Narrative and identity in Alzheimer's disease: A case study

In this case study, focus is on how persons with AD use their remaining linguistic and cognitive resources, together with non-verbal aspects of the storytelling event, as resources in communicating and negotiating their identities in everyday encounters. The results of the analysis, focusing on the telling of the stories, indicate that other aspects than the temporal and referential organization of the narratives has become important resources for the teller in establishing and negotiating identity. The telling of temporally discontinuous narratives does not appear to affect or disrupt the teller's experience of some sort of a continuous sense of self and identity but are probably more a problem to persons without this kind of diagnosis. Being afflicted by AD most likely leads persons to try to invent and use alternative communicative recourses in order to sustain factors like their senses of self and identities. For researchers this makes it important to try to base their analysis on the actual organization of the talk and to focus on the functions of various responses and utterances in the interaction.     

Begegnungen mit Widerstand in Bildungsprozessen: Lernchancen und Sinnfindungen

As introduction, self observation and constructive examples about handling with resistance in teaching, learning and consulting processes are described, like for instance, the communicative evaluation or the collegial supervision. A creative concluding experience report shall incite to self reflection about own resistance.     

The Self as Public Property: Made in Israel

This article examines the connection between state order and self‐understandings in everyday life through a case study of the “Boarding School for Gifted Disadvantaged” in Israel. It includes content analysis of governmental protocols that documented the establishment of the boarding school (governmental constitution of a new self‐concept) and interviews with sixty of its graduates (self‐understandings in everyday life). The findings reveal how the new cultural order invented a new selfhood, “gifted disadvantaged,” previously unknown in Israel. This category is based on structural distinctions between being “naturally” gifted versus the governmental constitution of gifted status. Interviews with graduates indicate that they experience selfhood as a philanthropic gift bestowed on them by the state of Israel and voice their gratitude toward the state. The concluding discussion suggests that the graduates experience their selfhood as “public property.” The self, perceived as having been constructed from outside, is in a continuous dialectic between the presence and the absence of certain personal qualities.     

Contempt and defensiveness in couple relationships related to childhood sexual abuse histories for self and partner

This study examined the relationship between a history of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) for one or both members of a romantic couple and perceptions of contempt and defensiveness for self and partner. Data from the Relationship Evaluation (RELATE) were analyzed for 10,061 couples. The findings suggest that when either or both partner(s) has a history of CSA, contempt and defensiveness in the couple relationship are greater than when neither reports a history of CSA. Furthermore, the males' experience of CSA had a greater impact on their perceptions of self and partner's contempt and defensiveness than females' experience of CSA. Explanations of gender differences are offered and implications for future research and practice are suggested.     

Toward a More Optimal Selfobject Milieu: Family Psychotherapy from the Perspective of Self Psychology

This paper applies the theory of self psychology to the understanding and treatment of families. The healthy family is viewed as a reliable source of selfobject experience for its members, while problems in or between family members are seen as due to a lack of adequate selfobject experience for one or more members. Causes of selfobject failures or misattunements in the family are examined, with an emphasis on the influence of previous relational experiences on current needs, capacities, and experiences of others. Curative factors in this form of family therapy are then outlined, and a treatment approach designed to help family members become better able to provide empathically attuned responses to each other is described, with a case example used to illustrate key points.     

Beyond words: Older people with dementia using and interpreting nonverbal behaviour

This article addresses a gap in research on nonverbal communication and dementia. It presents findings from a study that explored ways in which older people with dementia used and interpreted nonverbal behaviour within the context of social interactions. Two researchers, using an ethnographic approach, jointly observed nonverbal communicative behaviours occurring in a day-care centre. The findings show that older people with dementia used nonverbal behaviour in meaningful ways for others to interpret, and as a way of self-communication; and that they actively interpreted others' nonverbal behaviour. In specific situations, these people acted in the context of shared meanings, possessed a ‘self’, and took on the ‘role’ of others. This approach has implications for understanding the social experience of dementia and for the ways that care is organised. The role of nonverbal behaviour offers potential for carers to preserve older people's self-identity and improve their quality of life and care.     

Uneasy Settlements: Reparation Politics and the Meanings of Money in the Israeli Withdrawal from Gaza

Negotiations about reparations tend to take the language of interests and to deal primarily with monetary compensation for disadvantaged groups. In such proceedings, aggrieved claimants are likely to make a variety of claims about the use of money to represent their experience, ranging from demands for increased compensation to rejections of the entire process altogether. This article draws attention to the communicative functions of money in the reparation process. It claims that actors may grudgingly agree to attach a monetary value to what they hold sacred, but simultaneously strive to preserve their sense of self‐worth and to elicit identification by raising moral critiques about the use of fiscal logic. To exemplify, the article focuses on the 2005 removal of Jewish‐Israeli settlers from Israeli‐occupied territories. It shows that settlers indeed demanded to be compensated fiscally for their lost property. At the same time, it shows that they raised objections to the use of fiscal logic in representing their experience and offered alternate logics of evaluation. The settlers resisted shame and devaluation through such competing logics, demanding that the state reaffirm a positive and embracing relationship with them despite its decision to evict them.     

