764 research outputs found
Negotiating motherhood: practices and discourses
Processes of transition to motherhood have been devoted a great deal of attention, resulting in a consistent range of research and literature. Globally, and considering the different directions and motivations of theses studies, the consequential body of research basically points out the complex and diverse character of this personal experience, whether focused in a more quantitative approach intended to isolate the variables influencing the psychosocial adjustment to this transition (Glade, Bean & Vira, 2005), or oriented towards a qualitative exploration of the individual experience of these women (see Nelson, 2003, for a review).
Nevertheless the knowledge that the transition to motherhood constitutes a highly challenging task that presents several emotional, affective and social nuances, the cultural view of this life event seems to continue emphasizing the element of self-fulfilment of the feminine nature that motherhood experiences also carries. Several authors have highlighted the fact that motherhood, more than a mere biological event, constitutes a social phenomenon, loaded with inherited cultural and ideological images and lay theories that influence the experiences of any new mother (Johnston & Swanson, 2006; Letherby, 1994; SĂ©von, 2005; Woollett, 1991).
At the realm of social discourses, seemingly a traditional idealized view of motherhood as a source of significant personal fulfilment and enjoyment of intense positive emotions prevails (Leal, 2005; Solé & Parella, 2004). This narrow vision of motherhood also carries a set of believes and stereotypes around what is socially and culturally accepted, in contemporaneous western societies, as an adequate practice of “mothering”, which are largely sustained by the myth of motherhood as a universal need and “natural” choice of women and by the expectation of a full-time mothering (Johnston & Swanson, 2006; Fursman, 2002; Solé & Parella, 2004; Oakley, 1984). In other words, it is expected that all women long for motherhood and that they become almost exclusively devoted to their children, being present to love, educate, stimulate and care for them (Fursman, 2002).
Thus, the word “motherhood”, understood as a discursive construct with deep socio-cultural roots, also involves a set of behavioural and attitudinal prescriptions necessary to what is understood as a “good” mother and which, by opposition, exclude other behaviours and attitudes that become connected with a “bad” mother (Solé & Parella, 2004). Thus, these social and cultural d1iscourses around the notion of an intensive motherhood, that is presented as the major priority in women’s lives, is extensively based in the invention of the “good” motherhood, which has strong implications in the way women live this event and reassess their life projects, limiting the possibilities of their identities and discursive practices (Breheny & Stephens, 2007)
Narrative measures in psychotherapy research: introducing the special section.
[Excerpt] The aim of this special section is to present a review of recent advances in the assessment of changes in client narratives. An emerging trend in the psychotherapy research field suggests that narrative-based meaning reconstruction is an important foundation for the articulation of a new, more adaptive view of self (Angus & Kagan, 2013) in psychotherapy. Additionally, a range of research-informed treatment models, including psychodynamic (Luborsky, 1998), humanistic (Angus, Watson, Elliott, Schneider, & Timulak, 2015) and systemic therapy approaches (Dallos & Vetere, 2009), emphasize that client changeinpsychotherapyisfacilitatedthroughpersonal story disclosure, emotional engagement and reflection for new meaning construction and self-narrative reorganization. In fact, recent research from Angus et al. (inpress)andGonçalvesetal.(thisissue),usingdifferent methods and clinical samples, have independently established that successful psychotherapy involves client self-narrative transformation processes evidenced in late phase therapy sessions. (...
Therapeutic change, innovative moments and the reconceptualization of the self: a dialogical account
Innovative moments (IMs) are exceptions toward the problematic self-narrative
that brought the client to therapy, which emerge in the therapeutic conversation. Dialogically,
an IM might be conceived as an expression of an alternative I-position which challenges the
dominance of problematic voices, thus having the potential to transform the self-narrative as
they are expanded and elaborated. Reconceptualization is a particular type of IM which usually
emerges in the middle of the process of a successful treatment, increasing steadily until the end.
Moreover, reconceptualization seems to be a distinctive feature of a successful psychotherapy
process, as it is almost absent in poor outcome cases. This IM has two main features: the
presence of a contrast between a previous self-narrative and a new emergent one, and the access
to the process which allowed for the transformation from the former to the last. This innovative
moment clearly involves a special I-position which Hermans has characterized as a metaposition.
We discuss four functions of this type of IM in the change process: (1) providing a
narrative structure for change; (2) bridging the past and present self-narratives; (3) facilitating
the progressive identification with the new self-narrative; and (4) allowing surpassing the
ambivalence often involved in the change process
Momentos de inovação em psicoterapia: das narrativas aos processos dialógicos
Partindo da proposta de Frank (1961), de que a mudança psicoterapêutica envolve uma mudança nos
significados, sugerimos que os significados se organizam em narrativas cujos autores (I-positions,
segundo Hermans) contam de uma forma activa as suas histórias. No sentido de estudar a mudança
em psicoterapia, e partindo destas assunções, desenvolvemos o Sistema de Codificação de Momentos
de Inovação, que fornece um método fiável e sistemático de identificar as novidades que emergem nas
sessões de psicoterapia, que denominamos de Momentos de Inovação (MIs). Estes momentos de
inovação emergem na psicoterapia e contribuem para interromper a dominância das auto-narrativas
problemáticas responsáveis pelo sofrimento psicológico, permitindo a narração de novas histórias e
a emergência de novas posições-do-Eu (I-positions). Após a descrição deste sistema de codificação,
apresentamos um modelo de mudança e um modelo de estabilidade terapêutica, fundamentado nos
resultados empĂricos obtidos atĂ© ao momento. Partindo destas premissas, exploramos duas questões
centrais relevantes: (1) Quais os processos que bloqueiam o desenvolvimento de momentos de
inovação da fase intermĂ©dia atĂ© Ă fase final da terapia, particularmente no que respeita Ă
reconceptualização? (2) Por que razão será a reconceptualização central no processo de mudança?Departing from Frank’s (1961) proposal that psychotherapeutic change involves change in meanings,
we suggest that meanings are organized into narratives, and that narratives have authors (I-positions
according to Hermans) that are actively telling their stories. To study change in psychotherapy,
according to these assumptions, the Innovative Moment Coding System was created, which provides
a systematic and reliable method for the identification of the novelties emerging in psychotherapy
sessions, which we call innovative moments (IMs). These innovative moments emerge in successful
psychotherapy and disrupt the dominance of the problematic self-narratives that brought the client to therapy, thus allowing for new I-positions to come to the foreground and tell stories that are outside
the scope of the former problematic self-narratives. After describing this coding system, we present a
model of psychotherapeutic change and a model of therapeutic stability grounded on the empirical
results obtained until now. From here we explore two main questions: (1) Which processes block the
development of innovative moments from the middle of the therapy to the end, particularly the
emergence of reconceptualization? (2) Why is reconceptualization so central in the change process?(undefined
Maintenance and transformation of problematic self-narratives: a semiotic-dialogical approach
This study focus on how the emergence of novelties in psychotherapy, which we term
Innovative Moments (IMs), progresses to the construction of a new self-narrative.
