Psychological Agenda Research Articles

Reducing prejudice against learners with disabilities in inclusive settings through the Afrocentric model of inclusion

Attitudinal barriers and discriminatory practices continue to prevent the full participation of learners with disabilities in developmental learning contexts. Although disability has been on the psychological agenda for some time, there is limited empirical evidence on adopting African models to buffer prejudices. This paper addresses this critical gap by examining the experiences of disabled children subjected to prejudices in inclusive settings and the adaptation of the Afrocentric model to buffer those behaviors. The paper was guided by Allport's Social Reflection Theory, which explains why some groups may be targets of prejudice. The exploratory qualitative case study was undertaken in 4 inclusive schools in Gauteng province. Participants were 20 educators and 40 disabled learners in inclusive schools. Purposive sampling was used to choose participants in the study. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with educators, and the researcher observed the engagement of the educators and 40 disabled learners. Data collected were analyzed through qualitative thematic data analysis. From the themes that emerged in the findings, the following themes were discussed: advancing the truth in our praxis, fairness, harmony, and humanness. The paper, therefore, recommends that educators apply the practice of including the emerged themes in their learning content for improved grades and low dropout rates. Keywords: Prejudices, Disabled learners, Inclusive settings, Afrocentric inclusion model

Divorce under Muslim Law

In this paper we are going to talk about the major trends and specific categorization among marriages and kinds of divorces set to have been adopted in our country. We as a citizen of India has a democratic and liberal sect of notion to present ourselves in our society of in a specific community, we have all the general rights to live our life freely or to have a right decide for us what is wrong or correct for the beneficial mirror. All these aspects include many things and one is marriage and the marriage is somewhere deeply linked and end to a point called dissolution point or in legal terminology known as Divorce. According to the national bureau of economic research, it is mentioned that the marriage rates have also been falling and the rate of divorce is increasing. One of the basic reasons is the present mindset and notion to see a particular relation through a different angel. The societal review is somewhere different it covers the longevity or gap between the individual who ultimately result separation. Majorly it could be about any mental, physical, economical perspective of a particular person to see the idea. If we compare it with foreign culture specially the European countries you will notice that the concept of divorce is quite common in those areas, they see it as a behavior of compatibility and matching the vibes if they are not compatible with other, they just get themselves separate and create an infinite and broad apprehension of living life. But in Asian country like India, Pakistan, it is something out of mind, there was no idea of process of this creation in general but in laws it is somewhere embedded. In ancient times the togetherness of two individual or their bond was said unbreakable till death and after life also. In Hindu community the concept is called Seven Lives, where the bride and groom tale 7 vows keeping the holy pyre as the witness, they are called married in front of their families and around sacred fire lit for the purpose amidst the Vedic mantras. But according to Muslims there was a marriage loophole which is called separation, the law does not bound individual for unnatural circumstances. It is mentioned in Muslim law, the nature of Muslim marriage is nothing, but a contract and a contract can be repudiated. We can analyze that the defining character of a marriage in changing, the new trends are evolving, the productivity of a marriage is changing, the modal of a family is finding ways to survive. We in this paper are going to interpret and analyze those relative and important point and cover all the underrated images to be seen. We are going to talk about visual and psychological agenda of od 21st century people and their perspective to marriages and divorce along or side by side through evaluation and critical demography of mind of a particular individual or group as well. Psychologist says it is the changing age profile or husband and wife also a point of dissolution for example in the matter or fertility.

SARS-Cov-2 and environmental protection: A collective psychology agenda for environmental psychology research

While the virus SARS-CoV-2 spreads all over the world, most countries have taken severe measures to protect their citizens and slow down the further spread of the disease COVID-19. These measures affect individuals, communities, cities, countries, and the entire planet. In this paper, we propose that the tremendous consequences of the corona crisis invite environmental psychology to focus more strongly on research questions that address major societal challenges from a collective psychology perspective. In particular, we stress that the corona crisis may affect how people appraise – and potentially respond to – the looming climate crisis. By consistently pointing out systemic links and their human factor, environmental psychology can become central to a scientific agenda of a sustainable ‘post-corona society’. In order to provide a framework for future research towards a sustainable societal transformation, we build on the Social Identity Model of Pro-Environmental Action (SIMPEA) and extend its scope to understand people's responses following the corona crisis. The model allows predictions of previously not explicitly included concepts of place attachment, nature connectedness, basic psychological needs, and systems thinking. It may serve as a guiding framework for a better understanding of the transformation towards a sustainable future.

