<p> According to C. G. Jung, the individuation process requires a reflective turn inward toward the voice of psyche, or said differently, the inner voice. The inner voice can only be heard by the individual, but that does not mean the individual must discover it alone. A Quaker practice termed the clearness committee brings a small group of people together to help an individual access her inner voice in order to find clearness regarding a life issue. This phenomenological study explores the experiences of eight people who sought the assistance of clearness committees. The focus of this research is the exploration of these people&rsquo;s essential lived experiences of being the focus person in a clearness committee. Participant narratives reveal themes from their clearness committee experiences, illuminate characteristics helpful for hearing one&rsquo;s inner voice, and uncover insights they received while exploring the nature of their issue. A phenomenological psychological method guided the analysis toward a description of the essential experience of the clearness committee. This research concludes that the interaction of the clearness committee with the individual can lead to a tension of opposites in psyche that stirs movement of the individuation process. When combined with the perspective of transformational alchemy, this study suggests that repetitive stirring of psyche is required for the individuation process.</p>

Positive social interaction between members of opposing social groups (intergroup contact) is an effective method of prejudice reduction (Allport, 1954; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). This thesis explores how intergroup contact theory can be applied to age groups to reduce ageism towards older adults. Chapters 1 to 3 form the theoretical chapters of the thesis. Chapter 1 defines psychological processes underpinning ageism, provides details of its prevalence, outlines its consequences in society, and gives a justification for its reduction. Chapter 2 introduces the psychological processes underpinning intergroup contact theory and its different formations. This is followed by a literature review of intergenerational contact research, which identifies research gaps in the field and research questions addressed in this thesis. Four empirical chapters then present findings from eight studies. In Chapter 4, Study 1 provides initial correlational evidence of the relationships between direct intergenerational contact, ageism and related psychological processes. Chapter 5 addresses the research question of whether extended contact can be successfully applied to age groups. Studies 2, 3 and 4 provide novel evidence that extended intergenerational contact reduces ageism and is effective via reduced intergroup anxiety, ageing anxiety and ingroup norms. These studies also support prior research demonstrating that direct contact reduces ageism via intergroup and ageing anxieties. Chapter 6 presents two studies that extend the focus of the thesis to include age stereotypes. Secondary analysis of national survey data in Study 5 explores the perception of older adults' competence across the lifespan and friendships with older adults. The degree to which young and middle-aged adults perceive that competence declines with age is attenuated by having as little as one older friend. Building on these findings, Study 6 explores the relationships between direct and extended intergenerational contact, ageist attitudes and warmth and competence stereotypes. Corroborating Chapter 4, both direct and extended contact predicted reduced ageism and are effective via increased competence stereotypes and increased warmth stereotypes. In the final empirical chapter in the thesis Chapter 7 presents two studies that explore intergenerational contact theory in applied contexts. Using an experimental design, Study 7 evaluated an intergenerational programme in which students had conversations with older adults about their technology use. Compared to a control group, the experimental group rated older adults as warmer yet more incompetent. However, only warmth and not incompetence stereotypes formed indirect pathways to subsequent attitudes towards older adults more widely. Study 8 examined care workers positively and negatively experienced intergenerational contact with care home residents. Although care workers experienced more positive than negative contact, negative (but not positive) contact was associated with their attitudes towards care home residents and it generalised to older adults more widely. This indirect effect of negative contact to older adults was effective only for subtle and not blatant ageist attitudes. Overall, the thesis provides a range of evidence suggesting that intergroup contact theory can be successfully applied to the reduction of ageism. It presents a detailed overview of current knowledge, corroborates existing evidence and presents novel findings for extended contact and mediators of both direct and indirect intergenerational contact.

