Existential Practice Research Articles

Accounting for <i>Hijab</i>: Interrogating the Post-Secular

This article questions the idea of the ‘post-secular’ as a category for understanding Indian women’s experience of religion as an existential practice in neocolonised capitalist patriarchy. The majoritarian state’s manipulation of an identitarian regime of signification to use and control women’s lives is located in a plural, democratic society that is currently riven by the violent politics of conflicting religious and secular constructions of <i>hijab</i>, a head covering worn by Muslim women. From an engaged ideological perspective that seeks radical transformation, feminist struggle includes the right to practice and profess one’s faith, against a majoritarian norm that bulldozes difference and imposes its prescriptions as ideal. This article aims to show, from a feminist perspective, the manipulation of significatory practices in India, linking women’s ‘dress’ with progress to essentialise and politicise identity. It questions whether redressal against violence wrought on women by religious fundamentalism can be found in a secular state policy, based on the norm of equality of difference. Feminist practice would actively use the guarantees given to the citizen by a pluralist secular constitution to challenge the violence of interlinked discriminations, necessary for the survival of a plural society in which diversities co-exist.

Забота о себе в контексте здорового образа жизни

Within the framework of the article, an attempt was made to consider the category of a healthy lifestyle through ontolog-ical comprehension, through the experience of being-toward-death and being as suffering. In the context of a healthy lifestyle, self-care should be based on the philosophical principles of self-care, a balanced diet, its relationship with physical activity and rest, on the ex-ample of the principles promoted in various ancient educational schools. The ontological structure of self-care, part of which is a healthy lifestyle aimed at combating human suffering and ill health, a way of self-organization, restoration of integrity, acquisition of wisdom, manifested in the existential practice of the art of life, focused on the preservation and enhancement of health

Existential psychological therapies: An overview of empirical research

BackgroundExistential therapies are a range of psychotherapies inspired by existential and phenomenological philosophers. Although relatively little empirical research was conducted on their therapeutic model and outcomes in the early days, a substantial body of research has evolved. AimThis article aims to give an overview of the empirical literature on existential therapies. This article will be divided into four parts: empirical research on existential practices, key concepts, critical therapeutic competences, and outcomes of existential therapies. MethodThis article will review findings from previous systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses. FindingsThe etiological model in many existential therapies seems to focus on how individuals may limit the totality of their subjective experiences. Ignoring or denying a part of the totality of their experiences limits their opportunities to live a meaningful, fulfilling and mentally healthy life and cope in beneficial ways with life's inevitable limitations and challenges. Their clinical concerns may include existential moods, detailed questions, or crises about life, meaning, identity or spirituality. Existential therapists may help via several evidence-based competencies: phenomenological and experiential skills, relational skills, explicating existential themes and processes, school-specific and meta-competences. Meta-analyses show that some existential therapies (particularly meaning-centred therapies) have large positive effects on psychological and physical well-being and overall quality-of-life. DiscussionA large body of empirical literature supports the key therapeutic existential concepts, competences, and outcomes. The discussion compares this literature with other therapies, showing that existential therapies have similarly strong empirical support. These findings indicate that existential therapies are bona fide therapies that may be considered for funding by health insurance and health services. Therapists and training institutes should focus on these evidence-based existential components.

RESEARCH GENUS: SOCIO-PHILOSOPHICAL AND EXISTENTIAL ASPECTS

The purpose of this study is to identify and further analyze the socio–philosophical and existential aspects of gender research. Main tasks: to show the features of the development of genealogy in the historical aspect; to consider the study of the pedigree from the point of view of the individual’s realization of existential needs. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that the author has attempted to analyze the study of gender not only as a research activity, but also as a significant and important socio-philosophical and existential practice for an individual.
 The article reflects the peculiarities of the development and attitude to genealogy in various historical periods of the development of our state. The study of the microhistory of the genus, family becomes an important source for the knowledge and understanding of the broad historical, socio-cultural context into which many generations of our ancestors were embedded.
 At the moment, genealogy is facing many challenges, one of the key ones being its commercialization. However, any challenge is not only a problem, but also a certain factor of development. In particular, genealogy is becoming an important element of interdisciplinary scientific research.
 The author believes that the study of one’s own pedigree can be analyzed according to the formula of the five existential needs of E. Fromm. The individual, realizing existential needs, moves along the path of self-perfection. As a result, he comes to a sense of security, establishes the necessary connections, finds his purpose and vocation in this world, forms a system of values and normative attitudes.
 The study of the genus is a significant socio-philosophical practice that enables an individual to integrate into the system of family ties and relationships, to join the values of their ancestors, to understand and realize their own «I», to develop genealogical culture, to realize the fundamental existential needs.
 The main theoretical results presented in this work can be applied within the framework of specific historical and genealogical studies, in the field of social philosophy, cultural studies and other, including interdisciplinary scientific fields, as well as used in the development of relevant special courses and electives.