Coloniality and perspectivism in psychology: from damnation to ecosophical care relations

Inspired by Amerindian peoples’ philosophy, this article aims to problematise the modern philosophical anthropology that underlies psychology as a social practice, and to use the Amerindian perspectivist philosophy proposed by Viveiros de Castro as a critique of Western values. Thus, we approach some of coloniality’s epistemological implications in the institution of subject-object and nature-culture separations that grounds psychology. On the one hand, there is a totalising unification, which operates alongside a transcendental subject that subjugates its object. Beginning from nature’s homogeneity, the differentiation and hierarchy of each being depends on its representations or its soul, expressed as a people’s culture or as an individual psychology. This spiritual-representational aspect is the very foundation of the colonialism and racism of damnation, and their purpose in perpetuating the miserable ways of life of those considered to be scum. On the other hand, in Amerindian cosmogony, humanity is a pronominal mode, a non-exclusive perspectivist position of mankind, built in each context of relations. It is based on this idea that we posit other bases and a new agenda for psychology as a social practice which can enable us to broaden our ways of living towards ecosophical care, as a way of resistance to coloniality.

Japanese Educational Psychological Agenda for Inclusive Education

本論文では，過去5年間の『教育心理学研究』に掲載された特別支援教育に関連する論文を中心に，心理学にみられる障害観を考察し，インクルーシブ教育に向けた教育心理学の課題を述べた。特別支援教育をテーマとする近年の教育心理学研究は，（1）アセスメント，（2）困難が生じる心理プロセスの解明，（3）カウンセリング，（4）介入プログラムの実施と効果検証に分類された。心理学研究においては，問題と関連する説明力の高い個人の内的な安定的特性として障害（あるいは特別支援の対象となる特性）を扱っており，実証主義的方法論に基づく個人モデル的な障害観であることが示唆された。障害は心理学における心のモデルや研究方法と関係しており，心理学的な状況や環境に埋め込まれたものであって，特定の個人に由来するわけではないことを指摘した。排除されないインクルーシブ教育において，状況や場に着目する学習理論，研究者の三人称性，研究者自身の差別という課題と向き合う必要性がある。

Psychology in the “Backyards of the World”: Experiences From India

The mind has been the subject of fascination since ancient times, and every cultural tradition has folk theories related to meaning-making, attributions, and explanations about being human. In this sense, the subject of Psychology is as old as humanity, although its rise as a global, scientific discipline is relatively recent, emerging from 20th-century Europe and America. Theoretical ideas and methods generated during the growth of the discipline were aligned with beliefs about human nature and scientific methods specific to Euro-American cultures. Although “preached” and practiced universally as a science, this culturally circumscribed and ideologically bound history of the discipline needs further examination. Rather than “thinking globally” and “acting locally,” the agenda of Psychology has been the reverse; “think locally and act globally,” as critics of mainstream Psychology have pointed out. The predominance of individual, intra-mental, laboratory-tested, quantifiable dimensions of human conduct are based subliminally on Western ideology. The alternative methods of approaching real-life experiences, literature, art, inter-mental phenomena, and other qualitative dimensions of human interactions remain relatively under-explored. The dominant mainstream Psychology is seen as an objective, measurable, and universal science that has had far-reaching consequences for ordinary people around the world. This somewhat sinister side of conventional Psychology is the subject of this article, where we argue that despite significant exceptions and scholarly dissent, the popularity and prevalence of experimental Psychology has marginalized “others” at the expense of its own progress. We use illustrations primarily from teaching, research and practice in Psychology in Indian Universities.

