Intersubjective Processes Research Articles

Agents without agency: Assessing the role of the audience in securitization theory

This article assesses the role of the audience in securitization theory. The main argument is that in order to accurately capture the role of the securitization audience, it must be theorized as an active agent, capable of having a meaningful effect on the intersubjective construction of security values. Through a meta-synthesis of 32 empirical studies of securitization, this article focuses on two central questions: (1) Who is the audience? (2) How does the audience engage in the construction of security? When assessed against the theoretical works on securitization, this analysis reveals that the manner in which the audience is defined and characterized within securitization theory differs with the empirical literature that investigates securitization processes. Where the empirical literature suggests securitization is a highly intersubjective process involving active audiences, securitization theory characterizes audiences as agents without agency, thereby marginalizing the theory’s intersubjective nature. This article sketches a new characterization of the securitization audience and outlines a framework for securitizing actor–audience interaction that better accounts for securitization theory’s linguistic and intersubjective character, addresses this theoretical/empirical conflict, and improves our understanding of how groups select and justify security priorities and costly security policies.

The Many in the One: Multiple Self States in Combined Psychotherapy

According to some relational approaches, mental health is expressed by the ability to move between various self-states while maintaining the adequate presence of the illusion that the self is continuous in time and space. Patients undergoing combined therapy are granted with the inimitable space existing between the two forms of therapy—individual and group therapy. Within the combined therapy patients, as well as therapists, are challenged by the multiplicity of self-states arising in light of this complex situation as part of a mutual intersubjective process. The article analyses the advantages of the combined therapy in light of the theories dealing with multiple self states. A clinical vignette will be presented to illustrate the theoretical notions.

Aproximações entre Estética e Comunicação: aberturas possíveis e diálogos entre os conceitos

O conceito de “estética” é comumente associado à Teoria da Arte ou ao estudo do Belo. No entanto, pelo menos desde os anos 1990 diversos autores vêm buscando por uma articulação da Estética com noções relativas à Comunicação, de modo a estabelecer uma nova dimensão para o conceito de Estética, que vá além da questão artística e sublinhe a perspectiva relacional. Dentro deste trabalho esta possibilidade é desenvolvida a partir de três processos: (1) situar etimologicamente as noções de “Estética” e “Comunicação”, destacando o componente “comum” presente entre ambas; (2) posicionar a noção de Estética discutida dentro do campo da Comunicação, para que finalmente se possa (3) destacar como a categoria ampliada do estético auxilia a ver a comunicação como processo compreensivo e intersubjetivo.

Emergence of psychotic content in psychotherapy: An exploratory qualitative analysis of content, process, and therapist variables in a single case study

Objective: Emerging integrative metacognitive therapies for schizophrenia seek to promote subjective aspects of recovery. Beyond symptom remission, they are concerned with shared meaning-making and intersubjective processes. It is unclear, however, how such therapies should understand and respond to psychotic content that threatens meaning-making in therapeutic contexts. Accordingly, we sought to understand what factors precede and potentially trigger psychotic content within psychotherapy and what aids in resolution and return to meaning-making. Method: Forty-eight transcripts from a single psychotherapy case were analyzed with thematic analysis. Passages of delusional or disorganized content were identified and themes present prior to the emergence and resolution of such material were identified and coded. Results: Themes that preceded the emergence of psychotic content varied across early, middle, and late phases of therapy. Material related to the patient’s experience of inadequacy and potential vulnerability, therapist setting boundaries within the therapeutic relationship and making challenges appeared to trigger psychotic content, especially early in treatment. Conclusions: Psychotic content may emerge in session following identifiable antecedents which change over phases of therapy. Attending to psychotic content by assuming a non-hierarchical stance and not dismissing psychotic content may aid in maintaining intersubjectivity and support patient’s movements toward recovery in integrative metacognitive therapies.

Beyond Objectivity and Subjectivity: The Intersubjective Foundations of Psychological Science.