Young people's identities in digital worlds

PurposeThis conceptual paper takes identity, digital technology, young people and education as a combined starting point and suggests how to research young people’s identity practices in and out of school. Today’s young people form their identities in a world that is increasingly imbued by digital technologies. What is evident too is that these technologies and the use of them are not restricted to one single context. Rather, digital technologies mediate multiple contexts simultaneously – to an extent where they collapse. This means that school and leisure time, public and private, digital and analog, virtual and material, time and place, social contexts and audiences, through digital technology, merge in various ways in young people’s identity practices and everyday life.Design/methodology/approachLittle is known about what identity practices in collapsing contexts means to young people in their lives and how educators and others can support them. Most studies to date investigate digital technology use as a discrete phenomenon and few studies concern young people’s identity practices in contexts, as they occur. In an increasingly digital world, where dependency on digital technologies continues this forms an urgent knowledge gap to bridge. In particular to guide educators, and others, who support young people as they live and learn through interconnected spaces in and out of school. The conceptual approach of this paper is of importance to better understand how to bridge this gap.FindingsThis paper suggests a research approach that extends previous research at the intersection of identity, young people, digital technology by outlining extended ways for thinking about identity in a digital world that can be useful for investigating identity as an existential practice, extending beyond identity representations, in conditions mediated by contemporary digital technologies and in collapsing contexts. What is also included are methodological considerations about researching young people, identity and technology as dynamic research objects, rendering a holistic approach.Research limitations/implicationsIt is a conceptual paper that addresses identity, digital technology, young people and education as a combined starting point to outline further research.Originality/valueThe Guided Tour Technique and Social Media Research is suggested as possible methodologies for holistic and ethically sensitive, empirical research on identity, digital technology, young people and education.

Transits in Oncology: A Protocol Study for a Therapy-Educational Training Built-In Intervention

The study “Transits in oncology” has been perfected with the collaboration of the UOC of Oncological Mammary Surgery of the Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Senese Siena, specifically by Prof. Donato Casella. The study means to analyze the impact of art-therapy interventions aimed at minimizing psychological distress in women with a diagnosis of breast cancer/mammary carcinoma (anxiety/depression), hence improving their psychophysical wellbeing. To this end, the study employs the evaluation of specific psychological parameters with the purpose of monitoring anxiety and depression levels, while investigating a potential correlation between the anxiety and depression levels and other psychological variables, such as alexithymia. The mammary carcinoma diagnosis, to all effects, constitutes an actual “disorienting dilemma” for the woman: it leads to questioning one’s way of life, and their past and future choices; the upheaval is conducive to a reflective phase that upsets one’s “expectations of meaningfulness”. The art-therapy intervention has been elaborated in a protocol that underscores its transformative methodology qualities: it aims to act on the regenerative potential of the turmoil, for an elaboration of trauma that does not negate it or further it (the feeling that nothing will change and everything will go back to the way it was before), but rather disrupts it. The final goal is to promote new existential practices, generating positive change towards self-awareness, stimulating the activation of one’s latent resources by accessing one’s symbolic world and one’s imagination.

Re-imagining care in comics: an interview with Susan MacLeod, Simon Grennan, Ernesto Priego and Peter Wilkins

ABSTRACT As an existential practice, predicated on human interdependencies and labour, care attains remarkable significance in sustaining the life of the ill/disabled and is an indelible part of families and healthcare. Families, medicine, and institutional caring centres (such as old age homes, hospices among others) justify their commitment to care through emotional and practical/ technical approaches towards illness/disability. COVID-19 pandemic has just made human interdependency and significance of care exceptionally visible through laying bare the inevitable physical and social vulnerabilities. However, in the contemporary neoliberal society that favour autonomy and efficiency, care is overlooked, undermined, undervalued, and often linked with vulnerability and precarity. Graphic caregiving memoirs drawn by caregivers themselves are ideal sites for re-imagining, validating, depicting and reconceptualising experiences of care. In this email interview graphic artists Susan MacLeod, Simon Grennan, Ernesto Priego and Peter Wilkins reflect on care, the wide range of issues concerning its practice and suggest an alternative perspective towards caregiving. In Part A titled Of Comics and Care the authors respond to generic questions about their interest in comics, works, life, among others. In Part B titled What was I expecting? Compassion? Validation? The authors respond to questions related to their respective graphic narratives.

