Narrative thinking and the emergence of postpsychological therapies

2006 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
John McLeod
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Narrative Therapy ◽  
Psychodynamic Therapy ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Narrative Structures ◽  
Narrative Thinking ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The Social

The growing emergence of an appreciation of the significance of narrative, within philosophy, the social sciences and the humanities, has had a significant impact on theory and practice within the field of counseling and psychotherapy. The influence of narrative thinking has been felt in two main ways. First, concepts of narrative have been assimilated into established forms of practice. For example, within psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy, it is now accepted that attention to narrative structures within the discourse of therapy can be used to generate a fuller understanding of the operation of well-known phenomena such as transference. The primary intention of this area of work has been to utilise narrative concepts to permit a deeper understanding of existing ideas about therapeutic processes and procedures. Second, a quite separate set of developments has seen the construction of an approach to therapy which begins from an acknowledgement of the central role of narrative and storytelling in lives and relationships. This alternative approach, generally described as “narrative therapy”, can be characterised as the formation of a postpsychological approach to therapy, which focuses on issues surrounding the performance of narratives within relationships, community and culture, rather than on inner psychological processes within individuals. It is argued that postpsychological narrative therapies have the potential to address key contemporary personal and social dilemmas in ways that are not possible within individualist models of therapy.

scholarly journals Introduction

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Nathan Bracher
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Wide Spectrum ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Family Stories ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Cultural Networks ◽  
Literary Techniques

This introduction outlines Ivan Jablonka’s theory and practice of writing the social sciences as foregrounded in three of his most noted, recent books, A History of the Grandparents I Never Had, History is a Contemorary Literature, and Laëtitia. As he outlines in his own contribution here, Jablonka advances rigorous, methodical research that nevertheless details the subjective investment of the researcher while at the same time utilizing creative “literary” techniques to engage a wide spectrum of readers well beyond the habitual circles of academic specialists. The essays contributed by Julie Fette, Sarah Fishman, Melanie Hawthorne, Don Reid, and Nathan Bracher explore various facets of Jablonka’s approach, including, respectively: writing history with family stories, resisting the erosion of factual reasoning in the Trump years, pursuing biographies of supposedly non-descript lives, appreciating the importance of Communist cultural networks in postwar France, and revisiting the role of the subject in the social sciences.

Concluding Summary

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrie Figdor
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
External Factors ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Conceptual Foundation ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Research ◽  
Internal And External Factors ◽  
Conceptual Confusion

Chapter 10 provides a summary of the argument of the book. It elaborates some of the benefits of Literalism, such as less conceptual confusion and an expanded range of entities for research that might illuminate human cognition. It motivates distinguishing the questions of whether something has a cognitive capacity from whether it is intuitively like us. It provides a conceptual foundation for the social sciences appropriate for the increasing role of modeling in these sciences. It also promotes convergence in terms of the roles of internal and external factors in explaining both human and nonhuman behavior. Finally, it sketches some of the areas of new research that it supports, including group cognition and artificial intelligence.

A Phenomenology of Rhythm

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lexi Eikelboom
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Henri Lefebvre ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The Social ◽  
Analytical Importance ◽  
Jazz Performance

This chapter proposes a framework for approaching the theological significance of rhythm through phenomenology, prosody, and the social sciences. In accordance with the general categories of phenomenology established by Merleau-Ponty and the “rhythmanalysis” of Henri Lefebvre, the chapter investigates two experiences of rhythm: approaches to analysing the human encounter with rhythm in the reading of poetry and the role of rhythm in social interactions introduced through commonalities between rhythm in conversation and in jazz performance. These explorations establish two features of rhythm that are of analytical importance for the chapters that follow: (1) the synchronic and the diachronic as two necessary but distinct theoretical perspectives on rhythm, each of which emphasizes different features of rhythm and (2) the importance of interruption for understanding rhythm’s significance.

Indonesian Historical Writing after Independence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Dutch Version ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Academic History ◽  
Artistic Representations ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Military ◽  
Local Perspectives

This chapter discusses Indonesian historical writing after independence. At the time Indonesia became independent, knowledge of academic history-writing was virtually non-existent. Indonesian elites then faced the postcolonial predicament of having to adopt Western nationalistic approaches to history in order to oppose the Dutch version of the archipelago’s history that had legitimized colonial domination. Soon after independence, the military took over and dominated the writing of history in Indonesia for several decades. Challenges to the military’s view of history came from artistic representations of history, and from historians—trained in the social sciences—who emphasized a multidimensional approach balancing central and local perspectives. However, it was only after 2002 that historians could openly criticize the role of the military.

