The Relevance and Perversity of Psychodynamic Interventions in Consulting and Action Research

2000 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leopold Vansina
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Clinical Psychology ◽  
Psychoanalytic Theory ◽  
Learning And Development ◽  
Group Relations ◽  
Explicit Reference ◽  
Action Researcher ◽  
Observable Data ◽  
The Individual

An attempt is made to clarify the nature and relevance of the psychodynamic perspective for the work of action researchers and organization consultants. Since this perspective is grounded in psychoanalytic theory and clinical psychology, some important distinctions need to be made between the various work-domains of the consultant/action researcher and the classic individual psychoanalytic session. The author argues that without explicit reference to observable data, interventions may in fact pervert rather than facilitate learning and development. This argument is illustrated by vignettes grouped together under: (a) questionable interventions in group-relations conferences, (b) self-reflections and interpretations as a cult, and (c) the individual in interaction with the group.

scholarly journals Transforming Conflict: A Group Relations Perspective

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracy Wallach
Keyword(s):  
Systems Theory ◽  
Defense Mechanisms ◽  
Open Systems ◽  
Psychoanalytic Theory ◽  
Conflict Transformation ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Group Relations ◽  
Open Systems Theory ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Role Boundaries

This article offers a group relations perspective of conflict and conflict transformation and explores how conflict manifests on the individual, interpersonal, group, and inter-group levels. Conflict and aggression are defined as normal aspects of the human condition. Current theories and practices in the field of conflict transformation tend to be more rationally based. The author uses concepts from psychoanalytic theory, such as defense mechanisms; and concepts from open systems theory, such as task, role, boundaries, and authority, to argue that in order to transform conflict, it is essential to understand the non-rational and often unconscious emotional elements that operate in groups and systems.

Action Research in Teacher Education

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Forthcoming Article ◽  
The Third ◽  
Look Back ◽  
Action Researcher ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Ar Process ◽  
Motor Acts ◽  
Action Step

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Please check back later for the full article. Herein the term Action Research is addressed by reflecting upon two words, action and research, united within this century to create something quite useful and commonplace. The word research, which has a long and traceable evolution, has been linked to seeking and to action, which is certainly the opposite of inaction. Upon closer examination, it is the action that can be either covert or overt, since thinking can be an action. When used together Action Research presents an opportunity to seek, pursue, and track one’s actions to arrive at a target. Yet how a person decides to seek provides context. Regardless of the path taken, Action Research involves certain steps, such as reflection, that are focused, strategic, and seeking within a social context to move forward. Action Research is malleable, flexible, and therefore can be many things depending upon how the terms are demarcated. However, herein Action Research is both a strategy and orderly process that supports those who may seek to examine, to change, and/or to improve. Action Research is a commitment and an approach from within that provides a structure that can simplify and guide an inquiry. Action Research (AR) can meet the needs of the individual or a group as it supports self-inquiry and group-inquiry equally, while unfolding in a series of steps and phases. The action step may include either cognitive and/or psycho-motor acts; the reflection step includes efforts to look back and within, whereas the third step, revision, demands that an action researcher plan for their next step. This AR process may include additional steps; however, AR remains cyclical and recursive and at times piecemeal as steps may overlap, accelerate, and challenge the action researcher over time, since theory and practice can be quite disparate.

scholarly journals Reasoned Action Frameworks

Communication ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Yzer ◽  
Brian Southwell
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Reasoned Action ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Situational Factors ◽  
Integrative Model ◽  
Behavioral Performance ◽  
Reasoned Action Approach ◽  
Theoretical Understanding ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Individual

Reasoned action frameworks, which include the Theory of Reasoned Action and its extensions, the widely used Theory of Planned Behavior and the more recent Integrative Model of Behavioral Prediction, describe that intention to perform a behavior follows reasonably (but not necessarily rationally) from specific beliefs that people hold about the behavior and that people act on their intentions when they have the required skills and when situational factors do not impede behavioral performance. Reasoned action research has two broad foci. A first seeks to advance theoretical understanding of human social behavior as based on expectancy beliefs about consequences of behavioral performance. A second applies reasoned action research to development or evaluation of interventions that seek to modify a specific behavior in a particular population. The relevance of the reasoned action approach for communication scholars lies in its direct applicability to a wide range of important communication questions, including the explanation of communication as a socially relevant behavior and intra-individual processes to explain how exposure to information leads to behavior change. Although reasoned action propositions embed belief-based processes in a multilevel system of influence, the individual is nonetheless the primary level of analysis. The range of citations included in this bibliography addresses the decades-long time frame during which scholars have explicitly employed core reasoned action concepts. Beyond the introductory works, the examples presented here are illustrative rather than exhaustive, by necessity, as few other behavioral theories have generated more citations in communication research.