Different position from traditional left lateral for colonoscopy? A meta-analysis and systematic review of randomized control trials

BackgroundColonoscopy requires the intubation of the cecum for screening of colorectal diseases. The conventional position used for colonoscopy is the left lateral position (LLP). However, alternative positions have also been utilized to enhance the success of intubation. Thus, the aim of this study was to perform a meta-analysis of the different positions to determine the effectiveness of the individual positions for successful colonoscopy. MethodsMedline, Embase and Cochrane trials electronic databases were searched for studies on colonoscopy positions. The primary outcome was defined as the cecal intubation rate. Pooled risk ratios (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the rates of cecal intubation were estimated. Secondary outcomes such as the cecal intubation time and adenoma detection rate were further analyzed qualitatively. ResultsAfter reviewing 644 identified records, 7 randomized control trials (RCT) studies were included. No significant difference was observed in either comparisons, between the LLP vs. supine position (SP) (RR = 1.01, 95% CI, 0.98 to 1.04, P = 0.55) or the LLP vs. prone position (PP) (RR = 1.02, 95% CI, 0.98 to 1.06, P = 0.27). ConclusionsAmidst available literature, the use of other positions can be considered when performing colonoscopy. These further highlights that the existential practice is based predominantly on familiarity instead of evidence-based-research.

O Suicídio na Perspectiva das Psicologias Humanista, Fenomenológica e Existencial: Revisão Sistemática e Metassíntese

Objetivamos analisar as producoes cientificas nacionais sobre o suicidio segundo as psicologias humanista, fenomenologica e existencial. Foi utilizado o metodo de revisao sistematica seguido de uma metassintese qualitativa dos achados. Computamos 18 artigos categorizados e analisados conforme titulo, autoria, base de dados, periodico, ano de publicacao, area de discussao, tipo de estudo, objetivos e resultados. Os resultados demonstram: proeminencia de producoes na Revista da Abordagem Gestaltica; concentracao de publicacoes no PePSIC; aglomeracao de producoes na ultima decada, em razao das politicas de prevencao ao suicidio; expressividade de producoes filiadas a UFRN; concentracao de estudos empiricos norteados pelo metodo fenomenologico e influenciados por Heidegger. Os achados foram sintetizados segundo: as relacoes entre psicopatologia e suicidio; os motivos e explicacoes sobre o suicidio; o pensamento fenomenologico-existencial acerca do suicidio; as praticas e intervencoes humanista, fenomenologica e existencial no tratamento. Concluimos que os estudos consideram as tradicionais perspectivas biomedicas de pensamento e manejo do suicidio, contudo tentam repensar isso com base em lentes clinicas mais subjetivas e compreensivas.

TERRITÓRIOS VIOLADOS, RESISTÊNCIAS E MASSACRES DE POVOS E POBRES NA HISTÓRIA DO BRASIL – MAS A LUTA CONTINUA...

Analisa-se a violação de territórios no processo de expansão no tempo-espaço do capitalismo perverso que visa ao atendimento, preponderante, dos seus interesses econômicos. A metodologia através da qual se realizou esta reflexão fundamentou-se no método de abordagem do materialismo histórico e dialético, com o suporte de métodos de procedimentos relativos a uma análise livre do conteúdo de parte da bibliografia acerca da problemática ora realizada e do destaque de palavras ditas por sujeitos que pronunciam o seu mundo, através da sua prática existencial, para entendê-lo melhor no sentido de mudá-lo. O principal resultado ao qual se chegou refere-se à explicitação do fato de que, não obstante os fortes imperativos da racionalidade técnico-instrumental do capitalismo que viola os territórios que lhes interessa, nunca deixa de haver reações das classes dominadas a tais ações.

African Ontology as a Basis for African Existential Practices: Implications for African Education

African Ontology as a Basis for African Existential Practices: Implications for African Education

Locating One's Life: Memory, Mood, and Self-Reflection

ABSTRACT This article aims to analyze some contours of the existential practice of attempting to “locate one's life” through self-reflection. I will focus primarily, but not exclusively, on two exemplifications of self-reflection that are not “philosophical” in any technical or academic sense: Cory Taylor's Dying: A Memoir and Yi-Fu Tuan's Who Am I? An Autobiography of Emotion, Mind, and Spirit. Taylor, a novelist, is writing hurriedly facing imminent death, while Tuan, a distinguished cultural geographer, writes facing not death but the prospect of continuing to live without any real will to do so. Their reflections are carried out in two different rhetorical registers, with quite different motivational contexts and expectations. They throw clear light, with rich philosophical import, on the complex relations between memory and mood, such as regret and nostalgia, the languages of self-description, and the permanent tensions between hope and action in coming to terms with what or who one is, or has become, or with what, if anything, lies ahead.