The social complexities of disability: Discrimination, belonging and life satisfaction among Canadian youth

Although disability has been on the psychological agenda for some time, there is limited empirical evidence on the life satisfaction of youth with a disability, especially the effect of discrimination and factors that might mitigate it. We address this critical gap by examining the complex social experiences of youth with a disability and the culminating effect on life satisfaction. We ask three questions: (1) Is having a disability associated with lower life satisfaction? (2) Do youth with a disability experience discrimination and, if so, how does this affect life satisfaction? (3) Can a sense of belonging mitigate the negative effect of discrimination? We address these questions using microdata from the Canadian Community Health Survey, which is nationally representative. Our sample consists of 11,997 adolescents, of whom 2193 have a disability. We find that life satisfaction is lower among youth with a disability. Moreover, many experience disability-related discrimination, which has a negative effect on life satisfaction. However, this is mitigated by a sense of belonging to the community. Specifically, youth with a disability do not report lower life satisfaction when high belonging is present, even if they experience discrimination. This is true for boys and girls. We conclude that belonging, even if it is not disability-related, is protective of well-being. This has important implications for policy whereby organizations that cultivate a sense of belonging may alleviate the harm sustained by youth who experience discrimination as a result of their disability.

Psychological keys in the study of African American religious folk songs in the early work of Howard W. Odum (1884-1954).

This study focuses on the analysis of the early work of Howard W. Odum (1884-1954) and the examination of the psychological aspects that marked his reflection on African American music. This analysis reveals many of the aspects that were generically shared by the psychological agenda of the period when analyzing aesthetic experience and activity. Outstanding among these are the relationship of the musical phenomenon with very basic or primary affective-emotional dimensions, the conception of the musical phenomenon as an indicator of the cognitive-affective development of human groups, its expression in the form of cultural and complex intersubjective products, or its possible participation in the technoscientific design of social reform and progress. The simultaneous treatment of all of these aspects in Odum's work brings to light the interdisciplinary framework in which early psychology moved, while revealing the theoretical and ideological contradictions and controversies that enveloped the discipline, above all, at the point where it attempted to place itself at the service of the constitution of self-governed individuals. All in all, Odum's work also reflects the crucial role that early psychology attributed to art as a privileged medium to give meaning to experience and the human being's vital purposes. (PsycINFO Database Record

Class Dismissed: Putting Social Class on the Critical Psychological Agenda

AbstractDespite persuasive arguments pertaining to the importance of social class in the shaping of human life, this has and continues to be neglected within psychological research. Using primarily a UK focus, we begin by outlining some of the ways in which ‘mainstream’ psychology typically conceptualises class (e.g. socio‐economic status) and argue that such an approach has a number of detrimental implications, for example, neglecting structural inequalities and oppression and ‘othering’ the working class. We then present a selection of ‘critical’ and feminist‐informed research on social class which, we argue, offers a more holistic and sophisticated understanding of class and, in particular, draws attention to the complexities involved in how people experience, understand and construct class, classed identities and class transitions. Further, such work provides insight into the many ways in which people reproduce, re‐work and resist classed discourse in everyday contexts such as the home, work place and beyond. However, we acknowledge the need for investigation into how those with more economic power justify class privilege and discursively protect and maintain their status.

Obstacles to the take-up of mental health care provision by adult males in rural and remote areas of Australia: a systematic review

