Psychosocial Studies Research Articles

Mass psychology and psychosocial assemblies

In the 100 years since Freud’s Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921) was published, much has changed and much has stayed the same. This article explores the resonance of Freud’s book with contemporary issues around inclusion and exclusion, masses and assemblies, and the question of how a practice of ethical relationality can emerge across a shared social terrain. Drawing on concepts from psychosocial studies and leaning especially on Judith Butler’s recent work on assemblies and on grievability, I argue that patterns of division and exclusion, notably along racialized lines, emerge from insistently violent responses to vulnerability. Understanding the intricate intersection between what are usually differentiated as ‘personal’ and ‘social’ domains in ways recognizable within group analysis, is an important move towards contesting this violence and towards a situation in which all lives become grievable.

Becoming my mother’s eyes

Linking the person and the society, psychosocial studies is a discipline that can link psychoanalysis with research to study ways in which psychic experience and social life are fundamentally entangled with each other. Through this article I explore the parallel process of how I became the mother of my mother as my mother struggled to adjust to sight loss. I became blind to myself in order to be able to see her and for her. I will discuss how that process was enhanced, if not created, through social components that surrounded our specific situation. Starting from my natal Mexican context and the way my country understands disability from a charity model, I reflect on my journey to move internationally to find different ways to understand and work with blindness, at last arriving at the social model of disability. That journey led me to find my mentors, who, through a pedagogical process, provided me with the gaze I lacked from my mother, thus reformulating my identity to inform the person I am today.

Intensive care, autoethnography and solidarity

This article begins by providing a personal narrative of the intensive nature of the care between myself and my mother in the context of living through childhood liver disease, transplantation and cancer, often in hospital far from home. Psychosocial studies is argued to offer reflexive ways of working to process complexity and trauma, particularly autoethnography. The strength of working with an educator who has a relational approach to teaching, demonstrating transparency in approaches to writing and learning and sharing rich personal narratives, is explored. Crociani-Windland’s approach to practising an intimate pedagogy is found to be personally transformational and echoes through my current practice as an early-career academic.

Mothering, caring and educating: learning from experience and psychosocial pedagogy

This article takes its starting point from aspects of the author’s biography and her experiences of supervising students who have in common experiences of being so-called ‘parental’ or ‘parentified’ children. Bion’s work and biography are used to understand how working autobiographically on difficult experiences can offer containment based on learning from experience and how these efforts link to key aspects and practices of psychosocial studies. Experience, theory and practice are presented as intertwined. The premature development of parental children, with its gains and losses, provides a thread through the article that also leads to aspects of psychosocial pedagogy as a relational practice. Ethics of care are seen as providing a facilitating environment where autobiographical writing and reflexive practice add depth to learning and development. Winnicott and Benjamin’s work contribute to outlining a relational pedagogy suited to psychosocial studies, which brings external circumstances in relation to the internal world of both learner and educators, in terms of theory, ethics and practice.

A systematic review of how spinal cord injury impacts families.

This systematic review synthesizes the existing literature on the impact of spinal cord injury (SCI) on families, including parenting, marital relations, and caregivers' psychological adjustment. Seven databases were searched for relevant peer-reviewed studies. Dissertations, chapters, editorials, and review articles were excluded. Sixty-six studies that examined SCI's impact on caregivers and families were included. The review included 55 quantitative studies, 10 qualitative studies, and one study that utilized both methodologies. Among the quantitative psychosocial adjustment studies, as well as the qualitative studies, lack of social support was associated with an increased sense of burden, stress, depression, anxiety, and poorer physical health in caregivers. In the family relationship studies (n = 7), few significant differences were found in family functioning. Marital relationship studies (n = 12) frequently examined intimacy (sex, partner affirmations, and emotional support) as an important facet for determining positive or negative outcomes when one partner had SCI. However, divorce rates appeared to increase over time postinjury. Though few studies investigated caregiver needs and interventions (n = 5), needs for social support and information were identified, and several interventions (e.g., family education, more social support, and problem-solving training) were beneficial for promoting caregivers' psychosocial adjustment. SCI significantly impacts caregivers' sense of burden and psychological distress, with major implications for family functioning and caregivers' physical, mental, and social health. These issues occurred internationally and endured over time. Findings indicated the need for focused interventions to support caregivers' psychosocial adjustment after SCI. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Autotheory and the maternal: my impossible mother–daughter separation

