Self Psychology Research Articles

Personal Meaning and Landscape in Mrs. Dalloway: An Ecocritical Study

This research paper applies an ecocritical perspective to Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway and studies how nature has been used to describe personal feelings of the characters, both major and minor in the context of industrialization and post-World War 1 era in London. Through the ecocritical lens, this paper explores how Woolf links natural elements like flowers, trees and sky with her writing techniques of the stream of consciousness and inner monologue to echo the psychological self of different characters. The ideas presented by the theorist Richard Kerridge, that of a possible ‘poetic engagement’ of literature with the natural world in an industrialized era, and Britain’s nature as a common self-referent have been taken as the framework for this research. The major research questions are: How does Woolf use nature to describe the emotional states of different characters? What role does nature play in the process of pain and healing of the characters? Why does Woolf feel the need to incorporate nature imagery while describing her character’s innermost thoughts? The paper carries out a close textual analysis of the novel, focusing on all the statements that link nature with the characters’ emotions, and draws to a conclusion claiming that this recurrence of nature in Mrs. Dalloway is a deliberate act on the author’s part to at least figuratively preserve nature in a time period that has destroyed as well as pushed nature into the background.

Personal Meaning and Landscape in Mrs. Dalloway: An Ecocritical Study

This research paper applies an ecocritical perspective to Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway and studies how nature has been used to describe personal feelings of the characters, both major and minor in the context of industrialization and post-World War 1 era in London. Through the ecocritical lens, this paper explores how Woolf links natural elements like flowers, trees and sky with her writing techniques of the stream of consciousness and inner monologue to echo the psychological self of different characters. The ideas presented by the theorist Richard Kerridge, that of a possible ‘poetic engagement’ of literature with the natural world in an industrialized era, and Britain’s nature as a common self-referent have been taken as the framework for this research. The major research questions are: How does Woolf use nature to describe the emotional states of different characters? What role does nature play in the process of pain and healing of the characters? Why does Woolf feel the need to incorporate nature imagery while describing her character’s innermost thoughts? The paper carries out a close textual analysis of the novel, focusing on all the statements that link nature with the characters’ emotions, and draws to a conclusion claiming that this recurrence of nature in Mrs. Dalloway is a deliberate act on the author’s part to at least figuratively preserve nature in a time period that has destroyed as well as pushed nature into the background.

Fragmentation of Identities: Adrienne Kennedy's Funnyhouse of a Negro

Funnyhouse of a Negro (1964) is an Obie winning play penned by a prolific writer, Adrienne Kennedy. Premiered at the 4th Street Theatre in New York City, the play has earned significant recognition for its innovative approach and poignant exploration of racial and psychological themes. The play was awarded with an Obie for Best New American Play in 1965, marking a significant milestone in Kennedy’s career and in the landscape of American Drama. Set against the backdrop of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, the play reflects the era’s racial tensions and societal pressures. The play follows Sarah, a young black woman struggling with a fractured identity. Through a series of disjointed scenes and dialogues, Sarah adopts multiple personas that represent different facets of her racial, cultural, and psychological self. This paper aims to analyze Sarah’s identity by exploring the symbolism of each persona and the impact of her parents. This paper argues that Sarah’s personas are not arbitrary but represent her profound psychological conflict and the impossibility of reconciling disparate aspects of her identity.

Psychological preservation of volunteers during the war: An empirical analysis

The article presents the results of an empirical study of the psychological self-preservation of volunteers with varying lengths of volunteer experience. The main structural components of psychological self preservation, the level of subjective stress, and the psychological safety of the individual are identified. The presence of meaning in life and personal characteristics such as extraversion, friendliness, conscientiousness, and openness to new experiences were examined. The use of basic coping strategies in stressful situations was analysed. In order to study the psychological self-preservation of the personality of volunteers through structural components, including cognitive, emotional, behavioural, and social, the following psychodiagnostic methods were used: Ukrainian adaptation of the short five-factor personality questionnaire (TIPI-UKR); “Express diagnostics of the psychological safety of the individual”; Questionnaire of the Perceived Stress Scale PSS-10; The Meaning of Life Questionnaire MLQ 2006, and the method of psychological diagnostics of coping mechanisms (E. Heim). Psychological self-preservation implies the ability of a person to effectively adapt to negative events and the ability to think positively and rationally assess the situation. This implies the ability to manage emotions, create a positive social environment, and have the resources to restore mental and physical health after difficult life events. It was found that in the subjects, with an increase in the duration of volunteer work, the level of subjective stress increases and the level of feeling of psychological safety decreases, which also indicates that volunteer work is a complex multifaceted process and requires resources and energy. However, with regard to the presence of meaning in life, it can be seen that with increasing experience of volunteering, there is a higher level of presence and search for meaning in life. It can be assumed that volunteer work and helping others gives a sense of self realisation, significance, and personal importance. The search for meaning in life is relevant for all the subjects studied and reflects the current situation of self-realisation both professional and personal life and serves as a structural element of the psychological self-preservation framework, giving meaning and awareness to a person's activities. Further study of the structural components of psychological self-preservation requires the development and implementation of psychological training on the development of resistance to stressful situations, taking into account the presented results of empirical research