Background Research and practice suggest that mental health care, and mental health care practices and practitioners along with mental health care systems, are confronted with obstacles when delivering mental health care to adult rural and remote males. Objective The objective of this systematic review is to appraise and synthesize primary research on obstacles which may influence the interaction between adult and rural/remote dwelling males and service providers. By reviewing and analyzing data from system, provider and recipient viewpoints in the research literature this review will bridge gaps in the focus of literature on this topic. Participants in the studies selected are male, over 18 years of age, of all cultural backgrounds, and residing in rural and remote areas of Australia. Inclusion This review included literature from quantitative and qualitative research designs. The quantitative component studies selected reviewed the nature and significance of obstacles, and the qualitative component explored the meaning and experience of these obstacles. The quantitative research focused on data search and surveys while the qualitative research was phenomenological in nature. Methods Outcomes were identified and descriptions made of a cluster of obstacles which impacted upon the take-up of mental health care by adult Australian rural and remote males. The search strategy in both qualitative and quantitative designs considered primary research in a three step search strategy involving searches of databases, keywords and index terms, and reference lists, in a complex research study. Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms and combinations of MeSH terms were utilized to uncover the most number of research papers. Research papers which met the inclusion criteria were assessed by two independent reviewers for methodological quality prior to inclusion in the systematic review. Data was extracted from the research papers using the Joanna Briggs Institute Meta-Analysis of Statistics Assessment and Review Instrument (JBI-MAStARI) for quantitative data, and the Joanna Briggs Institute Qualitative Assessment and Review Instrument (JBI-QARI) for qualitative data, which revealed populations, interventions, phenomena of interest, comparators, study methods and outcomes as the fundamentals of the methodology of the study. Data synthesis was presented in narrative form. Quantitative papers could not be subjected to meta-analysis due to the lack of heterogeneity of the respective studies. An aggregation and synthesis of findings from the qualitative research studies was conducted. Findings informed evidence-based practice in terms of the rurality of males themselves and the rurality of mental health care systems. Results Results were analyzed using Anderson's Model of Health Care systems to reveal population, environment, health behaviors and health outcomes in four categories of findings. Outcomes were collapsed into supply and demand side factors. The outcomes of this systematic review led to the identification and description of four clusters of obstacles which impact upon adult males seeking medical health care in rural and remote communities of Australia. These clusters were in line with Anderson's Model. The model could not, however, readily be collapsed into supply and demand side factors which were more ubiquitous and equally distributed across the four categories. Conclusions Quantitative data indicated the existence of a constellation of everyday factors as obstacles and qualitative data which reflected the meaning and experience of recipients of rural and remote mental health care systems in terms of these types of obstacles. Implications for clinical practice and research The field of health promotion and prevention needs to consider more fully, as a psychological agenda, the mental health attitudes, beliefs and behaviors of both recipients and providers as well as suppliers and systems of mental health service provision to Adult Australian Rural and Remote Male (AARRMs). Obstacles to mental health service delivery to AARRMs carry significant meaning and significantly influence the experiences of this population.