This special edition of the Journal of Psychosocial Studies is based on 2019 Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society (APCS) conference presentations on the theme of displacement. Having listened to the presentations, I offer this paper as my own response to similar issues of mother–daughter displacement. Inspired by the panel’s analysis of the maternal in interpersonal relations and professional affinities, I begin by exploring my intersectional adult identities of daughter, mother and teacher to expose my ambivalence towards my career in literature and psychoanalysis. I continue by applying psychoanalytic theory to the pedagogical transference in my classroom space and uncover my own misguided attempt at maternal separation. Drawing correlations with Maggie Nelson’s (2015) The Argonauts, I conclude by contemplating autotheory as a space of self-writing that is particularly suitable for explorations of the maternal in both form and content. Autotheory, I argue, as exemplified in the panel and my response, extends the impossibility of mother–daughter separation into a meaningful shared plurality.

Intrauterine insemination in unexplained infertility

Infertility is the inability of a couple to conceive after one year of regular and unprotected intercourse. It is a common problem with a global prevalence rate of approximately 9%; in developing countries, this may affect up to 25% of couples [1, 2]. In 2010, an estimated 48.5 million couples worldwide were unable to have a child after five years of trying [2]. According to prior psychosocial studies, it is known that both infertility and its treatment can lead to emotional and psychological stress, and thus threaten the quality of life for infertile couples [3]. Moreover, fertility treatments may not be offered early enough and so those with infertility suffer for a potentially longer duration. Being a prospective study, the completeness of the data is a strong point of this study. All eligible patients fulfilling the inclusion and exclusion criteria were enrolled to avoid sampling bias.

Voyages around mothers: departures and returns

This piece is a personal response to the articles in this special issue of the Journal of Psychosocial Studies. It identifies three themes that seem to unite the articles: children’s emotional labour; repair and generativity; and après-coup or Nachträglichkeit. It is also suggested that there is an absence – the shadow of envy, competition and rivalry, which also tends to run through the matrix of so many mother–daughter and supervisor–supervisee relations. Further, it is suggested that any future iterations of these relationships would be enriched by integrating contributions on the ways in which not only collusion, competition and oedipal struggles, but also hierarchy and asymmetry are especially problematic sources of psychic pain when women supervise women.

A contextualized perspective on research participation in collaborative refugee research: A multi-site exploration of relational dynamics in collaborative research.

An increasing body of literature emphasizes the role of refugees' social context, with social conditions both at home and in the host society having an impact on the possibility of power redistribution and the mobilization of agency in collaborative research practices. Our aim is to develop a contextualized understanding of research participation for refugees in collaborative research in order to further enhance insights on the potential strengths and pitfalls of collaborative refugee research. We closely study the various relational contexts that shape refugees' research participation and that may have an influence on power dynamics in collaborative research. In the present study, we explore participants' adaptation of research participation by means of an interpretive cross-case analysis of three psychosocial intervention studies sharing a collaborative approach with refugee participants, refugee families, refugee communities, and professional partners at different stages in the research process. We identify the developed collaborative strategies in our three case studies and provide an outline of the ways refugees mobilize research participation through these identified collaborative strategies, from within the relational contexts of the family, community, and institutional actors. This analysis shows how research participation operates as a relational forum in which refugees continuously navigate and negotiate within and between multiple relational contexts. We argue that performing research participation, as a way of relating to a relational context, is both an interactive and a dynamic process. For research practice, our analysis addresses the importance of an in-depth understanding of participants' relational contexts to foster both a reflective research practice and trustful research relationships between researchers and participants. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Clinical and Genetic Aspects of Huntington's Disease in the Malian Population.

Huntington's disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disorder caused by mutation in the HTT gene and characterized by involuntary movements as well as cognitive and behavioral impairment. Since its first description 150 years ago, studies have been reported worldwide. However, genetically confirmed cases have been scarce in Africa. To describe the clinical and genetic aspects of HD in the Malian population. Patients with HD phenotype and their relatives were enrolled after obtaining consent. Symptoms were assessed using the Total Motor Scale (TMS) of the United Huntington's Disease Rating Scale (UHDRS) and the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Brain imaging and blood tests were performed to exclude other causes. DNA was extracted for HTT sequencing. Eighteen patients (13 families) with a HD phenotype were evaluated. A familial history of the disease was found in 84.6% with 55.5% of maternal transmission. The average length of the HTT CAG repeat was 43.6±11.5 (39-56) CAGs. The mean age at onset was 43.1±9.7years. Choreic movements were the predominant symptoms (100% of the cases) with an average TMS of 49.4±30.8, followed by cognitive impairment (average MMSE score: 23.0±12.0) and psychiatric symptoms with 22.2% and 44.4%, respectively. This is one of the largest HD cohorts reported in Africa. Increasing access to genetic testing could uncover many other HD cases and disease-modifying genetic variants. Future haplotype and psychosocial studies may inform the origin of the Malian mutation and the impact of the disease on patients and their relatives.