The Meaning of Text Visualization in Contemporary Paintings in West Sumatra

Within two decades in West Sumatra, some artists' paintings contain visualization of letters, numbers, sentences, which are sometimes arranged scattered, even upside down. This is unusual considering that contemporary painting has developed into more sophisticated forms. This research aims to explore the meaning of text visualization in contemporary paintings of artists in West Sumatra. This research uses descriptive qualitative method with Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutic approach. The object of study was selected based on purpose sampling, namely the paintings of Syahrial, Yasrul Sami, Yon Indra and Dika Adrian. The results showed that the meaning of Syahrial's painting text hints at a critical mindset in viewing the reality of life facing the value conventions of Western theories that give distance to the mindset of the community towards culture. The meaning of the text in Yasrul Sami's painting is a representation of the inner and psychological self over the problems of life. The meaning of Yon Indra's painting text leads to the essence of the attitude and mindset of the younger generation. The meaning of the text of Dika Adrian's paintings, leads to cultural consumption, social context and environment of today's young generation. From the results of the research, it can be concluded that the text in the paintings has personal meaning and social meaning. The difference in the way the text visualization is expressed in the work has an influence on cross-generational cultural consumption.

Selves, Persons, and the Neo-Lucretian Symmetry Problem

The heavily discussed (neo-)Lucretian symmetry argument holds that as we are indifferent to nonexistence before birth, we should also be indifferent to nonexistence after death. An important response to this argument insists that prenatal nonexistence differs from posthumous nonexistence because we could not have been born earlier and been the same ‘thick’ psychological self. As a consequence, we can’t properly ask whether it would be better for us to have had radically different lives either. Against this, it’s been claimed we can form preferences as to which ‘thick’ (psychological) self our ‘thin’ (metaphysical) self would be better off ‘associated’ with. I argue that these discussions draw the right distinction, but do so in the wrong place: understanding the ‘thin’ self phenomenally instead of metaphysically allows us to understand how we can rationally form preferences to have been somebody else.

Online career construction for a trauma survivor with career choice ambivalence

This article reports on the online administration of career construction counselling for a trauma survivor who sought help in resolving her career-choice ambivalence (uncertainty). The participant was purposively selected from a group of people attending a workshop on career construction counselling. An intrinsic, descriptive, exploratory intervention case study based on career construction counselling (involving administering the Career Construction Interview (CCI) to elicit the participant’s micro-narratives qualitatively) was used to generate data and adapted thematic data analysis incorporating the analytic style proposed by Savickas was used to analyse the data reflexively. The intervention shed light on the participant’s conscious knowledge about herself and on her subconsciously regulated views on her preferred future career choices. The findings confirmed the value of career construction counselling in promoting the participant’s psychological self as an autobiographical author especially. They also underlined the importance of timely intervention for trauma survivors in pre-empting the occurrence of unmastered developmental tasks and repetition of trauma. Future research should involve diverse participants in individual as well as group contexts. Equally important is contextualising the intervention discussed here to meet the distinctive diversity needs of participants in individual and group contexts.

Constructing the 'Self' in Islamic Psychology: Challenges and Opportunities

The Self is one of the core concepts in Islamic psychology. However, the concept of the Self found in recent Islamic psychology discourse is still quite unclear since its understanding of the soul remains debatable. A deeper study on the concept of the Self should be carried out to refine the essence of the Self in Islamic psychology and straighten the problematic and reductive understanding on these issues. This paper will give brief review on the studies of the Self in Islamic psychology, then provide some views about the challenges and opportunities to develop this concept. Further discussions about this issue are also discussed in this article.

The Cross and Our Calling

Redeemer University is a Canadian Christian university located in Ancaster, Ontario. Founded in 1983 in the Reformed Christian tradition, Redeemer’s mission is to prepare students to join Christ in his redemptive work through their careers and callings, while also fostering faculty research and scholarship in every discipline from a Christian perspective. Over the past forty years, Redeemer has evolved from a small college with limited degree granting authority to a full university offering a variety of programs including a B.A., B.Sc., B.Ed., B.B.A., B.Kin., and B. Comms. Redeemer currently faces challenges stemming from a post-Christian Canadian culture and the impact it has had on widespread individual belief in the psychological self as the ultimate source for personal identity and understanding. The changing higher education marketplace also contains a proliferation of degree granting institutions, and students are increasingly seeking clear and direct pathways to careers, making institutions like Redeemer with traditional degree nomenclature to appear less relevant and desirable. However, some of these challenges also present opportunities. Post-Christian culture also means that more Christians desire a unique, faith-based higher education institution, as it becomes more difficult to express faith in public spaces.