Dancing in the dark: no role for consciousness in action control

CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION CONTROL It was Sigmund Freud who put the relative contributions from conscious and unconscious processes to the control of human action on the psychological agenda. Freud (1949) suggested that action control emerges from the interplay between unconscious, automatic, and reward-oriented action tendencies generated by the Id and rational, socially mediated considerations provided by the Ego. While Id processes were assumed to be inaccessible for consciousness in principle, some, but not all Ego operations were claimed to be conscious. This basic logic still provides the blueprint for our current theorizing about action control. Indeed, numerous “dual-route” models in almost all psychological and cognitiveneuroscientific research areas assume that human action emerges from the interplay between consciously inaccessible automatic action tendencies and consciously accessible top-down processes that enforce intentional action goals and social acceptability [for an overview, see Evans and Stanovich (2013)]. Interestingly, many authors associate conscious accessibility with cognitive control (Hommel, 2007). For instance, in the action-control model of Norman and Shallice (1986), automatic, stimulus-driven actions are contrasted with actions that are under “deliberate conscious control,” as if unconscious deliberate control would be inconceivable. In the same spirit, Libet (1985) has suggested that consciousness might have a “veto” that prevents unwanted actions from execution. In the following, I will argue that there is no evidence that consciousness plays a causal or decisive role in action control, so that there is no reason to believe that consciousness is necessary or useful for the control of human actions. EXECUTIVE IGNORANCE If agents would control their actions through the having of conscious experiences, they should be able to report how and based on what information they are exerting such control. However, agents know surprisingly little about their actions (Wegner, 2002). As James (1890, p. 499) put it: “we are only conversant with the outward results of our volition, and not with the hidden inner machinery of nerves and muscles which are what it primarily sets it at work”—a kind of executive ignorance (Turvey, 1977). Numerous examples show that actions can be parameterized and redirected by stimuli that the agent is unable to consciously perceive because of subliminal presentation or lesions in higher perceptual areas [e.g., Prablanc and Pelisson, 1990; for overviews, see Glover (2004); Milner and Goodale, 1995]. Agents can be easily fooled into experiencing artificial effectors as being a part of their own body (Botvinick and Cohen, 1998) and perceiving actions of other people as being carried out by themselves, or vice versa (e.g., Nielsen, 1963). But even higher-level executive-control operations can be triggered by stimuli the conscious perception of which is prevented by masking procedures [for overviews, see van Gaal et al. (2012); Kunde et al., 2012]. Among other things, this holds for the implementation of a task set (Reuss et al., 2011) and the stopping of the planned action (van Gaal et al., 2010), suggesting that executive control does not rely on consciousness. Indeed, there is widespread agreement that generating a conscious experience takes time, at least 300-500milliseconds (e.g., Libet, 2004; Dehaene et al., 2006), which would be way too slow for many everyday actions and most reactions in cognitive-psychological tasks. Hence, not only is our conscious knowledge about action control severely limited, it is also difficult to see at which point in time the application of this knowledge would be useful. One way to save a role for consciousness and action control would be to relate it to the translation of intentions into more specific action plans. Consider, for instance, the seminal study of Libet et al. (1982), who observed that the physiological indicators of action preparation preceded the agent’s conscious urge to act by hundreds of milliseconds. Even though this might be taken against a causal role of conscious experience in the online-generation of actions (Wegner, 2002), it does not rule out such a role in translating instructions into a general action plan at the beginning of the study. Indeed, several authors since Exner (1879) have considered that implementing such a plan delegates control to internal and external stimuli, which might very well operate outside of consciousness (Bargh, 1989; Hommel, 2000). And yet, this would leave a severely limited role of consciousness that is restricted to off-line control. Moreover, it has been claimed that integrating information from and across different informational maps and systems require conscious experience (Baars, 1988) and one might argue that preparatory off-line action planning involves such kind of cross-domain integration. However, recent demonstrations that neither the integration of multimodal event features (Zmigrod and Hommel, 2011) nor the integration of objects with their background (Mudrik et al., 2011) depend on consciousness do not support this possibility.

It’s Premature to Write the Obituary for Humanistic Psychology

Humanistic psychology has often been misportrayed as obsolete, especially by some positive psychologists who have tended to minimize their humanistic roots and to co-opt the humanistic psychology agenda through unfairly accusing it of various errors while pursuing a narrowed version of humanistic psychology. Through this distancing from and denigration of humanistic psychology, positive psychology has garnered considerable benefits that might have otherwise inured to humanistic psychology, including attracting many talented students and scholars, gaining lucrative funding, and receiving ample media attention. Consequently, humanistic psychology needs to explicitly challenge such attacks to remain viable, as well as to continue to be innovative in fostering a holistic perspective in diverse areas of psychology, including methodology and neurobiology, which are discussed as examples.

Introducing a Psychological Agenda for Understanding Somatic Symptoms—An Area of Conflict for Clinicians in Relation to Patients in a Multicultural Community

Culturally capable care requires that clinicians possess insights into patients' reasoning about illness. It is universally common for emotional distress to be expressed in terms of somatic symptoms. Converting meanings of illness from a somatic to a psychological agenda for understanding distress may be complicated for patients. Objectives of this study were to explore (a) professionals' experiences of encountering patients who use a bodily idiom for emotional distress in a multicultural milieu and their ascriptions of meaning and (b) how professionals impart their agenda of illness meaning to patients. Data were collected by seven focus-group interviews with professionals working in a multicultural suburban area of Stockholm, Sweden, and analyzed in two steps. The first step was content analysis. The second step was an inductive analysis with a revised grounded theory approach. Results showed that the caregivers stressed the importance of constructing a working alliance with the patient. With few exceptions, this did not include a patient-centered approach by the staff for exploring patients' perspectives and understandings of illness. Current knowledge about the importance of gaining insights into patients' perspectives was not implemented. Results of this study point to the importance of implementing new knowledge and according priority to research on the outcomes of that implementation.