The Family Transmission of Ethnic Prejudice: A Systematic Review of Research Articles with Adolescents

Ethnic prejudice is one of the most studied topics in social psychology. Empirical research on its development and intergenerational transmission is increasing but still scarce. This systematic review collected and analyzed psychosocial studies focused on the transmission of ethnic prejudice within families with adolescents. Specifically, it aimed at addressing the following research questions: (a) To what extent is there a vertical (between parents and children) and horizontal (between siblings) transmission of ethnic prejudice within the family? (b) Is this process unidirectional (from parents to children) or bidirectional (between parents and children)? (c) Which individual and/or relational variables influence this process? (d) Can adolescents’ intergroup contact experiences affect the family influence on adolescents’ ethnic prejudice? The literature search of four databases (Ebsco, Scopus, PubMed, and Web of Science), carried out from February 2021 to May 2021, following the PRISMA guidelines, yielded 22 articles that matched the eligibility criteria. The findings highlighted a moderate bidirectional transmission of ethnic prejudice between parents and adolescents, which was influenced by several individual and relational variables (e.g., the adolescents’ age and sex and the family relationship quality). Moreover, the adolescents’ frequent and positive contacts with peers of different ethnicities reduced the parents’ influence on the adolescents’ ethnic prejudice. The findings are discussed, and their limitations and implications for intervention and future research are considered.

A Feminist Ethos of Point Zero

A Feminist Ethos of Point Zero

The Relationship of COVID-19 Student Stress with School Burnout, Depression and Subjective Well-Being: Adaptation of the COVID-19 Student Stress Scale into Turkish

COVID-19 has caused psychological problems in all age groups since it emerged from the first day. One of the most important groups has been affected negatively during the COVID-19 pandemic process are university students. One of the negative situations caused by the pandemic process in university students is student stress caused by COVID-19. To assess stress situations in Italian culture, the COVID-19 student stress scale (CSS-S) has been developed. In this context, the aim of this study was to adapt the CSS-S into Turkish. Another aim of the study was to investigate the direct and indirect relationships of COVID-19 student stress with school burnout, depression and subjective well-being. The participants of the study were 485 Turkish university students. The values obtained with the confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the factor structure of CSS-S is satisfying (χ2/df = 2.99, AGFI = .95, TLI = .93, CFI = .96, IFI = .96, REMSEA = .06, SRMR = .04). Moreover, it was found that school burnout has a mediating role in the relationship between COVID-19 student stress and depression and subjective well-being (χstructure of CSS-S is satisfying/df = 2.41, AGFI = .87, TLI = .91, CFI = .91, IFI = .91, REMSEA = .05, SRMR = .05). These findings imply that psychosocial intervention studies to reduce COVID-19 student stress can reduce students' school burnout and depression. It also implies that these psychosocial intervention studies can have a positive impact on students' subjective well-being.

How Do Cannabis and Synthetic Cannabinoids Affect Neurocognitive Functions?

In this study, the losses of neurocognitive function caused by the use of cannabis and synthetic cannabinoid were studied on specific cognitive areas (attention and working memory, executive functions, visuospatial perception, learning and memory, planning and problem solving, word naming) and were described in comparision with healthy controls (control group). In this study, while 52 participants who applied to Ege University Faculty of Medicine Department of Mental Health and Mental Disorders Drug Addiction Treatment Center Clinic between March 2015 - February 2017 and used cannabis at least for one year in the past and 51 participants who used synthetic cannabinoids for at least one year in the past were participant groups with a history of substance use; 57 staff/student of Ege University with no history of any substance use were participants of the control group. The research sample consisted of 160 participants. The sample group consisted of 160 men aged 18-35, and also 16 participants aged 36-54 were involved in the study in order to observe neuropsychological functions that changed with age. Stroop Test for attention area, Raven Standart Progressive Matrices Test for executive functions area, Line Orientation Test and Cancellation Test for visuospatial perception area, Serial Digit Learning Test and Öktem Verbal Memory Progresses Scale for learning and memory area, The Tower of London Test for planning and problem solving skill, Boston Naming Test for word naming area were used. In this study, while the lowest perfomance on the ability of focused attention, visuospatial cognition, visual scanning, orientation, sustained attention, general ability, short-term memory, learning, long-term memory, word naming was shown by the participants with a history of synthetic cannabis use, the participants with a history of cannabis use had the lowest performance on the ability of response rate, perseveration, conceptualizing, abstract thinking, changing sets, recognition. Participants' history of substance use did not affect the ability of planning and problem solving. In conclusion, this study suggests that the addition of cognitive rehabilitation programs to medical and psychosocial improvement studies carried out in the field of addiction will increase the success.