The question of whether psychology can properly be regarded as a science has long been debated (Smedslund in Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science, 50, 185-195, 2016). Science is typically understood as a method for producing reliable knowledge by testing falsifiable claims against objective evidence. Psychological phenomena, however, are traditionally taken to be "subjective" and hidden from view. To the extent that science relies upon objective observation, is a scientific psychology possible? In this paper, I argue that scientific psychology does not much fail to meet the requirements of objectivity as much as the concept of objectivity fails as a methodological principle for psychological science. The traditional notion of objectivity relies upon the distinction between a public, observable exterior and a private, subjective interior. There are good reasons, however, to reject this dichotomy. Scholarship suggests that psychological knowledge arises neither from the "inside out" (subjectively) nor from the outside-in (objectively), but instead intersubjective processes that occur between people. If this is so, then objectivist methodology may do more to obscure than illuminate our understanding of psychological functioning. From this view, we face a dilemma: Do we, in the name of science, cling to an objective epistemology that cuts us off from the richness of psychological activity? Or do we seek to develop a rigorous intersubjective psychology that exploits the processes through which we gain psychological knowledge in the first place? If such a psychology can produce systematic, reliable and useful knowledge, then the question of whether its practices are "scientific" in the traditional sense would become irrelevant.

Possible use in psychology of threshold concept in order to study sensemaking processes

Manifold forms of sensemaking processes and their simultaneity pose many questions about their integration and also on their development. Human beings mean their own experience and activity in the world by forms of symbolic meaning but also by several forms of embodied meaning, in an endo-semiotic and exo-semiotic key, such as the construction of artifacts, instruments, monuments, stories, myths. The culture in this perspective is not considered a repository of information and become an intersubjective process that develops over time and is rooted deeply in various embodied forms. Authors discuss the notion of threshold through two possible paths. The first one allows us to demarcate the boundaries of the domain of semiotic research and at the same time to reflect on the specificity of the different processes of sensemaking, from biological processes (vegetative and animal) to typically psychological processes, characteristic of human beings and of cultural dynamics. The second one deals with dynamics of transformation of the processes of sensemaking, claiming that the relationship between an organism and its environment has a gestaltic quality, whose form is constantly changing. The notion of threshold is developed in reference to the changes and transformations that mark discontinuous passages and developments within phases of stability.

New developments in neuroscience can benefit the learning and performance of music

ABSTRACTAs advancements in neuroscience increasingly illuminate the traditional understanding of the human mind, many of the new insights are also of relevance to musicians as well as to music pedagogy. Especially the greater understanding of how intersubjective processes are integral to the development of the right brain has shown how, according to the neuropsychoanalyst Allan Schore, right-brain models can bridge the fields of psychiatry, music and trauma. Following a short introduction, the article discusses the development of ego boundaries and their relevance to young aspiring musicians as well as the close relation to self-esteem. This is followed by a short explanation of the psychodynamic processes underlying interpersonal interaction and relation. Right-brain function in development and trauma is discussed and its links to music are highlighted; the issue of fear and learned helplessness in musicians is also considered briefly. A discussion on the impact of fear on musicians’ memory follows. The paper concludes by showing that, while brain pathology can be associated with creativity, creative processes in and of themselves are not pathological. Throughout, special reference is made to aspects that have particular relevance to previously disadvantaged music learners.

Making Music Together: Discussion of Gianni Nebbiosi’s “The Smell of Paper”

Finding life in our patients is a common goal for analysts. Historically this project had been defined as one of freeing unacceptable impulses from their imprisoning defenses with the analyst, via interpretation, then contrasting the patient’s internal fantasied reality with “actual” reality. Untangling fantasy from reality could free the impulses to provide energy for more realistic projects. This imagery stands in stark contrast to the fluidity of a contemporary relational conceptualization of human experience where our inner experience is now understood to be the lens through which we construct our vision of external reality, always a subjective perception. Clinical change—finding life—now depends more on the activation of a generative intersubjective process between patient and analyst, which contributes to the expansion of the patient’s subjective experience. Gianni Nebbiosi’s use of music and of mime to help him feel his way into his patient’s and ultimately into his own similarly defended experience demonstrates the creativity and idiosyncratic clinical approaches that emerge from a contemporary relational orientation. This orientation recognizes the analyst’s subjectivity as a fundamental tool of clinical change—a vehicle through which any theoretical approach will necessarily be shaped. Differing approaches to a clinical situation do not always simply reflect theoretical disagreements; they may also reflect the expression of the particular subjectivity of the analyst.