“Who am I?”, diminished sense of self in Korsakoff’s syndrome

ABSTRACT Little is known about how patients with Korsakoff’s syndrome (KS) experience sense of self. We addressed this issue by inviting patients with KS and control participants to produce statements describing their self, that is, statements to the question “Who am I?.” Statements were analyzed regarding three self-dimensions (i.e., physical, social, and psychological). Results showed fewer “Who am I?” statements related to physical, social, and psychological self in patients with KS than in control participants. Furthermore, patients with KS produced similar number of statements describing physical, social, and psychological self; the same finding was observed in control participants. In patients with KS and control participants, verbal fluency was significantly correlated with the general production of “Who am I?” statements but not with the production of statements related to any specific self-component. These findings demonstrate how KS affects self-images in general, and more specifically, those related to physical, social, and psychological self. These findings also suggest a diminished sense of self or even identity, in patients with KS.

In Between the Psychological and Physiological Self - The Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on the Neuro-Socio-Ecological and Inflammatory Mind-Body-Brain System.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on individuals' sense of self perturbating the sense of connectedness with the others, touching upon deep existential fears and deep intersubjective and cultural layers, emphasizing the importance of a neuro-socio-ecological alignment for the sense of security of psychological self. We can still observe after years how social distancing measures, quarantines, and lockdowns have disrupted social connections and routines, leading to feelings of isolation, anxiety and depressive symptomatology. Furthermore, from a physiological perspective, some people continue to experience health problems long after having COVID-19, and these ongoing health problems are sometimes called post-COVID-19 syndrome or post-COVID conditions (PASC). In this complex scenario, through the operationalization of the sense of self and its psychological and physiological baseline, our aim is to try to shed some new light on elements of resilience vs. vulnerability. Here we intend the self and its baseline as the crossroads between psychology and physiology and we show how COVID-19 pandemic, especially in post-COVID-19 syndrome (PACS), left traces in the mind-body-brain system at a neuro-socio-ecological and inflammatory level.

Integral Psychology: A new science of self, personality, and psychology

This paper outlines a theory of psychology based on Sri Aurobindo’s conceptualization of the human being. Starting with the basic notion of self and personhood in contemporary academic psychology, largely located in the lower levels of psychological functioning, the field of Transpersonal Psychology is used as a stepping stone to access the higher reaches of humanity. A brief outline of the Advaita Vedāntic perspectives on personality then paves the way for Sri Aurobindo’s neo-Vedāntic depiction of the person. The contribution of the integral approach to the transformation of emotions, and its role in psychotherapy is then outlined. It is the author’s contention that Sri Aurobindo’s system contains a comprehensive framework of psychology, which allows for both Western as well as Indian conceptualization of the psyche and provides a synthesis, which is more than a mere sum of parts, giving a vision for an optimistic and glorious future of humankind, paving the way for divine life to manifest upon earth.

Mystical poetry and the ontology of the self in liberation psychology.

Mystical poetry and the ontology of the self in liberation psychology.

"Who am I?": Weakened sense of the self in patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia.

While research has shown a distrusted sense of the self in patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), little is known about how patients describe their self-image. We used the "Who am I?" task to invite patients with bvFTD and control participants to produce statements beginning with "I am…." We distinguished between statements related to physical, social, and psychological self. Analyses showed fewer statements related to physical, social, and psychological self in the patients with bvFTD than in control participants. Another result was the proportionally similar production of statements describing physical, social, and psychological self in both patients with bvFTD and control participants. Finally, the total production of "Who am I?" statements was positively correlated with verbal fluency in both patients with bvTFD and control participants. Our findings demonstrate a diminished ability of patients with bvFTD to process self-images. Our study also paves the way toward the use of the "Who am I" task as a simple and ecologically valid tool allowing for the quantitative and qualitative assessment of the sense of self in patients with bvFTD.

Change in the psychological self in people living with dementia: A scoping review.