Assessment of Quality of Life in Chinese Patients with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

Background: Despite the changing landscape of treatment of chronic lymphoma leukemia (CLL) and in contrast to the large number of quality of life (QoL) and psychosocial studies in patients with solid tumors, relatively few studies have reported QoL in patients with CLL. This study aims to assess depression, anxiety, stress and QoL in a Chinese CLL cohort.Patients and Methods: Taking advantage of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) QLQ-C30 accompanying CLL-specific module QLQ-CLL17 questionnaire and DASS-21 questionnaire, a total of 50 Chinese patients with CLL completed self-reported questionnaires from December 2019 to July 2021, assessing the level of depression, anxiety, stress and QoL.Results: Among the 50 CLL patients, 34 patients were male. The median age was 57 (22-77) years old. 66% of the patients were uncertain about the staging of the disease. 36% of the patients were uncertain about therapeutic implications of CLL. According to EORTC QLQ-C30, patients had low level of physical functioning, role functioning, emotional functioning, cognitive functioning and social functioning were 80%, 32%, 68%, 66%, 64%, respectively. Patients in active-treatment group had significantly lower level of physical function than “watch and wait” group (90% vs. 65%, P=0.03). The proportion of patients with cognitive problems was significantly higher in female patients than in male patients (93.8% vs. 52.9%, P=0.004). According to QLQ-CLL17, patients with symptom burden, physical condition and worries about health were 94% (47/50), 86% (43/50), 98% (48/50). Patients under 60 years old had higher scores for worries about health than patients older than 60. According to DASS-21 questionnaire, 86% of the patients had depression symptomatic scores (mild grade: 2%, medium grade: 52%, severe grade: 20%, very severe grade: 12%). 84% of the patients had anxiety symptomatic scores ( mild grade: 6%, medium grade: 14%, severe grade: 30%, very severe grade: 34%). 64% of the patients had stress symptomatic scores ( mild grade: 18%, medium grade: 22%, severe grade: 16%, very severe grade: 8%). And these psychosocial issues had no significant correlation with gender, age, household income and treatment . The same questionnaires were completed by 5 patients for the second time after median 8（2-18）months. Compared to the initial assessment, they scored significantly worse on the emotional scales (P=0.0237). No significant difference regarding physical functioning, role functioning, cognitive functioning and social functioning were observed between the former and the latter.Conclusions: The majority of CLL patients had impaired QoL and psychosocial issues. Active-treatment patients had worse physical condition than “watch and wait” patients. Male patients had better cognitive functioning. Younger patients had more worries about health than the elderly. Greater efforts should be made in management of CLL patients. DisclosuresNo relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Reanimating the plague

The idea of ‘plague’ has returned to public consciousness with the arrival of COVID-19. An anachronistic and extremely problematic concept for thinking about biopolitical catastrophe, plague nevertheless offers an enormous historical range and a potentially highly generative metaphorical framework for psychosocial studies to engage with, for example, through Albert Camus’ (2013) The Plague and Sophocles’ (2015) Oedipus The King. It is, moreover, a word that is likely to remain firmly within the remit of public consciousness as we move further into the Anthropocene, to face further pandemics and the spectre of antibiotic resistance. A return to plague also opens up the question of a return to psychoanalysis, which Freud is often cited as having described as a ‘plague’. Psychoanalysis is, like plague, a troubling and problematic discourse for psychosocial studies, but, like plague, it may also help us to work through the disorders and dis-eases of COVID times. In fact, if the recent pandemic has reanimated the notion of plague, the plague metaphor may in turn help to reanimate psychoanalysis, and in this article we suggest some of the analogical, even genealogical, resonances of such an implication.