ORDEM NORMATIVA INSTITUCIONAL E LIBERDADE

O presente artigo tem por objetivo refinar a metodologia da ciência do direito a partir do conceito de liberdade de Axel Honneth e da teoria neoinstitucionalista de Neil MacCormick. De acordo com o primeiro, vislumbra-se a necessidade de se desenhar um fundamento teórico para a metodologia do campo que articule as demandas da liberdade a partir da necessária relação entre a moral e a ética, simultaneamente. Encontra-se uma aproximação a esse ideal quando se reavalia o conceito de ordem normativa institucional de MacCormick na matriz teórica honnethiana. A partir da associação proposta, conclui-se que o direito encontra fundamento de validade no processo intersubjetivo de reconstrução normativa dos valores imanentes à ordem institucional. A reconstrução de tais valores, partilhados socialmente, deve ser responsável pela preservação das condições comunicativas básicas que possibilitem aos indivíduos o reconhecimento mútuo de suas necessidades, convicções e habilidades.

An Intersubjective View of Empathy and Hypnotic Trance: Response to Wickramasekera II

In response to Wickramasekera II’s description of his empathic involvement theory of hypnosis in “Mysteries of hypnosis and the self are revealed by the psychology and neuroscience of empathy” (Wickramasekera II, 2015), Henning offers further reflections on what empathy might be and what it allows therapists to do, particularly in conditions of hypnotic trance. She defines her intersubjective view of hypnotic trance as an experience in which client and therapist mutually engage in a shared state of consciousness, and a mutual bidirectional or multidirectional exchange of verbal and nonverbal, as well as conscious and unconscious, material occurs, and which may include shared taking on of roles and expectations in each party, as suggested by the other, particularly when both client and therapist are highly hypnotizable. Research on the concept of “mutual hypnosis,” or co-trance, is reviewed, and barriers to scholarly discussions about intersubjectivity in therapy relationships are described. Concepts from other disciplines and traditions, including quantum physics, transpersonal psychology, contemplative Christianity, and shamanistic practices and trance in other cultures are then offered to clarify the processes of intersubjectivity, and perspectives about empathy and hypnotic co-trance are offered from the context of the author’s own clinical work as a trauma therapist. Finally, suggestions are provided for future research approaches and methods to further explore and understand these phenomena.

Making Sense of the ‘Difficult’ Past: Transmission of Political Heritage and Memory-Work Among Young People Across Europe

This article considers young people's socialization into mnemonic communities in 14 European countries. It argues that such socialization is an intersubjective and selective process that, to a great degree, depends on the particular social environment that conditions the discourses on pasts available to young people. Drawing on memory studies, it recognizes memory as a valid alternative to the institutionalized past (history) but envisages the two as inextricably connected. Given this, it identifies several strategies adopted by young people in order to socialize understandings of the past. While these strategies vary, some reveal receptivity to populist and far right ideologies. Our study demonstrates how internalization of political heritage via mnemonic socialization within families is conditioned by both the national political agenda and socio-economic situation experienced across Europe.

Language Preservation as a Means of Society Evolution

The paper discloses the sociocultural nature of language and its inextricable connection with the mentality. It has been proved that during the processes of intersubjectivity through the attachment to other languages, the native language is preserved as a basic one that allows providing the growth of its diversity and uniqueness under conditions of the enhancing unification of the social sphere of life.

"Fiefdoms" and co-management: the paradox of autonomy in an experience of democratization of hospital management.

This study aimed to analyze the implementation of Management Committees and Production Units in a hospital in Rio de Janeiro based on the views of the actors responsible for this process, focusing on the issue of autonomy of the subjects involved in care delivery. This case study adopted a qualitative clinical psychosociological research approach using mainly semi-structured interviews. The management arrangements were valued by the interviewees principally as a way of increasing worker commitment, since the inclusion of workers in the Management Committees is likely to widen decision-making capacity and, at the same time, make staff more committed to care delivery. On the other hand, workers mentioned resistance arising from a struggle to maintain the concentration of power within the professional categories, and the challenge of dealing with differing conflicts of interests. The study suggests that the Management Committees and Production Units should include possibilities of addressing conflicts and intersubjective processes to avoid becoming excessively idealized and ineffective spaces.