Trans-Disciplinary Approaches to Action Research for e-Schools, Community Engagement, and ICT4D

2018 ◽  
pp. 97-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leilani Goosen
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Action Research ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Learning And Development ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
E Learning

This chapter will highlight how practitioners use trans-disciplinary approaches to conduct Action Research (AR) in the context of e-schools, Community Engagement (CE) and Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D). The objectives provide details on how: AR is used to align e-education with life-enhancing values and in situations dealing with partnerships towards CE and/or ICT4D matters at local, national and international levels; to promote e-learning and development among those previously excluded from formal education; AR is contributing to transformation and equity in the context of e-schools, CE and ICT4D; AR CE is contributing to improving the quality of life for all; changes and/or growth in the way in which AR is utilized and interpreted can be explored when such questions are raised; AR can stay relevant in light of the ever-increasing speed of change in terms of technological innovations; and examples of ground-breaking AR work can thus be achieved.

Conducting Action Research

2011 ◽  
pp. 192-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Baskerville
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
Action Researcher

the goal of this chapter is to define and analyze these risks and to discuss their practical effects. An understanding and awareness of the risks enables the action researcher to manage these risks, particularly in terms of an academic career. In order to keep this analysis within a useful sphere, the discussion will be grounded in the context of a range of six actual action research cases.

scholarly journals Parochial Versus Universal Cooperation: Introducing a Novel Economic Game of Within- and Between-Group Interaction

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hillie Aaldering ◽  
Robert Böhm
Keyword(s):  
Social Dominance ◽  
Social Dominance Orientation ◽  
Intergroup Conflict ◽  
Social Value Orientation ◽  
Group Interactions ◽  
Group Relations ◽  
Group Cooperation ◽  
Group Members ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Natural Groups

Engaging in personally costly within-group cooperation benefits one’s in-group members but also impacts other groups by benefiting, neglecting, or harming out-group members, leading to a range of potential consequences for between-group relations (e.g., collaboration vs. competition). We introduce the Intergroup Parochial and Universal Cooperation (IPUC) game to investigate the prevalence of the individual preferences underlying these different expressions of within-group cooperation: universalism, weak parochialism, and strong parochialism. In two online experiments with natural groups, we show that the IPUC has value beyond existing economic games in measuring these preferences separately. In a third experiment conducted in the lab, we show how dispositional measures traditionally associated with within- and between-group cooperation, that is, social value orientation, social dominance orientation, honesty-humility, and empathic concern, predict different preferences. Thus, the IPUC provides a tool to better understand within- and between-group interactions and to test interventions to overcome intergroup conflict.

A New Kind of Song: Psychoanalysis as Revelation

2018 ◽  
pp. 432-456
Author(s):  
Richard G.T. Gipps
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Psychology ◽  
Psychoanalytic Theory ◽  
Scientist Practitioner Model

Conceptions of psychoanalysis as science typically construe its key formulations as providing posits to be referenced in inferences to the best explanation of the clinical phenomena. Such was Freud’s own vision of the discipline he created, and it is reflected in his ambition to prove his fundamental formulations warranted. The first half of this chapter argues that this approach and this ambition significantly underestimate the significance of the psychoanalytic project. The suggestion is that it misconstrues foundational—and therefore unaccountable—forms of revelation, apprehension, poiesis, and grammar as merely factual claims, accounts, representations, and posits which, as such, now falsely appear to require scientific accounting. The second half of this chapter explores the significance of this for attempts to capture psychoanalytic theory and therapy within the ‘reflective scientist practitioner’ model of contemporary clinical psychology.

Individual and Collective Flourishing in Kant's Philosophy

2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lara Denis
Keyword(s):  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Moral Good ◽  
Explicit Reference ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Kant's Ethics

In ‘Happiness and Human Flourishing’, Thomas E. Hill, Jr, contrasts Kant's notion of happiness with that of human flourishing, explains the role of happiness in Kant's ethics, and suggests some reasons why Kant portrays happiness rather than flourishing as the non-moral good of the individual. While there is much I agree with in Hill's essay, I disagree with Hill on how best to conceive of human flourishing in Kant's philosophy, and on the importance of human flourishing in Kant's ethics. Comparing my views with Hill's is not what chiefly interests me, however. After section 1, I make little explicit reference to ‘Happiness and Human Flourishing’. Instead, I seek to expand the discussion begun there by Hill of ‘how happiness and human flourishing are (or are not) relevant to [Kantian] ethics’ (HHF 164).

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