Alterations in one's sense of self are often considered a significant psychological symptom of dementia. However, the self is not a unified construct; it consists of a set of closely connected, yet substantive, manifestations which might not be equally impacted by dementia. Recognising the multidimensional nature of the self, the current scoping review aimed to explore the nature and scope of the evidence demonstrating change in the psychological self in people living with dementia. Adopting a cognitive psychological framework, a hundred and five (105) quantitative and qualitative studies were reviewed, and findings were organised into three main types of self-manifestations: high-order manifestations, functional aspects of the self, and foundational manifestations. Overall, the results show that although there are alterations in some of these different manifestations of the self, these do not imply a global loss of selfhood. Despite notable cognitive changes during dementia, it seems that preserved aspects of self may be enough to compensate for potential weakening of some self-processes such as autobiographical recall. Better understanding alterations in selfhood is key to addressing psychological symptoms of people living with dementia, such as feelings of disconnection and reduced agency, and may inform new pathways for dementia care interventions.

The influence of group career construction counselling on Tanzanian high school students’ career decision-making difficulties

ABSTRACT This study examined the influence of a group career construction counselling intervention on the career decision-making difficulties of Tanzanian students. Convenience and purposive sampling were used to select 35 high school participants from a single public school in Tanzania. A qualitative approach was employed and an intrinsic single-case, descriptive, intervention career design was implemented. An eight-week career construction counselling intervention was executed. The data were generated using different qualitative data sources. Thematic data analysis was used to analyse the data. The findings revealed that the intervention enhanced most of the participants’ career decision-making capacity, bolstered participants’ psychological selves, improved their career adaptability, and bolstered their ability to make informed career decisions. Future research should focus on longitudinal studies in various contexts with different participants. Career construction counselling interventions for students of different ages and strategies to establish the long-term impact of these interventions should be devised.

The social roots of self development: from a bodily to an intellectual interpersonal dialogue.

In this paper, we propose that interpersonal bodily interactions represent a fertile ground in which the bodily and psychological self is developed, gradually allowing for forms of more abstract and disembodied interactions. We start by focusing on how early infant-caregiver bodily interactions play a crucial role in shaping the boundaries of the self but also in learning to predict others' behavior. We then explore the social function of the sense of touch in the entire life span, highlighting its role in promoting physical and psychological well-being by supporting positive interpersonal exchanges. We go on by introducing the concept of implicit theory of mind, as the early ability to interpret others' intentions, possibly grounded in infant-caregiver bodily exchanges (embodied practices). In the following part, we consider so-called higher level forms of social interaction: intellectual exchanges among individuals. In this regard, we defend the view that, beside the apparent private dimension of "thinking abstractly", using abstract concepts is intrinsically a social process, as it entails the re-enactment of the internalized dialogue through which we acquired the concepts in the first place. Finally, we describe how the hypothesis of "dialectical attunement" may explain the development of abstract thinking: to effectively transform the world according to their survival needs, individuals co-construct structured concepts of it; by doing so, humans fundamentally transform not merely the world they are being in, but their being in the world.

Morte, diagnóstico e evento

Abstract Life and death are viewed differently in different cultures, religions, and societies; therefore standardizing their meanings in multicultural societies is challenging and complex. Given this reality, this research investigated how death has been understood throughout history and its associated values. An analytic-narrative literature review was conducted, selecting 69 publications to be read in full. Society and medicine have assumed a dualistic perspective in which death of the brain function is viewed as irreversibility of the existence of a psychological self. Faced with the possibility of procuring organs and tissues from a body kept alive and operated on, life support should always aim to benefit, but without causing harm to others. For these advances to be possible, legislation must be clear and up-to-date.

And Thy Neighbor as Thyself: The Elastic Self in the Moral Psychology of John Duns Scotus

And Thy Neighbor as Thyself: The Elastic Self in the Moral Psychology of John Duns Scotus

DERIVATION OF EDUCOLOGY FROM LITERATURE: A QUALITATIVE VENTURE

Literature is the richest source of deriving wisdom for each sphere of human life. How can education stay spart from it? The philosophy derived from such a witty source to be implemented to bring reforms in our education system is called educology. This paper attempts to analyse one of the great works written by German writer Hermann Hesse titled “Siddhartha” which portrays the educative life-journey of the protagonist. The abstract speculations and assumptions of metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, axiology (philosophy), concepts like culture, social interaction, social self-realization, social status (sociology), and theoretical considerations of personality, emotions, feelings, conflicts, motivation, psychological self (psychology) were derived through the systematic content analysis methodology by the researcher and thereby educational ideas and practices were suggested in the form of Educology. Thus, a local habitation was given to the airy abstract theoretical ideas. This paper also offers an example of how a philosophically rich literary work be analysed to derive lessons for education. The three-fold analysis scheme employed in this research i.e., character analysis, event analysis and idea analysis offer a concrete scaffold to analyse any literary piece minutely for any systematic research. The educology derived from such a robust analysis has a very stout implications for making our education system life-oriented.