Afro-Brazilians’ life experiences in Paris ethno-racial identification and social recognition: new positioning, new negotiation

ABSTRACTAfro-Brazilians’ life experiences in Paris are manifold. This paper examines the intercultural dynamic within the transnational European and French contexts and explores how nonwhite Brazilians negotiate their socio-racial relations and their strategies of integration and socialization. This piece draws from our fieldwork and semi-directive interviews carried out from 2005 to 2009 with Afro-Brazilians living in Paris. A particular emphasis was given to the subjective and inter-subjective cognitive processes underpinning the actions and the objective choices of this population in their daily lives. We have focused on the elements generated by the processes of identification which are paradoxically fluid and marked at the same time, revealing a combination that emphasizes the constructed feature of the ethno-racial identities both in Brazil and in France. Likewise, we could observe that the Brazilian skin color identification is repositioned in the French context where the Brazilian paradigm of chromatic racial classification gradually loses its singularity.

The machine for living in the conversational age

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate possibilities for a more intersubjective digital design process that amplifies the potential for novelty to arise. Design/methodology/approach – First the author will explore the metaphorical concept of the house as a machine in two different contexts, the industrial age, and conversational age, discussing how each concept can generate variety in the built environment. Second, the author presents some examples of conversational customization in architecture along with the Woka, an ongoing research project that attempts to create a more conversational design process. Finally, the author will discuss the possibility of conversational customization in design as a possible solution to a more open and intersubjective process in design. Findings – The author finds that a possible way to reach a true paradigm shift in the process of production of architectural space is to use conversation as a design approach, from design to use, shifting the focus from the o...

Espaço, pessoa e movimento na socialidade ameríndia: sobre os modos Huni Kuin de relacionalidade

O artigo explora as práticas huni kuin constitutivas de socialidade, das pessoas e, simultaneamente, das suas relações com o ambiente. Ao criar a si mesmos num sentido material e social em processos intersubjetivos ocorridos em configurações específicas do espaço-tempo, forjam conexões contingentes de posse entre pessoas e lugares, e criam as condições para abrir clareiras temporárias de espaço humano num mundo vigiado e cuidado por entidades não-humanas. Num primeiro momento, o artigo relembra o empenho das lideranças huni kuin em defender seus direitos de propriedade e insistir na demarcação das terras indígenas, conforme especificado pela legislação brasileira, para o qual usam uma linguagem discursiva não-indígena. O enfoque principal deste ensaio, no entanto, recai sobre as práticas indígenas da vida diária. Explora-se a noção de que, em um sentido proeminente, para este povo da Amazônia, o território não é fixo, mas depende da constante transformação da copresença huni kuin envolvida nas relações entre si e com outras entidades e pessoas do mundo circundante.

Los Países Latinoamericanos de Renta Media Alta y su influencia en la configuración del régimen de la Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo

Este artículo tiene como objetivo analizar el rol que Países Latinoamericanos de Renta Media Alta (PLRMA) asumen en la reconfiguración del régimen de la Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (CID). Para ello, se parte de un enfoque teórico constructivista que sugiere que la identidad de los Estados desempeña un papel fundamental en las relaciones internacionales. Así, se contrastan los supuestos teóricos constructivista con el discurso asumido por estos países en la Primera Reunión de Alto Nivel de la Alianza Global para la Cooperación Eficaz al Desarrollo. Los resultados muestran que la postura de dichos países es resultado de un proceso intersubjetivo de identidades que incide en la transformación del régimen de la CID. El artículo concluye destacando la importancia de las identidades para determinar dos visiones de la CID en Latinoamérica, entre la conciliación y la alternancia del régimen actual.