Adherence to Antiretroviral Therapy in the Context of the National Roll-Out in South Africa: Defining a Research Agenda for Psychology

Since 2004, antiretroviral therapy (ART) has been provided by the South African Department of Health to patients who need it as part of the national ART roll-out. Despite the initial success of a trial ART programme in Khayelitsha near Cape Town, it is unclear that adherence to ART is optimal among the patients receiving treatment in the context of the national roll-out. In this article I call attention to the psychosocial barriers to adherence that may potentially be faced by patients receiving ART. These barriers include poverty, health literacy, perceived social support, mental health, substance abuse, and stigma. Three social cognitive theories are briefly reviewed to conceptualise the phenomenon of ART adherence, namely, the Health Belief Model, the Theory of Planned Behaviour, and the Informational—Behavioural—Motivational Model. Constructs such as health motivation, perceived threats, perceived barriers, attitudes towards ART, perceived subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control are examined for their potential role in developing a theoretical understanding of adherence to ART. Finally, the role of culture is considered in response to concerns that social cognitive models developed in industrially developed countries are limited in their application in a developing country such as South Africa. As the question of adherence to ART in South Africa has received little attention from social science researchers, I set a tentative agenda for psychosocial research with a view to enhancing the likelihood of optimal adherence among AIDS patients.

Counseling Psychology's Positive Psychological Agenda: A Model for Integration and Inspiration

Each of the Major Contribution's articles has traced counseling psychology's rich positive heritage. This reaction assesses this heritage in relation to positive psychology and considers the fundamental question of “To whose agenda are we working?” as psychological practitioners, locating the answer within the impact it has on our practice. The reaction then raises some questions prompted in part by counseling psychology's heritage of strength-based approaches and in part by the positive psychological initiative for developing a classification of strengths and virtues. It suggests that a deeper and fuller understanding of a strengths psychology is a key foundation for effective strength-based practice and calls for closer collaboration among counseling psychology, vocational psychology, and positive psychology in bringing to fruition a psychology of strengths and optimal human functioning.

Possibilidades solidárias e emancipatórias do trabalho: campo fértil para a prática da psicologia social crítica

O artigo discute a inserção da psicologia social crítica no campo da economia solidária, como um espaço laboral passível de constituir modos singularizados de trabalhar. Para tanto, revisa brevemente os principais conceitos referentes ao trabalho associativo e solidário, relacionando-o com as questões da subjetividade e da contemporaneidade. Questiona as referências emancipatórias das ciências sociais críticas, em especial a psicologia, colocando a necessidade de cartografar novos mapas para trilhar o "labirinto" da contemporaneidade, com suas ambigüidades e possibilidades, ao analisar um registro empírico tomado do campo do cooperativismo em bases solidárias. Finaliza colocando em pauta uma agenda progressista para a psicologia, quando inserida nessa realidade específica do mundo do trabalho.