Expanding access to psychosocial research studies during the COVID-19 pandemic through virtual modalities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused psychosocial researchers and clinicians to quickly shift from standard in-person practices to remote modalities. Despite calls to maintain current virtual care modalities due to the potential to improve access to health care, we are not yet aware of any scholarly works which explicitly describe specific modifications made in response to the restrictions to face-to-face care, resulting access, and implications for the field. This commentary describes how modifications to transition both clinical and research processes to fully virtual modalities in 2 ongoing integrated primary care clinical trials during the COVID-19 pandemic increased access. Given the feasibility of implementing these modifications and the success demonstrated by increased enrollment, we advocate for continued use of virtual modalities for both clinical work and research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Views of healthcare professionals on recruiting to a psychosocial randomised controlled trial: a qualitative study

BackgroundRandomised controlled trials, and in particular those of psychosocial interventions, often fail to recruit to target, resulting in underpowered trials with poor generalisability of findings. The objectives of this study were to explore the views of healthcare professionals on recruiting to psychosocial research studies, and to explore their views on factors that may hinder or facilitate recruitment.MethodsWe conducted 14 semi-structured interviews, with healthcare professionals who had been involved in recruitment into a randomised controlled trial of a talking therapy for depression in patients with advanced cancer. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis.ResultsFive primary themes were identified, comprised of 11 subthemes. Attitudes towards research were largely positive. Health care professionals identified lack of time and narrow screening criteria as barriers to recruitment, and also noted the tendency to withhold participants from research for reasons other than eligibility (e.g., gatekeeping). The engagement of the study team with the clinical recruitment site, and the frequent presence of a researcher in clinics, were noted as facilitating recruitment.ConclusionsHealthcare professionals involved in recruiting to trials of psychosocial interventions hold generally positive views of psychosocial research. However, they report that constraints including space and time limit their ability to recruit, and express anxieties about approaching patients for trial recruitment in the palliative phase of their illness. The findings from this study can inform how best to design trials, and in particular trials of psychosocial interventions, and train health care professionals for the study, to maximise recruitment.

The devil his due: Psychohistory and psychosocial studies

This paper revisits and reevaluates the Eriksonian branch of psycho-historians, whose academic influence peaked in the early 1970s before falling largely out of sight by the start of the twenty-first century. Why did what I argue was an unwarranted eclipse occur? The foremost figures in this loose grouping were Erikson himself, Robert J. Lifton, Kenneth Keniston, and Robert Coles. What can the comparatively new field of psychosocial studies usefully learn and integrate from these mostly neglected predecessors? I examine how this widespread academic amnesia set in and explain the relevance of the Eriksonian tradition, relate ways in which psycho-historians trailblazed psychosocial studies, address the importance of an intrinsic “activist ingredient” in such ventures, and argue that both psychohistory and psychosocial studies stand to benefit greatly from such an intellectual exchange.

Devices for illuminating defended subjectivities in complex qualitative case interpretation: an example from recent BNIM practice

For a long time now, fairly central to what has emerged as ‘psychosocial studies’ has been the notion of psychosocietal ‘defendedness’. This is the psychoanalytic notion that people (not excluding social science researchers) must be understood in general as being ‘defended subjectivities’. This immediately raises the question of the ‘defended researcher’ being sensitive to – and having procedures for detecting and interpreting the working of – such ‘defensiveness’ in the interactions of their subjects and themselves. Biography-based research raises these issues particularly strongly. One such method, known as the ‘biographical narrative interpretative method’ (BNIM) of interviewing and case interpretation, has been used in the anglophone world for more than 20 years. While BNIM prescribes an audit trail for its interpretative practices, it is rare to discover a fully audited sequence of components, and rarer still to have access to illuminating free-associative fieldnotes that catalogue the researcher’s evolving subjectivity. This article discusses defendedness in a case interpretation within a BNIM-using PhD. We conclude that, to defeat the defensiveness of both researcher and peer-auditor (the co-authors of this article), several BNIM techniques need to be used systematically and that, in particular, a ‘private and confidential’ independent peer audit is valuable under certain conditions, and should be provided for in any research proposal. Through peer audit, the researcher can be (usually uncomfortably) sensitised to new possibilities about their otherwise inadequately understood defended processes and conclusions.