Spirituality and Childbirth: Existential Meanings and Contemporary Practice Realities

Spirituality at the end of life is often explored in the literature and in research yet despite the shared experience of childbirth within society there has been little spirituality focus on the start of life. However, interest in this area is slowly gathering momentum. This article shows how childbirth is overflowing with spiritual and existential meaningfulness for all. The impact of this major event in human life and our shared natality warrants closer examination. Using the framework “ecology of birth” the significance of “how” we do things is shown to matter as much as what we do, or not do, in and round childbirth. Drawing on research and practice this article asks us to collectively think about childbirth in ways that honour childbirth’s spiritual and existential meaningfulness and significance. Further multidisciplinary research to inform an art of practice in and around childbirth is suggested. By moving from the prevalent calculative mode of thinking in contemporary maternity care systems to a more contemplative mode of thinking we can be enabled to think afresh about the ways we “do things” and how we “are there” around childbirth without adopting polemic positions.

Crowdsourcing identities: On identity as an existential practice mediated by contemporary digital technology

The purpose of this article is to outline crowdsourcing identities as one way to think about humans’ making of identity when practiced in conditions mediated by contemporary digital technologies. It brings together human practices, theory and technology and draws on perspectives of existentialism, social onstructivism, technology and ideas about crowdsourcing. Humans’ making of identity is considered a practice that concerns continuous requests and answers about existential matters of being, becoming and belonging: Who am I? How do I appear to others? Who can I be and become? Where do I belong? In that sense, it is a relational and social practice that is essential to exist as someone — rather than as no one. However, contemporary digital technologies such as social media are not considered essential to this practice. Technologies are thought of as mediating conditions where, for instance, social interactions about existential matters, such as the making of identity, can be practiced in ways that extend on what were possible in predigital times. In multimodal, multidirectional, collaborative and networked ways humans can represent, communicate, gather information and also engage online crowds of others in continuous requests and answers about being, becoming and belonging; Who am I? How do I appear to others? Who can I be and become? And, where do I belong? To illustrate this, two brief narratives of Mary and Steve introduce the article. The making of identity, the duality of Self and Other, the gaze as a panopticon of others, identity and technology and ideas about crowdsourcing are presented and outlined, converging into the interpretive lens of crowdsourcing identities — one way to think about the making of identity when practiced in conditions mediated by contemporary digital technology.

Existential psychotherapy and the therapeutics of activism

This paper considers the socio-political perspectives of Sartre, de Beauvoir and Fanon and their relationship to existential psychotherapy practice. It argues that their existential analyses of oppression must play a greater part in informing existential psychotherapeutic practice and pedagogy. In this current neo-liberal political age, in which therapy is increasingly being utilised as a form of psychological coercion and mystification, an understanding of the structures and systems of alienation and oppression that construct experience must translate to a broadening therapeutic concern beyond individual to social change. The author suggests that engaging with a politics of alienation and actively responding to the oppressive social conditions which generate distress and marginalisation should be intrinsic to existential psychotherapy practitioners and their representing institutions.

Kierkegaard, the Spirit of Time and the Individual: Implications for Clinical Psychology

The aim is to analyze how Soren Kierkegaard, by the voice of his pseudonym “A”, in the chapter the tragic in ancient drama reflected in the tragic in modern drama from Either-Or. Part I, discusses time and the individual, namely by contrasting Zeitgeist, as the spirit of time, and Zeitgeist, as the spirit in time in his presentation of two existential situations of Antigone, namely, the modern character he creates and the Greek character. Kierkegaard claims that the lamentations of the modern Antigone show less sorrow but more pain than the classical Antigone. This difference allows him to posit modern spirit as ready for reflection and in tension with the ancient spirit which is more prone to action. Hence, the tension between the ancient tragic and the modern tragic keeps the universal character without abandoning the individual and, thus, brings to light the individual in history, and this is exactly what is enhanced in this article as of great interest for psychologists, in particular, in clinical existential practice. After an introduction mapping the question, there follow 4 sections focused on the spirit of time, the tragic, Antigone, and Antigone and the spirit of time; and, finally, section 5 presenta the final conclusions, focusing on the relevance of the discussion of the idea of the spirit of the time, and of Kierkegaard’s questioning of this idea, for psychology.