Brains in scanners: An Umwelt of cognitive neuroscience

The last decades of the twentieth century have witnessed an amazing development in the methodologies and technologies available for the study of brain activity and functionality. Partly in parallel and partly intertwined with technological development, the relationship between the mind and the brain has again appeared on the philosophical and psychological agenda. In the newly (e)merging fields of mind-brain studies and cognitive neuroscience, examinations of the role and status of the subject are becoming relevant. To some extent current discussions mirror those taking place at the beginning of the century. The Baltic German biologist Jakob von Uexkull was one of the prominent participants in this earlier debate. This article uses Uexkull's notions of Umwelt and Umgebung to conceptualize phenomenological aspects of ethnographicmaterial collectedduring recentfield workin abrain imaging community. Although Uexkull's cosmology may be outdated, his proto- semiotic theory too facile, and his notion of Umwelt more applicable for lower animals than for humans, some of his phenomenological considerations appear very important for the contemporary debate of the mind-brain relationship. The analysis of the complicated interac- tion between experimenter, experimental subject, and brain-scanner suggests, however, that when studying a symbolic species like humans, the Umwelt-Umgebung distinction does not suAce to grasp the total situa- tion. This dichotomy, in the contemporary discussion often expressed as the diAerence between a 'first person' and a 'third person' perspective, needstobesupplementedwithacommunicative secondperson perspective that connects and mediates between the two. The physical setting: Imagining brain activity Imagine yourself in a semi-dark room. Behind your back is a large window that opens up to another room. If you turn around, you can

Health Psychology, Embodiment and the Question of Vulnerability

The topic of the body is now firmly on the agenda for psychology, as it has been for sociology for some time. What contribution will health psychology make to this debate? This article argues that the biomedical view of the physical body is inappropriate for a psychology addressing the key concerns of suffering and healing. Instead, health psychology needs to theorize what it means to be embodied in the context of illness and of health care. To do this requires investigation of the practical relationships between staff and patients as well as of experiences of sufferers. By reflecting critically upon the relationship between clinical practice and the conceptualization of the body, a health psychology embracing the idea of embodiment becomes possible.

Making sense of suffering: Illness meaning among somatizing Swedish women in contact with local health care services

This qualitative study was performed with the aim of exploring structures of illness meaning among somatizing Swedish-born women. Patients in contact with local health care services were interviewed about illness experiences and beliefs. An analysis was made using a grounded theory approach, and results are presented in terms of the patient's versus health care's agenda of understanding. Health care emphasized a psychological agenda of understanding. For most participants illness beliefs and attribution changed from explaining bodily symptoms in terms of somatic origin to considering additional emotional and psychological explanations. Psychological conceptualizations came to be regarded as tools for understanding and as giving access to the use of new healing strategies. This process of change is a transformation of the cognitive system used to make sense of illness. Healing is a transaction across systems of meaning, and structures for meaning make the world comprehensible and predictable. For most participants construction of illness meaning was an active process of internalization and re-evaluation in which the extra-medical environment had a supportive role. These findings among native-born patients are discussed in relation to the migrants' situation of being uprooted, dislocated, relocated and having to encounter a new health care system.

Turkish migrant women encountering health care in Stockholm: a qualitative study of somatization and illness meaning.

This paper presents the results from a qualitative study conducted with the aim of exploring structures of illness meaning among somatizing Turkish-born migrant women (age 31-48) living in a poor and low status suburb of Stockholm in contact with local health care services. Two to three interviews regarding experiences and understanding of illness were conducted as well as one year, validating follow-up interviews. Interviews were analysed with a grounded theory approach. Results are presented as the participants' agenda of understanding. Distress was communicated by concrete expressions about the body, emotions, social and life situation. Pain was prominent and often lateralised to one side of the body. The use of traditional expressions of distress ranged from open use to avoidance. Attribution was characterised by verbalising links of coherence between health and aspects of life. Psychiatric attribution was rarely accepted or valued as a tool for recovery, or as helpful in linking bodily symptoms to emotional distress. Three main sources for healing were used: medical care in Sweden and in Turkey and traditional treatment. Own capacity to influence recovery was mostly regarded as low. Relations to family and the clinician were regarded as important to recovery. The encounter with local health care had brought the participants in contact with a psychological agenda of understanding their illness and new ways of dealing with illness and healing. Some expressed a feeling of being misunderstood whereas some related positive experiences of re-evaluation. They were all actively trying, but experiencing varying degrees of difficulty, to grasp the meaning of the caregiver. The results of the study point to the mutual need of exploring meaning in the clinical encounter to help patients make sense out of different perspectives of illness and healing. The need for enhanced knowledge about this process in a migration context will be discussed.