Les processus de symbolisation et de représentation comme espace transitionnel pour la psychanalyse et les neurosciences

ObjectivesA large body of research has developed recently at the interface between psychoanalysis and the neurosciences, and this encounter could influence both theory and clinical practice. In order to study these reciprocal influences, following a few epistemological remarks concerning possible points of convergence and compatibility between psychoanalysis and the neurosciences (as is currently observed in the field of neuropsychoanalysis), two lines of approach to the processes of symbolization and representation are explored. MethodThe main approach consisted in crossing models from the neurosciences and psychoanalysis using a literature review, in order to evaluate their common points and their differences. We first studied the symbolization process and the way in which the psyche progressively transforms, notably in reflexive manner, leading on to the emergence of the first forms of subjectivity. In this perspective, we set out to focus more especially on the most archaic level of construction of the psyche, that which concerns primary symbolization processes. We then studied a second line of approach related to representational and hallucinatory processes as the last “link” in symbolic and figurative activity. The issue here is to study the construction of the psyche from the point of view of positive and negative hallucinatory processes, and to demonstrate their close links with perception phenomena as evidenced by the numerous processes that generate representations. ResultsIt appears that psychoanalytical and neuroscience models share sufficiently numerous features to be potentially compatible in these domains. They offer two different perspectives on the same object of research, which can be valuable for researchers and clinicians in both fields. DiscussionCurrent models in the neurosciences and psychoanalysis stress the notion that the psyche needs a process of transformation for certain forms of subjectivity to emerge, driven in particular by primary symbolization and intersubjective processes. More globally, the construction of the psychic entity is linked to complex homeostatic logics which organize the way in which the first forms of the psyche are produced. Concerning the representation process, both approaches stress the close association between hallucination and perception, and the way in which this representation-hallucination link can be strongly influenced by emotions, and can change dramatically in case of regressive and traumatic experiences. Psychoanalysis states more specifically that mental representation is a construction process that depends in particular on primary relationships. Several recent findings in the field of mental and visual representations in the cognitive neurosciences could also have an impact on psychoanalytical theories. ConclusionThe two domains of symbolization and representation can be considered to be a relevant transitional space for the encounter of psychoanalysis and neuroscience. If this encounter is carefully managed so as to avoid certain pitfalls, it can open the way towards original theoretical and clinical perspectives, and scope for constructing integrative models.

‘Who are you, and what are you doing here’: methodological considerations in ethnographic Health and Physical Education research

In the pursuit of understanding declining levels of participation from scholastic Health and Physical Education (HPE), ethnographic research has been increasingly utilised as a tool to explore the intersubjective and intrasubjective meaning-making processes that concurrently invite or dissuade participation. Despite the ostensible epistemological benefits of deploying ethnographic research as a vehicle for better understanding contextual HPE (dis)engagement processes and meanings, a critical methodological discussion of the actual implementation and positionality of these methods is largely absent in the extant literature. Reflecting on an ethnographic study conducted with adolescent boys at a Canadian elementary school, this paper provides HPE ethnographers with a series of methodological deliberations, and reflexive points of departure for consideration in the design and implementation of ethnographic research. Specifically, this paper elucidates the process of rapport building with teachers/students, the omnipresent tensions, ethical dilemmas and triumphs that can emerge during ethnography, and the various socio-contextual interview factors that can influence data generation.

Psychology Without Psy Professionals: Exploring an Unemployed Centre Families Project as a Mental Health Resource

ABSTRACTThe activities and technologies of the psychology (Psy) disciplines, in the process of privileging professional understandings of distress, could be seen to be potentially facilitating corrosion in the capacity of the lay public to understand and ameliorate their distress. This paper draws on the experiences of people who use an Unemployed Centre Families Project in the South of England to provide an example of community mental health work that does not draw on the dominant discourses, institutions or practitioners of the Psy sciences. Through interviews with centre users, staff and volunteers, a picture emerges of a community space that provides a variety of services, projects and opportunities that have a very considerable positive impact on the mental well‐being of the centre users. This picture highlights non‐medical intersubjective processes that offer possibilities for recoveries from mental distress but that are often neglected and subordinated in the professional worlds of Psy and psychiatry. Such centres facilitate social networks and practical help, and transitions in identity can be beneficial for those experiencing mental distress. In so doing, they make prominent some of the key limitations of biomedical approaches to recovery. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.