Process Of Self-transformation Research Articles

The Self-Transformation Process in Kundalini Yoga as Taught by Yogi Bhajan through a Gendered Lens

Abstract This article examines the self-transformation process in Kundalini yoga discourse and practice from a gendered perspective. Data were collected over three years in Western Switzerland using multi-sited ethnography, combining participant observation with twenty-eight interviews. Using Kundalini yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan and its representations of the ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ as a case study, I explore how practitioners adopt gendered rituals. In this tradition, self-transformation is based on concepts of inner strength, sensitivity, and divine femininity, which creates dissonance for some practitioners. Additionally, specific arrangements arise to negotiate (internal) experiential authority, gendered agency, and biography in yoga teaching and teacher–student relationships. Finally, I investigate the interactions between practitioners’ yoga trajectories and their personal and professional lives, observing differences in women’s and men’s experiences.

Self-transformation: The Importance of Education for Adults in the Modern Era

This study explores the transformative role of education for adults in the modern era, emphasizing the importance of lifelong learning for personal growth and adaptability. Utilizing a qualitative approach through library research and a comprehensive literature review, this study analyzes the impact of education on self-transformation, focusing on how educational experiences foster changes in identity, critical reflection, and emotional intelligence among adult learners. The findings highlight that education is not only a means of acquiring new skills but also a key factor in reshaping personal identity and fostering adaptability in a rapidly changing world. By engaging in education, adults experience shifts in self-perception, develop enhanced critical thinking skills, and improve their ability to navigate complex social and professional environments. Additionally, the study underscores the role of collaborative learning environments, where interactive and participatory educational settings amplify the transformative potential of education. The process of self-transformation is found to be ongoing, with each educational experience contributing to continuous personal development. This study concludes that educational programs aimed at adults should adopt a holistic approach, addressing both the practical and emotional dimensions of adult learners’ needs. Such programs will enable adults to thrive in the modern era, not only by equipping them with essential skills but also by fostering deeper self-awareness and lifelong growth.

A Generic Self-Supervised Framework of Learning Invariant Discriminative Features.

Self-supervised learning (SSL) has become a popular method for generating invariant representations without the need for human annotations. Nonetheless, the desired invariant representation is achieved by utilizing prior online transformation functions on the input data. As a result, each SSL framework is customized for a particular data type, for example, visual data, and further modifications are required if it is used for other dataset types. On the other hand, autoencoder (AE), which is a generic and widely applicable framework, mainly focuses on dimension reduction and is not suited for learning invariant representation. This article proposes a generic SSL framework based on a constrained self-labeling assignment process that prevents degenerate solutions. Specifically, the prior transformation functions are replaced with a self-transformation mechanism, derived through an unsupervised training process of adversarial training, for imposing invariant representations. Via the self-transformation mechanism, pairs of augmented instances can be generated from the same input data. Finally, a training objective based on contrastive learning is designed by leveraging both the self-labeling assignment and the self-transformation mechanism. Despite the fact that the self-transformation process is very generic, the proposed training strategy outperforms a majority of state-of-the-art representation learning methods based on AE structures. To validate the performance of our method, we conduct experiments on four types of data, namely visual, audio, text, and mass spectrometry data and compare them in terms of four quantitative metrics. Our comparison results demonstrate that the proposed method is effective and robust in identifying patterns within the tested datasets.

Killing Joy in Ustopian Gilead: Girlhood and Subversion in The Handmaid’s Tale “Media Franchise”

This article explores the representations of girlhood introduced in the recent additions to The Handmaid’s Tale franchise: Bruce Miller’s 2017 Hulu series and Margaret Atwood’s 2019 novel The Testaments. Drawing on affect theory and girlhood studies, I analyze how the girls do not conform to the cultural expectations of ustopian Gilead but manage to challenge and contest them. Heterotopian spaces, where the girls are expected to undergo a process of self-transformation into stable identities, are employed by the nation to direct them towards their prescribed happiness markers. Sara Ahmed’s notion of the feminist killjoy is used as key mode of dissent that arises when the girls encounter the dissonance produced between the objects that are collectively imagined to cause happiness and how they are affected by them. I argue that, through Kathleen Stewart’s notion of ordinary affects and their liminal position as girls, they find radically joyful alternatives that clash with Gilead’s fixed prescriptions. This article analyzes three depictions of girlhood across media in The Handmaid’s Tale franchise, focusing on girlhood as a liminal category that empowers girls to become feminist killjoys to fulfill their own desires.

Teachers taking spiritual turns: A practice-centred approach to educators and spirituality via Michel Foucault

In the face of challenging circumstances, many teachers turn to spirituality for sustenance and strength. Yet spirituality’s place in education and in educators’ lives has long been a matter of confusion and contention, not least because of the ambiguity of the term in its common usage. What is its relationship to religion? And what defines it? In this article, I submit that the later work of Michel Foucault offers a helpful approach to spirituality that displaces those questions—drawing attention away from beliefs and/or attitudes professed, and towards the process of practical self-transformation that subjects undertake for the sake of a truth that is actualised in the body. To be spiritual in this sense is more a matter of what one does than what one believes or who one is. To offer a sense of why it matters in the lives of educators, I draw on the experiences of a San Diego high school teacher confronting interlocking personal, professional, and political challenges as a detailed example.

질적교육연구방법론 수업을 수강한 어느 대학원생의 학습 경험에 대한 자문화기술지 연구

The purpose of this study is to autoethnographically explore a Graduate Student’s Learning Experience and Meaning in the Qualitative Education Research Methodology Seminar. To this end, I reviewed a reflective journal from March to June 2022, observed class participation, and conducted another insider interview. As results of the study, the experience of introducing qualitative research was found to be ‘participating in learning’, ‘building a learning relationship’, and ‘organizing learning’. Students enter the world of qualitative research through classes guided by advisors and textbooks suitable for beginners in qualitative research. However, beginners of qualitative research soon have difficulty in qualitative analysis and interpretation. This is because the process of qualitative analysis and interpretation is a practice that can only be learned by doing. Therefore, for beginners, feedback based on positive interdependence plays an important role in advancing to the next stage of research growth. It was also found that beginners of qualitative research seek various solutions when performing project tasks. The meaning of the introductory experience of qualitative research was found to be ‘learning about learning’, ‘learning in the research field’, and ‘learning about myself as a researcher’. Introductory experiences with a qualitative research lens are qualitative experiences of new ways of thinking and research methods. Given the nature of autoethnographical study that can be buried in their own world in the field of research, it is necessary to supplement them with rich and diverse data, especially for qualitative research beginner. In addition, beginner of qualitative research hope to become better qualitative researcher using the experience of qualitative research classes as a stepping stone. In the end, the researcher sought self-transformation by reflecting on the process of learning through participation in qualitative research classes. As a researcher and research participant, I looked back on the process of learning and seeking self-transformation. This study is expected to share experiences with beginners in qualitative research and help them understand preliminary research.

Osmotic-Induced Reconfiguration and Activation in Membranized Coacervate-Based Protocells.

The design and construction of synthetic protocells capable of stimuli response and homeostatic regulation is an important challenge for synthetic protobiology. Here, we develop a step toward the construction of model protocells capable of a hypotonic stress-induced volume response that facilitates an increase in membrane permeability and the triggering of endogenous enzyme reactions. We describe a facile self-transformation process for constructing single- or multichambered molecularly crowded protocells based on the osmotic reconfiguration of lipid-coated coacervate droplets into multicompartmentalized coacervate vesicles. Hypotonic swelling broadens membrane permeability and increases transmembrane transport such that protease-based hydrolysis and enzyme cascades can be triggered and enhanced within the protocells by osmotically induced expansion. Specifically, we demonstrate how the enhanced production of nitric oxide (NO) within the swollen coacervate vesicles can be used to induce in vitro blood vessel vasodilation in thoracic artery rings. Our approach provides opportunities for designing reconfigurable model protocells capable of homeostatic volume regulation, dynamic structural reorganization, and adaptive functionality in response to changes in environment osmolarity, and could find applications in biomedicine, cellular diagnostics, and bioengineering.

Intergenerational Transmission of Child Abuse Among Married Women in South Korea: A Multigroup Analysis of Empathetic Communication (TSL: Thanks, Sorry, and Love).

Intergenerational transmission of child abuse (hereinafter referred to as ITCA) has been continuously reported. Supportive relations with others have also been discussed as a protective factor to prevent this cycle. However, research has mainly investigated supportive adult and peer relationships formed in childhood, with little discussion of the impact of supportive partner relationships formed after becoming an adult. This study examined whether empathetic communication (hereinafter referred to as TSL: "Thanks, Sorry, and Love") attenuates the transmission of married women's child abuse experiences to subsequent generations mediated by intimate partner violence (hereinafter referred to as IPV). TSL is a communication strategy that promotes positive communication between intimate partners. We expected TSL to promote positive communication between couples through a process of self-transformation. Data from 1,122 married women were obtained from a nation-wide survey conducted in South Korea. All the survey respondents lived with partners and their own children simultaneously. For this study, structural equation model multigroup analysis was conducted to determine whether the pathways would be attenuated by TSL levels, showing that a high level of TSL communication attenuated the ITCA mediated by IPV. However, this process was maintained in the low-level TSL group. TSL is thus a protective factor against the ITCA. The findings suggest that healing processes can occur not only through childhood relationships but also through those formed after adulthood. Ultimately, to help victims recover, it is necessary to expand communication programs such as TSL that help victims learn how to express their feelings through healthy relationships with their partners.

Transforming the Self in South Asia: A Study of Religion in BP Koirala’s Sumnima and RK Narayan’s The Guide

This paper analyzes the self-transformation process in Sumnima by BP Koirala and The Guide by RK Narayan, which have been discussed in terms of religion. Both the writers belong to the South Asian Hindu community and focus on the religious change that has played an important role in the life of their characters. In Koirala’s Sumnima, Somdatta, the central character, realizes the state of equality transforming himself from his identity of Brahmin and bestows love to Sumnima, a girl from the Kirat community. Transforming himself from his orthodox Hindu culture, he performs the role of Bhilla for reviving pleasures. In Narayan’s The Guide, the protagonist Raju ultimately turns as a saint (sadhu) from his role of a railway guide, a businessman, a good lover, a corrupt guy and a prisoner. In both novels, religion has played a key role to transcend the role of the characters and finally transform inwardly. The concept of self and the process of religious transformation have been used as theoretical tools to explore these novels. The findings provide evidence that religion in a true sense enables the human beings to transcend many kinds of human bondages and self-transformation. In both novels, the protagonists detach themselves from the material world and change inwardly realizing the self. They ultimately transcend material comfort for the liberation of their beliefs, undergoing different stages of their lives. In Sumnima, Somdatta gives up his religious ideas for the transformation of his self, but in The Guide, Raju transforms himself following ritual practices and becomes a saint.

Poetry as Spiritual Exercise

Poetry as Spiritual Exercise

Menggali Nilai-Nilai Islam Wasathiyah Dalam Kitab-Kitab Pesantren Sebagai Modalitas Mewujudkan Perdamaian Dunia

Abstract
 This paper is intended to answer questions related to wasathiyah values, wasathiyah relations and peace, Islamic wasathiyah values ​​in Islamic boarding schools as a modality for pesantren in realizing world peace, and how to promote it as a solution for world peace. After conducting the analysis, it was concluded that moderation (wasathiyyah) is a characteristic of Islam which is a combination and unification of the concepts of ta'adul, tawazun and tawassuth in every pattern of thought, pattern of action, and behavior. At the practical level, the form of moderation in Islam can be classified into four areas of discussion, namely, moderate in matters of aqidah, moderate in matters of worship, moderate in matters of temperament and character, moderate in matters of the formation of the Shari'a. Promoting and campaigning for wasathiyah values ​​through pesantren education can prevent the emergence of radicalism in Indonesia and Muslim-majority countries in general. The promotion of wasathiyah Islam as strategic communication has an important role in maintaining Islamic education. Promoting wasathiyah in the context of Islamic boarding school education requires a balance between the process of delivering information and the process of self-transformation and the system. Knowledge sourced from the scientific tradition of Islamic boarding schools, when disseminated and interpreted in accordance with the wasathiyah concept, will eventually produce people who have strong faith, morality, moderation, and are able to understand and provide an understanding of Islam that is rahmatan lil `alamin.

On Power’s Doorstep: Gays, Jews, and Liminal Complicity in Reproducing Masculine Domination

This article explores the gender complexities of men caught between social power and powerlessness. Specifically, I consider the cases of Jewish men and gay men in the late modern West, two demographics with deep historic ties to both abjection and privilege. Such "in-between-ness” steers many, especially those who are white, cisgender, and/or otherwise privileged, toward what I term liminal complicity, a normative adaptation whereby men embrace manly ideals while disavowing femininity in themselves and others. I synthesize cultural, interactionist, and psychoanalytic literatures on stigma, boundaries, and gender practice to articulate liminal complicity as both an emotional retreat from stigmatization and a rational means of accruing status and redrawing social boundaries. I conduct a comparative-historical analysis of gendered discourses and practices at different historical junctures to show how analogous processes of (1) normative identification, (2) self-transformation, and (3) distinction from and (4) aggression toward feminized others enable historically subordinated men to elevate themselves without disrupting broader systems of domination.

Existential and Psychological Problems of Aging: The Perspective of Ukrainian Lyrics’ Art Representation

Purpose. Aging is intricate process of self-transformation in view of involution of body, loss of sexual attractiveness, but at the same time, old age is a time for reconsideration of self-existence in time and in the world within coherence of life sense targets and their (successful) realization. Unique individual experience of growing old implemented in Ukrainian literature (and lyrics) can complete the data received by gerontology. Moreover gender approach in literary gerontology highlights masculine / feminine phenotypical features of internal reverberating of aging. Theoretical basis. To inquire into existential and psychological problems of aging exemplified in the twentieth-century Ukrainian Lyrics it is seems to be the most effective to employ philosophical (A. Anhelova, V. Demidov, T. Dziuba, K. Pigrov, S. Lishaev, O. Khrystenko and others) and psychological (O. Berezina, S. Hamilton, V. Savchyn, Y. Sapogova and others) approaches in gerontology, as well as feministic studies on elder female body discrimination, in particular in literature (K. Woodward, J. King). Originality. This research paves the way to the development of gender and literary dimensions in Ukrainian gerontology and anthropology in general. Some of the existential and psychological problems of aging (as anxiety of body involution and decline of strength, as well as finding the compensatory pleasure in wisdom and spiritual treasures) are revealed on the material of 20th-century Ukrainian poetry (N. Livytska-Kholodna, B. Lepkyi, M. Zerov, Yurii Klen, Y. Malaniuk, Y. Tarnawsky, I. Zhylenko, S. Yovenko and others). The individual lyric experience of aging in different gender moods is anchored mostly in psychic, mental, sense-life strategies. Conclusions. Among the feminine strategies of aging self-reception there are observation of own elder body with anxiety and fear, its "invisibility", deepened feelings of loneliness, self-estrangement, but also finding the sense of life and soul harmony in own family, offspring. Masculine self-reception of aging deals with ideal spiritual model of Wise old man – more abstract than personal; masculine anxiety is caused by physical bodily declining, not attractiveness, but strength and power loosing.

Rainbow parents and the familial model of tongzhi (LGBT) activism in contemporary China

An increasingly large number of Chinese straight parents joined an activist grassroots organization to advocate for gay rights in the public sphere during the last decade. They went through a multistage process of moral self-transformation and strategically employed the cultural capital of parenthood in the context of the rising neo-familism to engage the general public and negotiate with the state authority. Their advocacy work has resulted to an emergent familial model of LGBT activism in mainland China featuring the close collaboration between parents and gay children, the centrality of family relations instead of sexuality, the incorporation of LGBT activism into the neo-familism discourse and practice, and the shift from oppositional identity politics in the queer population to cooperative civic engagement with the society at large.

An Explication of Identity Shift Theory

Abstract. First articulated in 2008, the concept of identity shift refers to the process of self-transformation that is the result of intentional self-presentation in a mediated context. As research into identity shift has become increasingly prevalent, our understanding of the concept’s mechanisms and constraints has become more detailed and in depth. We now have a greater understanding of the process and limitations of identity shift: an understanding sufficient to begin articulating a theory of identity shift that explains and predicts the intrapersonal effects of mediated self-presentations. The present work advances such a theory. We begin by summarizing and synthesizing extant identity shift work – including published articles, presented manuscripts, and unpublished research – to better understand the identity shift process. We then use this synthesis to articulate an initial theory (identity shift theory; IST) that specifies the processes, conditions, constraints, and effects of identity shift based on personal, psychological, and communicative characteristics. Ultimately, the advancement of identity shift theory can inform future research and practice into the implications of online self-presentation for self-effects.

The Transformational Experience of Junior Nurses Resulting from Providing Care to COVID-19 Patients: From Facing Hurdles to Achieving Psychological Growth.

The rapid spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has put significant pressure on junior nursing staff. The objective of this study was to examine the in-depth experiences of junior nurses in providing care for COVID-19 patients within an acute care setting. This study employed a phenomenological method to understand the situation from a first-person perspective. Purposive sampling was used. Interviews were performed with 40 junior nurses (<4 years of clinical experience) who provided direct care to COVID-19 patients in isolation wards in acute care settings in Hong Kong. The interviews were conducted from 1 January 2021 to 24 May 2021 via virtual conferencing software (Zoom) to maintain social distancing, and the responses were analysed using Colaizzi’s seven-step method. Junior nurses’ psychological experiences of providing direct care to COVID-19 patients were categorised into four main themes. First, there were hurdles in the early stages, in which participants experienced negative emotions, such as fear, anxiety, helplessness, and fatigue. Somatic symptoms, such as headaches and sleep disturbance, were reported. Second, the adoption of self-care coping strategies enabled nurses to confront the hurdles, signifying the start of self-transformation. Third, junior nurses maintained positivity under pressure by appreciating their sources of support (including their families and other important relationships in their lives). Professionalism was also found to reinforce positivity. Fourth, self-transformation resulted in psychological growth, which prepared junior nurses to be resilient and confident in their clinical practice to take up future challenges in the ongoing battle against the pandemic. The hurdles experienced by junior nurses at the early stage of their work in isolation wards provided the foundation upon which self-transformation took place. Being able to employ self-care coping strategies and further sustain positivity characterised the self-transformation process. Eventually, junior nurses became resilient and more capable of understanding both the negativity and positivity of their experiences. The self-transformation process also enabled junior nurses to recognise and appreciate the wider support system from various parties in society.

The relational mind: In between history, psychology and anthropology.

The article examines the new psychological language that developed in late antiquity to formulate a personal relationship with the one God. This language used the Greek term for the soul, the psuchē (Latin anima), and defined it as the relational faculty of the human mind. The perception of the human mind as relational became instrumental to formulate the experience of conversion, that is, a mental and emotional process of self-transformation, psychological in the modern sense of the term. The article analyzes the psychological perspective of the ancient authors who developed the idea of the relational faculty to connect to God by using modern theories that perceive the human mind as relationally configured. In order to analyze ancient and modern writers together, the article develops a new methodological approach to move in between ancient and modern writings without falling into the pit of anachronism. This approach enables the author to define a common theoretical field for historical analysis and psychoanalysis, and to use the historical evidence in order to evaluate and challenge the modern psychoanalytic prism. To bridge between the two disciplines, the present article uses anthropology. Thanks to its psychological aspect, anthropology of religion validates the two-way relationship between history and psychoanalysis. Anthropological field research on the beliefs in tree spirits conducted by the author in an animistic environment has revealed a relational psychological language in the core of the animistic belief, and provides the missing link to connect history and psychoanalysis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Service conversation: advisory, relational and transformative approaches

PurposeThe marketing literature on service conversation in dyadic services has elaborated two approaches. An advisory approach involves providers giving customers expert advice on how to advance difficult projects. By contrast, a relational approach involves providers exchanging social support with customers to develop commercial friendships. Inspired by the transformative turn in service research, this study aims to develop a third approach, one that helps customers to cultivate their own agency, potential and well-being.Design/methodology/approachThe emergent model of service conversation is based on in-depth interviews with providers and clients of mental health services, including psychological counseling, psychotherapy and personal coaching.FindingsA transformative approach to service conversation involves the iterative application of a complementary pair of conversational practices: seeding microtransformations by asking questions to inspire new ways of thinking, feeling and acting; and nurturing microtransformations via non-evaluative listening to affirm customers’ explorations of new possibilities. This pair of practices immediately elevates customers’ sense of psychological freedom, which, in turn, enables their process of self-transformation, one microtransformation at a time.Practical implicationsThis study offers dyadic service providers a conceptual framework of advisory, relational and transformative approaches to service conversation for instrumental, communal and developmental service encounters, respectively. This framework can help dyadic service providers to conduct more collaborative, flexible and productive conversations with their customers.Originality/valueThree approaches to service conversation – advisory, relational and transformative – are conceptually distinguished in terms of their overall aims, provider practices, customer experiences, customer outcomes, allocations of airtime, designations of expertise, application contexts, prototypical examples and blind spots.

Leadership Programmes: Success, Self-improvement, and Relationship Management Among New Middle-class Chinese

ABSTRACT In the last decade, business and life coaching programmes have rapidly proliferated in the People’s Republic of China. Such programmes promise radical self-transformations aiming at individual success and social responsibility. The methods of most coaching programmes popular in China today are characterised by strict discipline and emotional expressivity, which are enacted in personal bonds between participants and coaches. This article describes and analyses these processes of self-transformation for the case of the rapidly growing ‘Leadership Programmes’ (LP). We outline the social background and emergence of LP programmes, present the typical features of LP training and discuss the consequences of self-transformation as seen by participants and outsiders. Altogether, these leadership programmes constitute an important new platform where ethical subjectivities are created and negotiated among new middle-class Chinese; subjectivities that are supposed to be enterprising, responsible, and expressive.

Self-transformation and Spiritual Exemplars

This paper focuses on the process of self-transformation through which a person comes to embody the ideal of her religion’s vision of the divine, as far as that ideal is expressible in a human life. The paper is concerned with the self as the subject of religious commitments, traits, religious aspirations and religiously inspired ideals. The self-transformative journey that people are invited to undertake poses a number of philosophical and practical difficulties; the paper explores some of these difficulties, concentrating on those that arise in connection with the notion of potential future selves. This paper suggests that imaginative reflection upon exemplary individuals provides one way through these difficulties, for these individuals can show us what it looks like when someone achieves, or draws close to, the ideal.