Neurophenomenology and Intersubjectivity: An Interdisciplinary Approach

The article aims to provide the main conceptual coordinates in order to fully understand the state of the art of the most recent research in the field of neurobiology of interpersonal experience. The main purpose of this work is to analyze, at an anthropological, phenomenological and epistemological level, how the fundamental characteristics of the recognition of otherness and intercorporeity among human beings contribute to changing the image of nature in the light of a possible new relationship between living bodies, neurophysiological systems and empathy. From this point of view, the hypothesis to investigate is that neurophenomenology, understood as a new evolutionary, multidimensional and autopoietic approach, is capable of probing the preconditions of the possible delineation of a phenomenology of intersubjectivity shaped by the neuroscientific turning point, represented by the discovery of mirror neurons. At this level, the neuroscientific data are interpreted according to a specific interdisciplinary perspective, thus trying to offer a possible unitary and integrated theoretical framework.

ASMR explained: Role play videos as a form of touching with the eyes and the ears

In this paper, I introduce and discuss technologically-mediated ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) in the form of role play videos. I suggest using haptic audio-visuality as a theoretical elaboration to describe a form of touching with the eyes and the ears through interpersonal triggers, direct address and directional touching. And I present ASMR role play videos as a category that can be viewed as both a shared pleasure and a personal experience. Despite its mediated — body-to-screen rather than body-to-body — and one-way format, research suggests that ASMR can be regarded as an intimate, present and interpersonal experience. ASMR has succeeded in integrating the viewer-listeners’ physical reality with virtuality and creating a perception of presence. What is missing, however, is a more in-depth exploration of how this perception of presence is created through the performative construction of a particular kind of attuned, imaginative and interactive viewer-listener within ASMR role play videos. This is what I intend to explore in this paper.

Social justice in counseling psychology practice: Actualizing the ethics of compassion

This article articulates how compassion can be integrated into counseling psychology practice to augment the commitment to social justice. Drawing on a humanistic–existential paradigm that asserts the primacy of ethics, a multilayered understanding of compassion is explored in its implication for practitioners. First, as acknowledgment of the other’s suffering, compassion means being aware of the relational dynamics that extends from the therapist–client dyad to include the wider communities to which they belong. Second, as appreciation for suffering as an existential given, compassion expresses connectedness through the shared experience of otherness while revealing the inherent potential toward growth in clients. Third, as access to the suffering other, compassion exposes the societal power dynamics that threaten the therapeutic relationship. Fourth, as acceptance of the response to the suffering other, compassion requires to embrace the intrapersonal and interpersonal experience evoked in meeting clients. Fifth, as alleviation of the other’s suffering, compassion becomes the expression of a value-based practice that can drive the shift that sees psychotherapy as an interpersonal process based on connectedness to foster healing. Therefore, compassion is put forward as the foundation of counseling psychology ethics of social justice.

A Randomised Comparison of Values and Goals, Versus Goals Only and Control, for High Nonclinical Paranoia

Background Paranoia is common in the general population. Focusing on values and enhancing value-based acts may attenuate it. This study compared three brief (30-min, self-directed) online conditions: focusing on values and value-based goal setting (n = 30), goal setting only (n = 32) and non-values/goals control (n = 32) in a high paranoia sample. Methods Participants were randomly assigned to condition. State paranoia (primary outcome) and positive and negative self-views following a difficult interpersonal experience (secondary outcome) were assessed at baseline and two-weeks. Results Intention-to-treat: state paranoia was significantly lower following the values condition as compared to non-values/goals control (ηp2 = .148) and goals only (ηp2 = .072). Only the former comparison was significant. Per-protocol: groups did not significantly differ (p = .077). Within-group effect sizes: values and value-based goal setting (intention-to-treat d = .82, per-protocol d = .78), goals only (intention-to-treat d = .41, per-protocol d = .42) non-values/goals control (intention-to-treat d = .25, per-protocol d = .24). Positive self-views increased in all conditions. The increase was largest for the values condition, but not significantly so. Limitations Reliance on self-report, brief follow-up, predominantly White female sample. Conclusions The values condition was most effective at reducing non-clinical paranoia. The values condition appeared to increase positive self-views more so than comparison groups, but the sample was small and the difference was non-significant.

Disability as an Interpersonal Experience: A Systematic Review on Dyadic Challenges and Dyadic Coping When One Partner Has a Chronic Physical or Sensory Impairment

Chronically disabling health impairments affect an increasing number of people worldwide. In close relationships, disability is an interpersonal experience. Psychological distress is thus common in patients as well as their spouses. Dyadic coping can alleviate stress and promote adjustment in couples who face disabling health impairments. Much research has focused on dyadic coping with cancer. However, other health problems such as physical and sensory impairments are also common and may strongly impact couple relationships. In order to promote couples' optimal adjustment to impaired health, the identification of disability-related relationship challenges is required. Furthermore, ways in which dyadic coping with these challenges may benefit couples could inform researchers and practitioners how to support couples in coping with health impairments. Accordingly, the aims of this study were to systematically review dyadic challenges and dyadic coping when one partner has a chronically disabling physical or sensory impairment. Out of 873 articles identified through database searches, 36 studies met inclusion criteria. The disability-related dyadic challenges identified in the review were changed roles and responsibilities within the couple, altered communication, compromised sexual intimacy, and reduced social participation. These challenges were reported to burden both partners and the couple relationship. Dyadic adjustment benefitted from a we-perspective, i.e., when couples viewed the disability as a shared challenge and engaged in conjoint dyadic coping. The results suggest that patient/care recipient and partner/caregiver roles should be de-emphasized and that disability should be recognized as an interpersonal experience.

INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL HARMONY THROUGH EMPATHY

Empathy, a concept that involves an interpersonal experience is found in all aspects of the social universe, especially in prosocial behavior, morality and regulation of aggression. In the context of the major medical and social crisis caused by the pandemic, the need to develop empathic social skills becomes a pressing need. Anxiety generated by the threat of disease and death has led to the emergence of paradoxical individual or social behaviors. Thus, by disturbing the cognitive harmony of the individual - irrational thoughts in relation to contamination and illness or on the contrary the denial of the disease was destructured emotional harmony (anxiety, depression, psychosomatic manifestations) with adverse consequences at the individual and subsequent social level. The objective manifestation of disharmonious cognitions and emotions materialized in the manifestation of maladaptive behaviors. The present paper is an analysis of the two theories on empathy - Simulation Theory and Mind Theory in order to improve prosocial behavior in a pandemic context. Studies show the significant influences of social and cultural factors on the empathic capacity of the individual. In this sense, it is important to emphasize that empathic skills can be learned and developed in relation to the environment and the social context. Understanding the concept of social empathy is important by being able to provide a model of thinking and action that opens new ways of contextual approach to the current situation that could ultimately lead to alleviating the crisis and improving social conditions by adopting an adaptive behavior in according to the limits imposed by the new epidemiological situation.

The Interpersonal Context of Memory Complaints

This mixed-methods study was designed to investigate the interpersonal experience of having memory problems using a community-dwelling sample of 94 adults over the age of 50 ( M age = 72.35, SD = 10.51). Participants were asked a series of open-ended questions about their reactions to memory problems and completed questionnaires about memory, personality, and health. Qualitative findings suggest a few clear patterns of response (e.g., admitting the problem, ignoring the problem) to memory failures. In addition, endorsing avoidance of talking to certain people was related to worry and memory anxiety. Correlations showed subjective memory related to conscientiousness, neuroticism, depression, and worry which replicates previous studies about memory complaints. This study adds to the subjective memory literature by enhancing what we know about what people do when they are confronted with a memory challenge as well as to whom they will or will not speak about their complaints.

The Culture of Life and the New Maternity

Within the divergent streams of late-modern and largely Western feminism, the experience and ethos (and ethics) of motherhood and the significance of the “maternal body” have been hotly contested and problematic. What might be called “the maternal problematic” is also evident in the highly flammable touchpoints between Catholic magisterial teaching and secular feminism—especially in relation to women’s work, vocation and perhaps most contentiously, in relation to women’s fertility and pregnancy. This article mines Pope Saint John Paul II’s major encyclical letter of 1995, Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) and his intervention into this charged milieu. The Encyclical is rightly viewed as an important exegesis and expansion on the traditional Catholic magisterial teaching upon the ethics of the “sanctity of life”. This article aims to demonstrate that the Encyclical also attempts a fresh line of departure, by weaving into the ethical discussion the importance of “the maternal” as a distinctive interpersonal experience and awareness. This enriches the pastoral and ethical voice of the Church’s witness to human dignity and human life. The Encyclical contains the seeds of what this article will call “a new maternity”, a type of meta-ethos, integral to the development of a “new feminism” which is also aligned and pivotal to the formation of “a culture of life The article will suggest that far from presenting a reductive, oppressive or constructivist view of women and maternity, Evangelium Vitae, when read in synthesis with the Polish Pope’s wider ressourcement of “theological anthropology,” explores three original themes: (a) the importance of maternal “creational contemplation” in women as a force for a humane societal ethos; (b) the invitational dramatics of the maternal in understanding the Catholic ethos surrounding procreation; (c) the personal solidarity and iconic role of the Virgin Mary’s maternity in all expressions of women’s maternal vocation whether physical, existential and/or mystical.

How Can Adolescents Benefit from the Use of Social Networks? The iGeneration on Instagram

In the last few years, Instagram has been a topic of much contention, as it has been shown to be associated with both risks and benefits for young users. This study explores the influence of the use of Instagram on adolescents’ constructions of self and interpersonal experience. Forty Italian adolescents aged between 11 and 16 years were interviewed and completed repertory grids. The results showed that the adolescents’ self-construction and distance from others were mostly influenced by receiving, or not receiving, positive feedback, rather than by using Instagram itself. Specifically, there was an increase in self-acceptance and social desirability after receiving a “like” and an increase in social isolation after receiving no “likes”. The regression model also showed a decrease in self-acceptance on Instagram in the case of female adolescents, and in participants who edited photos. These findings are useful for understanding the constant need for approval adolescents require today and could be used as a guiding tool for future studies and intervention policies. The present study offers an innovative methodology that refers to the relevant dimensions of adolescents’ self-construction rather than investigating the more general relationship between personality traits and social networks’ use.