A Dio: A Sociosemiotic/Phenomenological Account of the Formation of Collective Narrative Identity in the Context of a Rock Legend's Memorial

This chapter explores the ways individuals account for cognitive migrations—significant changes of mind and consciousness that are often expressed as powerful discoveries, transformative experiences, and newly embraced worldviews. It outlines three ideal typical forms of cognitive migration: awakenings, self-actualizations, and ongoing quests. Building on prior approaches to such personal transformations, it develops the notion of cognitive migration to argue the following set of interrelated points. First, cognitive migrations take autobiographical form, which is to say they manifest as the narrative identity work of individuals who undergo them. Second, such narrative identity work provides a reflexive foundation for an individual’s understanding of self and identity in relation to other possible selves and identities—for seeing oneself as a relationally situated character. Third, individuals who articulate cognitive migrations use the plot structure and cultural coding at the root of their narratives to express their allegiance to a new sociomental community. They thereby take on new cognitive norms and identity-defining conventions while rejecting potential alternatives, locating themselves within a broader sociomental field. The spatial metaphor of cognitive migrations draws explicit attention to the broader sociomental field in which such radical changes of mind take place. Finally, such narrative identity work links self-understandings to the often-contested meanings of broadly relevant issues, events, and experiences; when individuals account for their cognitive migrations, they also advance claims that reach well-beyond their personal lives.

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Non-normative use of reflexivity in social work with families in the Czech Republic

The British Journal of Social Work ◽

10.1093/bjsw/bcaa201 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Kateřina Glumbíková

Keyword(s):

Social Work ◽

Data Analysis ◽

Social Workers ◽

Narrative Identity ◽

Field Observations ◽

Personal Interest ◽

Professional Literature ◽

The Czech Republic ◽

Normative Concept ◽

Initial Interviews

Abstract Discourse on the normative use of reflexivity predominates in the professional literature. Expert articles on the topic of non-normative use of reflexivity, which is based on the presumption that social workers do not use reflexivity to improve their work quality, but rather its functions for themselves to fulfil specific purposes, is missing, with some exceptions in the literature. The presented article therefore aims to understand the use of reflexivity in the practice of social work with families in its non-normative concept and to determine the implications for social work. Using the abduction method (in which Schechtman’s narrative identity theory was applied to data analysis), the following four categories of the use of reflexivity in a non-normative way were saturated with data obtained from initial interviews, field observations and subsequent reflection of field observations with social workers: personal interest, survival, moral responsibility and compensation. The non-normative concept of reflexivity is further discussed in the context of specific implications for education and practice of social work.

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With a little help from my friends? Perceived friendship quality and narrative identity in adolescence

Journal of Research on Adolescence ◽

10.1111/jora.12605 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Elisabeth L. de Moor ◽

Jolien Van der Graaff ◽

Lotte van Doeselaar ◽

Theo A. Klimstra ◽

Susan Branje

Keyword(s):

Narrative Identity ◽

Friendship Quality

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Grief, disorientation, and futurity

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences ◽

10.1007/s11097-021-09752-z ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Constantin Mehmel

Keyword(s):

Making Sense ◽

Phenomenological Account ◽

The Relationship

AbstractThis paper seeks to develop a phenomenological account of the disorientation of grief, specifically the relationship between disorientation and the breakdown in practical self-understanding at the heart of grief. I argue that this breakdown cannot be sufficiently understood as a breakdown of formerly shared practices and habitual patterns of navigating lived-in space that leaves the bereaved individual at a loss as to how to go on. Examining the experience of losing a loved person and a loved person-to-be, I instead propose that this breakdown should be understood primarily in relation to a distinctive kind of futurity operative in disorientation, irrespective of the extent to which there is a breakdown of formerly shared practices and habitual patterns of navigating lived-in space. Drawing on the resources afforded by Heidegger’s phenomenology, I argue that it is a core characteristic of the experience of disorientation in grief that the grieving person can no longer meaningfully press ahead into a specific futural self. This view comes with certain advantages over existing accounts of the temporality of grief for making sense of the disorientated relationship to futurity, which the appeal to Heideggerian resources makes possible.

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Exploring the impact of a complex intervention for women with depression in contexts of adversity: A pilot feasibility study of COURRAGE-plus in South Africa

International Journal of Social Psychiatry ◽

10.1177/00207640211010203 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 002076402110102

Author(s):

Rochelle A Burgess ◽

Niklas Jeske ◽

Shahana Rasool ◽

Ayesha Ahmad ◽

Anna Kydd ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

South Africa ◽

Narrative Therapy ◽

Mental Distress ◽

Social Intervention ◽

Friedman Test ◽

Time Points ◽

Symptoms Of Depression ◽

The Impact ◽

Collective Narrative

Background: Depression is a leading cause of disease burden worldwide but is often undertreated in low- and middle-income countries. Reasons behind the treatment gap vary, but many highlight a lack of interventions which speak to the socio-economic and structural realties that are associated to mental health problems in many settings, including South Africa. The COURRAGE-PLUS intervention responds to this gap, by combining a collective narrative therapy (9 weeks) intervention, with a social intervention promoting group-led practical action against structural determinants of poor mental health (4 weeks), for a total of 13 sessions. The overall aim is to promote mental health, while empowering communities to acknowledge, and respond in locally meaningful ways to social adversity linked to development of mental distress. Aim: To pilot and evaluate the effectiveness of a complex intervention – COURRAGE-PLUS on symptoms of depression as assessed by the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) among a sample of women facing contexts of adversity in Gauteng, South Africa. Methods: PHQ-9 scores were assessed at baseline, post collective narrative therapy (midline), and post social intervention (endline). Median scores and corresponding interquartile ranges were computed for all time points. Differences in scores between time points were tested with a non-parametric Friedman test. The impact across symptom severities was compared descriptively to identify potential differences in impact across categories of symptom severity within our sample. Results: Participants’ ( n = 47) median depression score at baseline was 11 (IQR = 7) and reduced to 4 at midline (IQR = 7) to 0 at endline (IQR = 2.5). The Friedman test showed a statistically significant difference between depression scores across time points, [Formula: see text](2) = 49.29, p < .001. Median depression scores were reduced to 0 or 1 Post-Intervention across all four severity groups. Conclusions: COURRAGE-PLUS was highly effective at reducing symptoms of depression across the spectrum of severities in this sample of women facing adversity, in Gauteng, South Africa. Findings supports the need for larger trials to investigate collective narrative storytelling and social interventions as community-based interventions for populations experiencing adversity and mental distress.

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