The Creation of a Shared Space through Fantasy between a Seven Year Old Child and his Therapist: A Case Study

This paper applies self psychological and intersubjectivity theories to the in-depth understanding and treatment of a seven-year-old boy with a history of severe trauma. From the beginning, this patient’s primary mode of communication was through fantasies with the therapist who participated in their creation. The jointly-created fantasies gradually contributed to the transformation of the patient’s bleak inner world. The creation and sharing of the fantasies became an enlivening experience for both members of the therapeutic dyad.     

Responsibility‐Shifting in a Gambling Environment

Using data that was collected by observing and speaking with customers and members of staff in betting shops in Dublin, Ireland, this article provides a consideration of how regular customers of betting shops explain their bet related failures to themselves and to those around them. It is suggested in this article that a process of self‐reparation of self‐esteem occurs in betting shops after customers experience monetary losses and that this process is facilitated by shifting responsibility for the losses incurred to factors external to and beyond the control of customers.     

Eating Disorders and Recovery: Lessons from Overeaters Anonymous

The experience of compulsive eating and recovery, as perceived by women members of the self-help organization Overeaters Anonymous (OA), was qualitatively studied by examining the worldview transformation of the members. A worldview transformation was found in four domains: (a) experience of self; (b) Universal Order/God; (c) relationships with others; (d) perception of the problem. Understanding the personal experience of worldview transformation of OA members may be adapted to the clinical setting for eating disorders. Guidelines for such an adaptation are proposed.     

The Use of Mindfulness Training to Create an ‘Accompanying Place’ for Social Work Students

Social work students experience emotional stress while having to perform and meet expectations from both academy and field. They may often feel physically and emotionally overwhelmed while struggling to make the time and space to fully process the varied experiences involved. There seems to be an unmet need for an ‘accompanying place’ where thoughts, feelings and dilemmas can be observed in a non‐evaluative way. Mindfulness has evolved lately as an efficient therapeutic technique in therapy. This paper describes a technique that applies mindfulness meditation in a group format in order to create a broader and richer learning experience that answers students' emotional needs. The group met for eight weeks. Its goals were to enhance self‐awareness and increase emotional support in handling field and academic stressors while experiencing different states of consciousness. Findings show that students were able to acquire new knowledge about themselves, experience autonomy in learning self‐containment and regulation, and gain insights regarding their professional self‐concept. Significance for social work training is discussed.     

What Novice Family Therapists Experience During a Session… A Qualitative Study of Novice Therapists' Inner Conversations During the Session

“What do novice family therapists experience during a session with a couple or family?” This is the central question in this article. A videotape‐assisted recall procedure was used to study novice family therapists’ inner conversations. The therapists' reflections were analyzed using thematic analysis. This resulted in a coding system that distinguishes four main domains: (a) reflections concerning the self; (b) reflections about the therapy process; (c) reflections on emotions about the family members; and (d) managing the session as well as own emotions. The study furthermore revealed that during a session, novice family therapists experience strong emotions, such as self‐criticism and irritation. Both emotions may encompass dangers, as well as opportunities for the therapeutic alliance and the process.     

Translation of words and concepts in social policy

This paper describes how optimal matching or sequence analysis can be used to empirically evaluate the use of ideal typologies to describe the lifecourse. In our illustration, the lives of over 250 individuals, originally members of the Boyd Orr study as children in the 1930s, now in early old age (aged 65–75 years) have been reconstructed using sequence data derived from life grid interviews. Individuals are allocated to various ideal types for three distinct pathways or trajectories describing a person’s labour market, relationship and housing histories. Finally, these allocations are examined in relation to an individual’s self‐reported quality of life (QoL) in an attempt to explore the extent to which the experience of structurally advantaged or disadvantaged states are related to a good QoL in later life. Our findings suggest that individuals assigned to structurally advantaged statuses, in each of the trajectories, generally experience higher levels of QoL compared to those assigned to structurally disadvantaged positions. In particular, the single best predictor of high levels of self‐reported QoL is for those who became owner–occupiers late in life (typically council property purchasers). This suggests that the experience of stability during earlier parts of the lifecourse can provide opportunities within a de‐institutionalised lifecourse that we are witnessing at the beginning of the 21st century. The results suggest that the contemporary circumstances of older people are more important for their QoL. Yet, these circumstances are, in part, conditioned by their lifecourse.     