Novelty’s emergence challenge a person’s dominant self-narrative (i.e., usual way of
understanding and experiencing), generating uncertainty. Frequently, clients resolve the
uncertainty, by attenuating the novelty’s meaning, making a quick return to the
dominant self-narrative. From a dialogical perspective, a dominant voice (which
organize clients’ self-narrative) and a non-dominant (or innovative) voice (expressed
during IMs) establish a cyclical relation – mutual in-feeding – throughout the
therapeutic process, blocking self-development. In this article, we analyze a successful
psychotherapeutic case focusing on how the relation between dominant and nondominant
voices evolve from mutual in-feeding to other forms of dialogical relation.
We have identified two processes, using the microgenetic method from a semiotic
autoregulatory perspective of the dialogical self: (1) Escalation of the innovative
voice(s) and thereby inhibiting the dominant voice and (2) Dominant and innovative
voices negotiate and engage in joint action
Quasiperiodicity hinders ergodic Floquet eigenstates
Quasiperiodic systems in one dimension can host non-ergodic states, e.g.
localized in position or momentum. Periodic quenches within localized phases
yield Floquet eigenstates of the same nature, i.e. spatially localized or
ballistic. However, periodic quenches across these two non-ergodic phases were
thought to produce ergodic diffusive-like states even for non-interacting
particles. We show that this expectation is not met at the thermodynamic limit
where the system always attains a non-ergodic state. We find that ergodicity
may be recovered by scaling the Floquet quenching period with system size and
determine the corresponding scaling function. Our results suggest that while
the fraction of spatially localized or ballistic states depends on the model's
details, all Floquet eigenstates belong to one of these non-ergodic categories.
Our findings demonstrate that quasiperiodicity hinders ergodicity and
thermalization, even in driven systems where these phenomena are commonly
expected
Narrative and clinical change in Cognitive Behavior Therapy: a comparison of two recovered cases
Psychotherapy research suggests that therapeutic change is associated with the emergence and development
of innovative moments (IMs)—that is, exceptions to the problematic self-narrative that
brought the client to therapy. This study compares two recovered cases of major depression, according
to symptom measures, that presented contrasting profiles of evolution of IMs: one typical
of successful therapy (Barbara), and another typical of unsuccessful therapy (Claudia). The core
conflictual relationship theme (CCRT) was used to study narrative change independently of the innovative
moments coding system (IMCS). The results suggest a high congruence between the IMCS
and the CCRT profiles. Although Barbara presented changes in the IMCS and the CCRT in a similar
way, Claudia’s self-narratives (IMs and CCRT), despite symptom change, did not change. The results
are discussed, considering the importance of narrative changes in recovery from depression and the
maintenance of therapeutic gains.This article was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), by the Grant PTDC/PSI-PCL/121525/2010 (Ambivalence and unsuccessful psychotherapy, 2012-
2015) and by the PhD Grant SFRH/BD/77324/2011.
This study was conducted at Psychology Research Centre, University of Minho, and supported
by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Minister of Education
and Science through national funds and when applicable co-financed by FEDER under
the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (UID/PSI/01662/2013)
Funções polĂticas do conceito de identidade : A psicologia, o self e o poder
Neste artigo analisamos a metáfora dominante do
self na psicologia - o self como um contentor ou como
uma mĂłnada. Depois de caracterizar o self monadal
procuramos clarificar as funções polĂtico-ideolĂłgicas
deste conceito, que adquiriu um estatuto central com o
advento da modernidade.
SĂŁo depois caracterizadas as propriedades centrais
de uma concepção alternativa de self para, finalmente,
nos determos nas principais implicações desta para a
práctica clĂnica.ABSTRACT: In this paper we reflect on the dominant metaphor
of the self in psychology - the self as a monadic entity.
After characterizing the monadic self, we will try to
clarify the political-ideological functions of this concept
which has acquired a central status with modernity.
We emphasize the properties of an alternative idea
of self and the implications of this to the clinical
practice.RESUME: Dans cet article nous analysons Ia metaphora qui a
dominée Ia question du self (soi-Même) dans Ia psychologie
- le self comme un contentif ou comme une
monade. Aprés Ia caracterization du self monadel
nous ensayons Ia clarification des fonctions politiqueidéologiques
de ce concept qui a acquis un status central
avec le surgissement de Ia modernité.
Ensuite on caracterize les propriétés plus importantes
d'une conception alternatif de self pour qu'on
s'árreté, finalement, dans ses principales implications
pour une pratique clinique
- …