The “being-with” of psychotherapy: a phenomenological enquiry into the nature of the co-therapy relationship in group psychotherapy

This thesis explores an intricate relationship between the therapists involved in a conjoint professional work of co-facilitating small group psychotherapy, as described by three separate co-therapy dyads. The practice of co-therapy has been considered to be a common approach to group psychotherapy. However, the co-therapy relationship as an important variable in and of itself appeared to have received little attention from the researchers and clinicians alike. Using a phenomenological method and an unstructured interviewing approach, this qualitative study examined the experiences of the complex relational processes and psychological dynamics encountered in the ‘being-with’ of the cofacilitation. Only fully qualified and highly experienced NHS-based clinicians from the professional fields of psychotherapy and group analysis took part in the study. The co-therapy relationship of each considered co-facilitating dyad had lasted for no less than one year before the research interviews. The interviewing process was distinctively organised and deeply exploratory. The ‘Descriptive Phenomenological Method in Psychology’ was being used to systematically analyse the data in the form of the transcribed interviews. The results suggested that the nature of the co-facilitating relationship could be understood in terms of: (1) the unique configuration of the co-therapy relationship within the group matrix; (2) the unspoken communication and the absence of a more real talk about the dynamics in the relationship; (3) the unavoidable experience of being seen; (4) the interrelatedness of differences and associated conflict; (5) and finally, the presence of the implicit or unconscious forms of interacting. The psychological meanings of these five essential themes were further elucidated and critically discussed. The clinical and training implications, including the contribution to the importance of the therapeutic relationship within the wider field of psychological therapy, were given consideration. The study reviewed its limitations and offered suggestions for future research

Effective particle kinematics from Quantum Gravity

Particles propagating in de Sitter spacetime can be described by the topological BF \SO(4,1) theory coupled to point charges. Gravitational interaction between them can be introduced by adding to the action a symmetry breaking term, which reduces the local gauge symmetry down to \SO(3,1), and which can be treated as a perturbation. In this paper we focus solely on topological interactions which corresponds to zeroth order in this perturbative expansion. We show that in this approximation the system is effectively described by the \SO(4,1) Chern-Simons theory coupled to particles and living on the 3 dimensional boundary of space-time. Then, using Alekseev--Malkin construction we find the effective theory of particles kinematics. We show that the particles action contains standard kinetic terms and the deformation shows up in the presence of interaction terms. The strength of the interactions is proportional to deformation parameter, identified with Planck mass scale.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figure

Federalism and Regional Policy in Contemporary Russia

This title is published in Open Access with the support of the University of Helsinki.How do Russian leaders balance the need to decentralize governance in a socially and politically complex country with the need to guarantee political control of the state? Since the early 2000s Russian federal authorities have arranged a system of political control on regional elites and their leaders, providing a "police control" of special bodies subordinated by the federal center on policy implementation in the regions. Different mechanisms of fiscal federalism and investment policy have been used to ensure regional elites’ loyalty and a politically centralized but administratively decentralized system has been created. Asking clear, direct, and theoretically informed questions about the relationship between federalism, decentralization and authoritarianism, this book explores the political survival of authoritarian leaders, the determinants of policy formulation, and theories of federalism and decentralization, to reach a new understanding of territorial governance in contemporary Russia. As such, it is an important work for students and researchers in Russian studies and regional and federal studies