Reconsidering American Power

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
American Power ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The Social ◽  
State Sponsorship ◽  
To Come

Postcolonial studies, postmodern studies, even posthuman studies emerge, and intellectuals demand that social sciences be remade to address fundamentals of the human condition, from human rights to global environmental crises. Since these fields owe so much to American state sponsorship, is it easier to reimagine the human and the modern than to properly measure the pervasive American influence? Reconsidering American Power offers trenchant studies by renowned scholars who reassess the role of the social sciences in the construction and upkeep of the Pax Americana and the influence of Pax Americana on the social sciences. With the thematic image for this enterprise as the ‘fiery hunt’ for Ahab’s whale, the contributors pursue realities behind the theories, and reconsider the real origins and motives of their fields with an eye on what will deter or repurpose the ‘fiery hunts’ to come, by offering a critical insider’s view.

The Politics of Global Health Inequalities

2019 ◽  
pp. 58-84
Author(s):  
Yusra Ribhi Shawar ◽  
Jennifer Prah Ruger
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Health Inequalities ◽  
Health Inequality ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Of Health ◽  
Political Determinants ◽  
The Social

Careful investigations of the political determinants of health that include the role of power in health inequalities—systematic differences in health achievements among different population groups—are increasing but remain inadequate. Historically, much of the research examining health inequalities has been influenced by biomedical perspectives and focused, as such, on ‘downstream’ factors. More recently, there has been greater recognition of more ‘distal’ and ‘upstream’ drivers of health inequalities, including the impacts of power as expressed by actors, as well as embedded in societal structures, institutions, and processes. The goal of this chapter is to examine how power has been conceptualised and analysed to date in relation to health inequalities. After reviewing the state of health inequality scholarship and the emerging interest in studying power in global health, the chapter presents varied conceptualisations of power and how they are used in the literature to understand health inequalities. The chapter highlights the particular disciplinary influences in studying power across the social sciences, including anthropology, political science, and sociology, as well as cross-cutting perspectives such as critical theory and health capability. It concludes by highlighting strengths and limitations of the existing research in this area and discussing power conceptualisations and frameworks that so far have been underused in health inequalities research. This includes potential areas for future inquiry and approaches that may expand the study of as well as action on addressing health inequality.

Social Ontology and Model-Building: A Response to Epstein

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-192
Author(s):  
Nadia Ruiz
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Model Construction ◽  
Ontological Commitments ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social

Brian Epstein has recently argued that a thoroughly microfoundationalist approach towards economics is unconvincing for metaphysical reasons. Generally, Epstein argues that for an improvement in the methodology of social science we must adopt social ontology as the foundation of social sciences; that is, the standing microfoundationalist debate could be solved by fixing economics’ ontology. However, as I show in this paper, fixing the social ontology prior to the process of model construction is optional instead of necessary and that metaphysical-ontological commitments are often the outcome of model construction, not its starting point. By focusing on the practice of modeling in economics the paper provides a useful inroad into the debate about the role of metaphysics in the natural and social sciences more generally.

The Failure of Functional Theologies of Ministry and the Promise of a Relational Alternative

Ecclesiology ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 27-43
Author(s):  
Graham Buxton
Keyword(s):  
Pastoral Theology ◽  
Pastoral Ministry ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Theological Method ◽  
Systematic Theology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Practical Ministry ◽  
Pastoral Theory ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThe author critiques inductive approaches to pastoral theology that rely on the empirical methodology of the social and human sciences, and presents an alternative Christocentric praxis model of pastoral ministry. The result is an attempt to integrate pastoral theory and practice that shifts the perspective away from functionally-determined theologies of ministry to a relationally oriented and hermeneutically coherent model of orthopraxis in which theory and practice interact in a way that is intended to both deepen faith and transform lives. Some of the key themes that inform the discussion are the importance of theological method, the role of the community as the context for care, the relationship between practical ministry and systematic theology, and the notion of praxis in articulating the nature and scope of practical theology today.

Cognitive Bias in Intelligence Analysis

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martha Whitesmith
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Cognitive Bias ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Risk Mitigation ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Intelligence Analysis ◽  
Experimental Setting ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
Underlying Causes

Belief, Bias and Intelligence outlines an approach for reducing the risk of cognitive biases impacting intelligence analysis that draws from experimental research in the social sciences. It critiques the reliance of Western intelligence agencies on the use of a method for intelligence analysis developed by the CIA in the 1990’s, the Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH). The book shows that the theoretical basis of the ACH method is significantly flawed, and that there is no empirical basis for the use of ACH in mitigating cognitive biases. It puts ACH to the test in an experimental setting against two key cognitive biases with unique empirical research facilitated by UK’s Professional Heads of Intelligence Analysis unit at the Cabinet Office, includes meta-analysis into which analytical factors increase and reduce the risk of cognitive bias and recommends an alternative approach to risk mitigation for intelligence communities. Finally, it proposes alternative models for explaining the underlying causes of cognitive biases, challenging current leading theories in the social sciences.

The Phantom at The Opera

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sidney Tarrow
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
Short Term ◽  
The Social

Movements and parties have given rise to two largely separates specialties in the social sciences. This Element is an effort to link the two literatures, using evidence from American political development. It identifies five relational mechanisms governing movement/party relations: two of them short term, two intermediate term, and one long-term. It closes with a reflection on the role of movement/party relations in democratization and for democratic resilience.

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