“Witness” to violence? Psychological discourses of children in situations of domestic violence

This paper takes a critical discursive and feminist perspective on psychological accounts of children who experience domestic violence. Academic, popular and professional discourses around domestic violence (DV) tend to represent children and young people (CYP) as passive witnesses and victims - as individuals who watch, who suffer from and who are damaged by the violence (e.g. Rivett and Howarth, 2006; Spilsbury et al, 2007). We consider how constructs like ‘witness’, ‘trauma’ and ‘exposure’ operate in psychological and other health and social care discourses of children, exploring the implications of such constructions for young people’s identities. In particular we explore how such accounts constrain the articulation of more agentic and resistant subjectivities in children living with domestic violenc

The adorned feminine body: a qualitative exploration of media representations of tattooed women in the UK

In this study, we explore how women with tattoos are portrayed in digital media. With a focus on the construction of femininities, we present a media analysis of digital articles and associated imagery published between September 2013 and February 2014 where women with tattoos are discussed and portrayed. A comprehensive search was conducted, with twenty five articles identified. The poster will focus on five of those articles, which are analysed through the means of Foucauldian Discourse Analysis. Our analysis explores how women with tattoos are constructed, analysing textual and visual representations in the digital media, to consider its implications for our understanding of femininities and embodiment in contemporary neoliberal British culture. The findings of the study contribute to our understanding of women with tattoos, by considering the 'fashion' aspect of body art, and the notion that there is a right and wrong way to be tattooed. There is also a clear difference between tasteful, discreet tattoos, and tattoos that are considered inappropriate. Think links to ideas of self-expression through decoration of the skin

Risky or resilient? Mental health for children, young people and families

This paper explores the notions of risk and resilience in relation to young people often regarded as 'vulnerable'. The paper explores how young people become positioned as 'vulnerable' to mental health difficulty, and what the implications of this designation as 'risky' might be. The paper considers critically the notion of resilience as a set of individual character traits and attempts to consider how this might be constituted in social interactions. The paper concludes that it is crucially important, when thinking about fostering positive mental health in young people, to consider how we might help them understand the social underpinnings of distress. It is only when this is understood that children and young people can be supported to be 'resilient

Searching for Afrocentric spirituality within the transpersonal

The aim of this paper is to show, via the lens of a culturally specific dream, how the transpersonal could benefit from broadening its approach to spirituality to include the wisdom of African spiritual beliefs. Discussing perennial theory, whilst considering briefly some of the spiritual means essential to an African spirituality, this paper suggest that a more cosmopolitan approach to the transpersonal is needed to avoid the creation of a spiritual other

Relating to the other: a transpersonal exploration of our internalised experience of difference

The aim of the research was to explore the universal experience of internalised othering utilising creative techniques common to transpersonal psychotherap

Process as Outcome: Methods of Engagement with the Nonhuman Object/thing/material

Through creative practice and exegetical writing, this research communicates two main propositions: 1) objects, things, and materials of the material world should be seen as “nonhuman”; and 2) doing so impacts the methods that come to be used in thinking, making, and showing art

Universal difference? Understanding relationality and difference in transpersonal psychotherapy

As a working class, black, male, who is the son of immigrants who travelled from the Caribbean with the Windrush Generation, I often feel at odds with my psychotherapy profession, dominated as it is by middle class, white, women, who typically have a British family line flowing back generations. My sense of otherness is with me throughout my working day, in my psychotherapy practice, as I sit with a diverse range of clients within the complex context of contemporary ‘multicultural’ Britain. The sense of ‘the other’, the sense of myself as ‘other’ impacts on, and to some degree constitutes therapeutic relationality. Within most styles of psychotherapy difference is mainly understood in terms of the acknowledgement of the various categories, consideration of power imbalances, which we try as therapists to work with, work around, work through. But I am a transpersonal psychotherapist, and within this modality, there is very little consideration of ‘difference’, or otherness, except to highlight the apparent universality of us all. In this paper, we will explore ways of carving out a space within transpersonal ways of thinking to consider the relational context of therapy, and to explore the constitution of ‘othering’ within this transpersonal therapeutic context. This paper outlines how the use of creative techniques common to Transpersonal psychotherapy, such as visualisations, drawing, and Sand Tray work can be used in research on therapy to explore the emotional bodily and relational experience of difference, between therapist and client, and between researcher and researche

'I don't know if you want to know this': Carers' understandings of intimacy in long-term relationships when one partner has dementia

This article explores experiences of relational intimacy (including sexual intimacy) in long- term relationships when one partner has dementia. An emerging body of research focuses on living with dementia, but work on relationships between people with dementia and their family and loved ones tends to focus on understanding the experience of caring and on constructs like ‘care burden’ (Etters, Goodall and Harrison 2008: 423). Research concerned with the lived experience of relationships themselves is less frequent, and very little published work focuses experiences of sex and intimacy. This qualitative study explores how six participants experience their intimate relationships with their partners with dementia. Semi-structured interviews provided a rich source of data which were analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis. Three master themes emerged from our analysis: a) everydayness, b) absent presence, and c) I don’t know if you want to know this. Participants explored how living with dementia constructed specific, everyday relational challenges, and disrupted everyday intimacies. Intimacy, including sexual intimacy, remains an important element of older couple relationships. Relational experiences present specific and difficult to articulate experiences for the partners of people living with dementia – particularly experiences related to sex and sexuality. Representations of older adults (particularly older adults with a long term illness) as relatively asexual beings can make elements of these relational challenges particularly difficult to express