Existential group practice run by mental healthcare chaplains in Norway: a nationwide cross-sectional study

ABSTRACTExistential groups run by healthcare chaplains within mental healthcare have a long tradition in Norway. By using a national cross-sectional survey design, this study explored and described both quantitatively and qualitatively these groups’ characteristics. Quantitative data were analysed by descriptive statistics and content analysis inspired by Graneheim and Lundman was used to analyse the qualitative data. The current existential group practice was present in 11 of 25 Norwegian health authorities and across service levels. Five different group approaches, all addressing patients’ existential, spiritual and religious needs and issues, were identified and described. The existential groups were in general eclectic and applied a variety of therapeutic strategies representing group psychotherapy, existential therapy and clinical pastoral care. The findings suggest that this Norwegian existential group practice can be regarded as a well-established and integrated part of the Norwegian mental healthcare. Researchers are challenged to further qualitatively explore this Norwegian existential group practice.

Philosophical dialogue – towards the cultural history of the genre

AbstractThis text analyzes philosophical dialogue (from Plato to Augustine of Hippo, Berkeley, Hume and Leibniz) as a linguistic genre embedded in the cultural, historical and media context, which was decisive for the role and functions accorded to philosophy as such. I argue that one way to describe transformations of Western thought, which has not been consistently implemented, is a description of its history through the category of progressive textualization and through anthropological-historical category of a genre. Two models of communication analyzed by Ives Winkin – orchestral and telegraphic – first associated with the perception of communication as an act of interpersonal, linguistic and non-linguisticcommunio, and second, the perception of communication as a linear transfer of information from one mind to another, have their historical, especially the media roots. The first is associated with the word alive and spoken communication. The second is conditioned by the primacy of the printed word and the quiet, solitary reading, which cuts off existential contexts, and decontextualizes an utterance and tranforms it into a strictly graphic message far from direct, interpersonal understanding. Both models can be seen well in philosophical texts. And the dominance of the latter, related to the development of print culture, allows us to understand why the philosophical dialogue as a trace of the conversation – a trace of the existential practice as well as philosophical – is experiencing a crisis in modern times.

Self-Attributed Importance of Spiritual Practices in Catholic Pastoral Workers and their Association with Life Satisfaction

Although much is known about the frequency of the spiritual activities of pastoral workers, less is known related to how important specific spiritual and existential practices are to pastoral workers personally or existentially. This part of the German Pastoral Ministry Study analyzed (1) which forms of spiritual activities were regarded as important, (2) how the perceived importance of religious practices related to frequency of engagement in spiritual practices, and (3) how these practices contributed to the life satisfaction of ordained priests and of non-ordained pastoral workers. Participants included 1826 Catholic pastoral workers, composed of 65% priests and 35% (non-ordained) pastoral assistants and parish expert workers. Prosocial-Humanistic practices scored highest in importance, followed by Gratitude/Awe, Existentialistic practices, and Religious practices; specific forms of Spiritual Mind-Body practices were not relevant. Differences in the frequency and ascribed importance of spiritual practices between ordained and non-ordained pastoral workers were identified, as well as a surprising lack of connection between religious practices and their proclaimed importance, particularly of Prosocial-Humanistic and Gratitude/Awe practices. These findings may stimulate further research into the underlying causes of these differences between priests and other pastoral workers and between the frequency and importance of spiritual practices in all groups, which in the researchers’ opinion indicate challenging inconsistencies with regard to the ideals of religious vocations.

The practices of existential psychotherapists: development and application of an observational grid

ABSTRACTWithin the major therapeutic paradigms, observational instruments have been developed to assess orientation-specific interventions or processes. However, to date, no such instrument exists to assess existential practices. Recent research indicates the key practices of existential therapists, and forms an empirical basis on which to develop an observatory grid. This paper describes the development of such a grid, and its exploratory testing with eight clients of four Portuguese existential psychotherapists. A total of 32 sessions were observed and both speaking turn and whole-session analysis showed that it was feasible to assess existential therapy using the instrument, although psychometric findings recommend further refinement of the tool. Session-rating data suggest that the chief practices applied by existential therapists were relational, followed by the use of hermeneutic interventions and reformulations. Interventions based on phenomenological and existential assumptions were observable in practice but limited in frequency. Further refinements and developments of the observational grid, together with additional research – using a range of therapists from different schools of existential therapy – are recommended.