social code brought into being by its mythology. The meaning of the scarification incident in Aké is profoundly different. Determined by the form of autobiography which creates a self-constituting subject, the enabling Yoruba sociocultural context is elided. The story of Soyinka’s personal development is allegorical of the story of the development of the modern African subject. For Soyinka, the African subject is a rational subject whose constitution precludes the splitting of the scientific and spiritual which is a consequence of the Cartesian rupture. The African subject should be open to other subjects and the object world. Subjectivity constituted by the autobiographical mode closes off the opening up symbolically signalled by scarification.Web of Scienc

A Recovery Journey for People with Personality Disorder

Background: The study investigates the process of recovery for people diagnosed with personlaity disorder, a client group that suffers significant social exclusion known to impact on demand for health and other public services. It aims to examine efforts which ateempt to reverse this social exclusion as an aspect of the recovery process. Aims and methods: the following study aims to i) explore what recovery means to people with personality disorder ii) develop a conceptual model of recovery in personality disorder iii) evaluate the contribution of the setting (The Haven) to recovery practice. The study uses a PAR (Participatory Action research) design. Data was collected from 66 participants by focus groups and individual interviews. Findings: A map based on thematic analysis of data collected during the study is proposed of the recovery journey for people with this diagnosis, shown as a pyramid which represents a hierarchy of progress from building trust through stages of recovery to social inclusion. Conclusion: Findings offer contributions to knowledge in terms of the service design and propose a new model of recovery in personality disorder. This is defined as a journey of small steps highlighting recovery as a process rather than a goal, leading to the emergence of the new concept of Transitional Recovery.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio