Thesis (doctorat en droit)--Université de Haute Bretagne Rennes II, 1995. / Includes bibliographica references (p. 374-376).

Thesis (doctorat en droit)--Université de Haute Bretagne Rennes II, 1995. / Includes bibliographica references (p. 374-376).

No description available.

The social diversity of the South African population holds considerable challenge for psychologists, especially in respect of differences in language, culture and socio-economic context. The implications of the diverse nature of expectations and needs of unique individuals, clients as well as professionals, in particular in psychological assessment, are of concern. Projected storytelling in assessment is widely recognised as valuable, especially when working with children and adolescents. The technique has its pitfalls, including the way the stories produced may be influenced by leading questions, applying different methods of interpretation, and administering the instrument in cross-cultural assessment situations. Psychologists presenting projection plates to adolescent clients in South Africa frequently obtain little more than one-liners from standard procedures, raising doubts about viability and reliability of the technique. Prompting and probing need to be enhanced without compromising the projective value of responses or the uniqueness of clients. Feuerstein pioneered mediated intervention for learners with cognitive barriers, and the dynamic assessment of culturally different children. In this study, a dynamic assessment technique of questioning (DATQ) was used to actualise projection potential in mono- and cross-cultural assessment situations. The aim of the study was two-fold: to investigate the influence of a DATQ with projection plates during the psychological assessment of adolescents, and to investigate the influence of culture on such assessment in mono- and cross-cultural situations. A qualitative, multiple case study of ten participants representing five language groups in South Africa was undertaken within a predominantly postmodern epistemology. The tension between assessment from the positivist and post-modern paradigms was acknowledged through applying different perspectives during different stages of the research. A test-training-continuation-of-test situation was created for the administration of seven projection pictures, after which two discussion protocols were used. Data-analysis and interpretation took place in four phases by way of projection analysis (using the Bellak TAT Analysis Blank and Haworth’s analysis of defences), structural analysis (with categories such as word-count, response pattern, formulation, number of statements, prompts, hesitations, repetitions), analysis of the participant’s experience of the Murray-method versus the dynamic assessment technique of questioning, and analysis of possible cross-cultural influences on the assessment (utilizing the Scoring Sheet for the Psychocultural Scoring System (SSPSS) and triangulating the results with the projection analysis and the thematic analysis of the conversation about culture). Findings were derived from intra-comparison (per participant) and inter-comparison (per phase of the assessment) of the analyses. The main conclusions of the study point towards participants’ projective responses increasing and deepening in the direction of self-understanding and wholesome problem solution as well as being structurally enhanced, their emotional experience of the assessment situation being positive, culturally associated values being expressed and cultural barriers to interaction being lessened in both mono- and cross-cultural assessment. Whilst projection isn’t an exclusively context-bound phenomenon and generally occurs irrespective of cultural specificity, it was found that supporting clients through non-directive prompting to voice their associations apparently didn’t interfere with the unconscious content being solicited, irrespective of the mono-/cross-cultural nature of the assessment. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

In South Africa, where a large portion of the population lives in townships, more often than not, the therapist and client do not share a similar cultural context. Cultural knowledge is therefore pertinent to generating a complex and thorough interpretation of any psychological assessments. This study aims to explore possible cultural narratives evoked in the responses to the Thematic Apperception Test so that cross-cultural use of the test would be more effective in the Mamelodi township. The research is done from a narrative point of view, where lived experience is understood by organising it into structured narratives or stories that repeat throughout a person’s life. The pictures of the TAT were viewed as a context that could elicit such life narratives from respondents. TAT stories from five adolescent residents in Mamelodi were thematically analysed as a method of identifying common stories that could reflect the cultural narratives that young persons in Mamelodi draw from to make sense of their world. The results indicated common narratives concerning the following: the experience of violence and danger, the experience of close relationships, dealing with challenges, and the role that clothes play. These findings, and possible findings from similar future research, might aid psychologists towards a better understanding of the TAT in the township context. Copyright / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Psychology / unrestricted

Both interpersonal dependency and the importance of the therapeutic alliance to successful psychotherapy outcomes have been widely studied. However, these two areas of study rarely have been viewed conjointly despite the reportedly large number of clients with dependency who present for treatment. This study elucidated the relationship between interpersonal dependency and the therapeutic alliance. Additional hypotheses explored client-therapist agreement on alliance strength in relation to client interpersonal dependency. Participants were graduate student therapists (N = 26) and their individual psychotherapy clients (N = 40) in a training clinic at a large, southwestern university. Within their first three sessions of psychotherapy, participating clients told nine Thematic Apperception Test stories and completed structured self-report measures of adult attachment, social desirability, and psychological symptoms. Interpersonal dependency was scored from the TAT stories, using the TAT Oral Dependency (TOD) scoring system developed by Masling, Rabie, and Blondheim (1967) and Huprich (2008). Three sessions following initial data collection, participating clients and their therapists completed structured self-report measures of the therapeutic alliance. Analyses revealed that interpersonal dependency was not significantly associated with client and therapist alliance ratings or the congruence between client and therapist alliance ratings. However, specific scoring categories of the TOD were associated with client alliance scores in opposing directions. In contrast to hypotheses, self-reported attachment-related dependency was significantly related to client alliance ratings and to the congruence between therapist and client alliance ratings. Clients with higher levels of self-reported attachment-related dependency rated the alliance less favorably, in agreement with their therapists, than did clients with lower levels of attachment-related dependency. Additional analyses were unsuccessful in replicating findings from previous research on interpersonal dependency. The clinical and research implications of these findings are discussed.

Object representations of sexually abused girls were compared to those of a clinical control group with no history of maltreatment. In addition, girls subjected to sexual abuse by itself were compared with girls who were sexually abused in conjunction with physical abuse and/or neglect (i.e., multiply abused). TAT stories were analyzed using the Object Relations and Social Cognition Scale which assesses four dimensions of object relations. It was hypothesized that sexually abused children would manifest more general and highly pathognomic impairment than controls along four dimensions of object relations. It was also hypothesized that multiple abuse would be associated with more general and highly pathognomic impairment in object relations than sexual abuse by itself.

Using the Defense Mechanism Manual (Cramer, 1991), Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) stories of 29 sexually abused female subjects and 28 non-abused female clinical control subjects were rated for the frequency of use of denial, projection, and identification.

This study utilized the theories of David C. McClelland and associates regarding affective arousal, concept of cues arousing motives, and neutral testing procedures. The problem was to study the influence of color and/ or movement, as cues added to the McClelland four-picture Thematic Apperception Test, to evoke need achievement responses to determine whether or not the added stimuli of color and/or movement might evoke increased need achievement responses. Four treatment variations of the test were made: Treatment A, consisted of the standard McClelland test, in black and white pictures. This treatment served as the control. Treatment B used the black and white pictures, but with movement added to the standard test. Treatment C added color to the pictures, but no movement. Treatment D added both color and movement to the test. A special effects apparatus was used to create the color and/or movement added to the pictures. The treatment variations of the four pictures were recorded on motion picture film in order to standardize the experimental procedures of the study. A sample of 120 male college students was tested, and subdivided into groups of 30 subjects each. Each group of 30 students saw only one of the four treatment variations. The testing was accomplished by projecting the filmed, four-picture McClelland test, with each of the four pictures being shown for 20 seconds. After each picture was shown, five minutes were allowed for the subjects to write a story about the picture. The stories were scored for need achievement by the McClelland and associates (1953) scoring system C. Statistical comparisons were made among the three experimental groups (Treatment B, C, D), as compared with the control group (Treatment A) in terms of the subject's mean scores in need achievement. No significant differences were found in any of the statistical comparisons. It was, therefore, concluded that the study subjects did not respond to the addition of color and/or movement as significant cues related to achievement motivation.

In 1936, while an expatriate in London, László Moholy-Nagy signed the Manifeste dimensioniste, crafted by Hungarian poet Charles Sirató, declaring his allegiance to the pursuit of creating artistic works in higher dimensions. In his artworks and writings, Moholy-Nagy was deeply invested in emerging technologies of the early twentieth century in the service of seeing the world differently, augmenting and training the sensory organs to visualize higher dimensions of space, essentially to see what does not appear, what is apparently invisible. Through his work with light and movement, which took many forms, painting, photography, film, kinetic sculpture, and theater, he worked through traditional and avant garde notions of space and time as related to psychophysical experience. Moholy-Nagy held that higher dimensions could be experienced through a re-education of human senses and began to lay out his claim for the education of the senses in order to see the world differently as early as 1922 in "Produktion–Reproduktion" (De Stijl). In Malerei, Fotografie, Film (Painting, Photography, Film, 1925), Moholy-Nagy asserted that through the visual objectivity produced photographs, especially in oblique photographs, "[w]e may say that we see the world with entirely different eyes." In this dissertation, I examine the influence of contemporary psychophysical, space-time theories on a stage/ performance design created by Moholy-Nagy, in particular, the two versions of his design for a synaesthetic theatrical performance entitled, Partiturskizze zu einer mechanischen Exzentrik (Score-Sketch for a Mechanical Eccentric): one a hybrid, mixed media drawing (c. 1923) and the other a revised version printed in Die Bühne im Bauhaus (The Stage of the Bauhaus, 1925). Following the structure of the hybrid drawing, each chapter is an interpretation of a single panel of the drawing, corresponding to the prelude and the five acts of the performance. This interpretation was made through a close reading of the drawing itself, examining the references made in the images and notations, comparing the two versions, and uncovering similar themes in his lectures, writings, and artistic works, and, in turn, pursuing references to physics, psychology, mathematics, and literature, whose profound influence was acknowledged by Moholy-Nagy in those texts. These influences include the writings of Albert Einstein, Hermann Minkowski, János Bolyai, Hermann von Helmholtz, Rudolf Carnap, Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Wundt, E. T. A. Hoffmann, James Joyce, and many others. Through this analysis, I reveal the ambitious intention at the heart of the Exzentrik, to immerse the audience in a synaesthetic experience that expands their psychophysical consciousness using electromagnetic vibrations in the form of visible and invisible light and sound, as well as shocking and comedic forms and movements, and that, thereby, opens the audience to the construction of a new vision that endows them with the capacity to envision higher dimensions of space. / Doctor of Philosophy / In 1936, while living in London, László Moholy-Nagy signed the Dimensionist Manifesto, written by Hungarian poet Charles Sirató, declaring his allegiance to the pursuit of creating artistic works in higher dimensions, such as three-dimensional paintings or four-dimensional space-time constructions. In his artworks and writings, Moholy-Nagy was deeply invested in the emerging and advancing technologies of the early twentieth century in the service of seeing the world differently, augmenting and training the sensory organs to visualize higher dimensions of space, essentially to see what does not appear to the naked eye, for instance x-ray images reveal what is apparently invisible. Through his work with light and movement, which took many forms, painting, photography, film, moving sculptures, and theater, he explored how a person experiences space and time both physically and intellectually and Moholy-Nagy began to lay out his claim for the education of the senses in order to see the world differently. In Malerei, Fotografie, Film (Painting, Photography, Film, 1925), Moholy-Nagy asserted that through the visual objectivity produced photographs, especially in oblique photographs, “[w]e may say that we see the world with entirely different eyes.” In this dissertation, I have examined the influence of contemporary space-time theories on two versions of Moholy-Nagy’s design for a theatrical performance called the Score-Sketch for a Mechanical Eccentric, one a hand-drawn and painted collage (c. 1923) and the other a revised version printed in The Stage of the Bauhaus (1925). Following the structure of the former, each chapter is an interpretation of a single panel of the drawing/collage, corresponding to the prelude and the five acts of the performance. This interpretation was made through a close reading of the drawing itself, examining the references made in the images and notations, comparing the two versions, and uncovering similar themes in his lectures, writings, and artistic works, and, in turn, pursuing references to physics, psychology, mathematics, and literature, whose profound influence was acknowledged by Moholy-Nagy in those texts. These influences include the writings of Albert Einstein, Hermann Minkowski, János Bolyai, Hermann von Helmholtz, Rudolf Carnap, Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Wundt, E. T. A. Hoffmann, James Joyce, and many others. Through this analysis, I will reveal the ambitious intention at the heart of the performance, to immerse the audience in a multi-sensory experience that will expand their consciousness, thereby, to expand their sensory perception, using shocking and comedic displays to psychologically open the audience to the possibility of perceiving higher dimensions of space.