The Flayed and Exquisite Self of Travelers: Managing Face and Emotions in Strange Places

Travelers who cross cultural and linguistic borders encounter recurrent failures of social competence. People routinely violate the linguistic and nonlinguistic normative order, and have few means at their disposal for repair work. These episodes lead to the experience of a flayed self: a temporary, painful identity born of one's inability to display competence, combined with heightened, exquisite self‐consciousness. Using interactionist scaffolding and travelers' accounts, I examine this self, its commitments, and resources. I examine four techniques used to avoid flayed and exquisite selfhood: denying negative experience, externalizing the causes of that experience, engaging in the mind cure, and doing time work.     

The Dilemma of "Authentic Self" Ideology in Contemporary Japan

This paper examines dilemmas inherent in the pursuit of the modern ideology of "authentic self", which first emerged in the 1960s and is now widespread in contemporary cultures. The ideology is exemplified, in a religious scene, as "self-transformative" religions wherein seekers seek to transform themselves spiritually in order to realize their authentic, or "sacred" selves. Through an examination of Aum Shinrikyo, which began as a typical "self-transformative" religion but later transformed into a destructive cult, I will explain the intrinsic moral imperatives of the ideology of "authenticity". This study of Aum explores the introverted lifestyle and extreme desocialization, which resulted in obsession with the central guru, being legitimated by the ideology. This search for "authenticity" resulted in the members cutting themselves off from the reality of the world. The final analysis suggests that possible consequences of the endless pursuit of the "authentic self" are a "vacuum" self and a loss of empathy with other people. The ontological conditions created by this bring about potential destructiveness, either internal or external.     

The Influence of an Untoward Public Act on Conceptions of Self1

This study focuses on the process of making sense of the experience of being exposed to. It looks at audience interpretations of the experience of having viewed a stranger's genitals in a public place and the effects on viewer self concepts. The study is based on in-depth interviews with 25 adult women. Findings indicate that women typically incorporate their definitions of the experience into their self-images which, as a result, are impuned and discredited. Women often saw the self as having played a role in the production of the event. Although women generally were critical in their assessment of themselves and their management of the situation they used vocabularies of non-responsibility when recounting the experience thereby reducing the likelihood of criticism by others.     

‘Being friends means helping each other,making coffee for each other’: reciprocity in the friendships of people with intellectual disability

Friendship is an issue of concern for many people with intellectual disability. The aim of the research presented in this paper is to understand how people with intellectual disability experience friendship and what friendship means for them. A focus group was held with seven people with intellectual disability, who are members of a self-advocacy group. An inductive thematic analysis approach was used to analyse the data. The people that the research participants identified as their friends were fellow self-advocates, family members, support workers and co-workers. They also identified behaviours and actions that foster friendship and those that undermine it. The analysis shows how the research participants identified as friendships those relationships which had an element of reciprocity, while linking a lack of reciprocity with the absence of friendship. It is very important for non-disabled people to understand the perspectives of people with intellectual disability they live and work with.     

Three phase development of caring capacity in primary caregivers for relatives with Alzheimer's disease

Multiple, open-ended, qualitative interviews were conducted with 16 primary caregivers for relatives with Alzheimer's disease in order to describe caregiver self-development through the caregiving journey. Caregiver change is traced up to five years after the care recipient's death. Caregivers' capacity for caring was found to be at the core and to unfold in three phases: development of caring capacity for the care recipient, development of capacity for self-care, and development of caring capacity for others. The four elements of caring capacity (perception, motivation, competency, action) are expressed in relation to the care recipient, to the self, and to less familiar “others”. The caregiving experience tends also to prompt caregivers to become caregivers for humanity and to expand their sense of self. This may lead to the development of the altruistic self, which incorporates both a selfless concern for the welfare of others and a self-directed concern for one's own welfare.     

Resilience and Survival: Black Teenage Mothers ‘Looked After’ by the State Tell their Stories About their Experience of Care

‘Looked after’ young people are among the most disadvantaged members of our society. While their disadvantaged status should not be ignored, poor outcomes are often emphasised at the expense of good ones. This article reports a study that adopts the concept of resilience to understand the narratives of the participants’ experience of care and foster care. A total of 15 young mothers, aged 16–19 and mainly from black African backgrounds, were interviewed. Despite lacking a ‘secure base’, informants invested in a sense of moral identity and a source of self‐directedness, which enabled them to move from victim of circumstances to individuals who overcome their circumstances.     

The Authenticity of Self: Conceptualization,Personal Experience,and Practice

Scholars across the social sciences often use the concept of authenticity to refer to such different things as sincerity, truthfulness, originality, and the feeling and practice of being true to one's self or others. Whereas the concept of authenticity refers to all of these things, a careful employment of this concept requires a clear understanding of it. By reviewing theory and empirical research on authenticity, we aim at a more precise conceptualization of authenticity. We argue that authenticity is about being true to one's self. When one is true to one's self, one experiences authenticity. This conceptualization views authenticity as a self‐reflective and emotional experience. In order to understand authenticity, a researcher must then take into consideration at least two things: people's emotional experiences of being true or untrue to one's self and people's ideas about what their true self is.