This thesis argues for a move beyond the division of contemporary western experiences into separate social and political spheres. This includes a comparative study of the theories of Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault alongside historical and contemporary examples in support of the relevance of their theories and that of this thesis. The synthesis between Arendt and Foucault made here corrects the respective weaknesses in each theory by using the strengths of the other. Furthermore, this synthesis informs a move beyond the social and political referred to above. The critique of sovereignty, the defence of plurality and the critique of instrumental reason are shown here as the most important parallels between the two thinkers and the central ways that people in contemporary western society are disempowered. This thesis argues for a reconsideration of these issues in order to redress this disempowerment. The thesis also looks at the major divergence between the two thinkers which is shown to rest on their respective treatment of the social and political. This argument rejects the Arendtian argument for the separation of the social and political to favour Foucauldian resistance located on and within the everyday experiences of western individuals. This shown to be political action rooted in the social aspects of the individuals' lives and stands in opposition to the claims of Arendt regarding the social. However, this retains the political strengths of her vision. The synthesis of the strengths of both theorists alongside the ultimate rejection of the Arendtian separation of the social and political that this Foucauldian resistance exemplifies is concluded as constituting a move beyond the social and political to have more relevance, meaning and ultimate empowerment for individuals because it more accurately reflects the realities of their everyday lives.

There has been a movement towards research on the therapist and their capacity in providing treatment for eating disorders (Garner, 1985; Thompson & Sherman, 1989). This Doctoral Thesis Portfolio attempts to provide insight into therapy with the eating disordered population from therapists’ subjective experiences. It attempts to approach eating disorders from both a scientific and practitioner perspective using counselling psychology philosophy to understand and enlighten the therapeutic process when working with these clients. Rizq (2005) said that counselling psychology concentrates on two aspects in therapy, as it promotes the use of the therapist’s self as a tool for therapeutic change alongside adopting psychological theory for the enquiry of this experience. This portfolio will focus on the integration of these two aspects. Therapy with eating disorders was analysed from a theoretical, personal, and professional perspective. This will be explored in this portfolio via three individual components. Firstly, research is presented that investigated therapists’ emotional experience after sessions with a client being treated for anorexia. Secondly, the literature on alexithymia in anorexia is critically reviewed with particular reference to inform counselling psychology and to develop understanding of the therapeutic process with this client group. In the final section a case study will be presented in relation to the concept projective identification in order to illustrate the inter-subjective nature oftherapy with a bulimic client.

No description available.

<p> The pervasive perspective of Western culture views spirit as enmeshed or entombed in matter, an interpretive frame that drives us to periodic socio-political disintegration and bourgeoning planetary illness because it neither honors flesh as vehicle for spirit nor tends spirit as animating flesh. Rather, our dominant paradigm emphasizes disdaining the body and lamenting the spirit, thereby either indulging the former or discounting it, while either disempowering the latter as incarcerated in flesh or seeking its "liberation" from flesh. This is an <i>Anti-Life Equation</i> denigrating both body and spirit, and playing a fundamental role in humanity's current crises in faith, politics, and sustainability. </p><p> The Myth of Orpheus has traditionally been interpreted as exemplifying this emphasis by portraying him as a failure both of body because attached to his mortal lover and of spirit because unable to refrain from dooming her to eternity amongst the shades of Hades. In this frame, the mythic master of the lyre becomes a proponent of a transcendentalist imperative to free spirit from carnal prison. But what if Orpheus was not a failure &ndash; not because he failed in bringing Eurydice's spirit shade back to the day world, but because he succeeded in relinquishing his love from her carnal form and from his attachments to and projections upon her? </p><p> From this perspective, that of a Recombinant Mythology, we may reclaim our foundational stories from the anti-life perspectives and interpretations that color them. Thus we may recognize Orpheus as the very image of perceiving, acknowledging, and embracing the spiral gift of life, in which spirit enters body as a journey of experience for the tempering of soul, for transforming or transmuting phenomenal, incarnate being, rather than as a trap of separation, dislocation, and isolation from divinity.</p>

The central theme of this thesis is methodological pluralism in systems science: that is, how it might be possible to draw upon different systems methods that are traditionally thought to be based in incommensurable paradigms. The thesis is split into three sections. Section One begins by reviewing ideas about pluralism as they have been expressed in the literature on Critical Systems Thinking. This section also sets out the basic 'problem' pluralists have to deal with - that the approaches drawn upon are usually thought of as philosophically contradictory. An initial (partial) resolution of the problem is presented. Section Two takes a step back in order to examine why the focus upon pluralism is important. Here the social and ecological contexts of the debate are explored. It is discovered that many of the issues we are currently dealing with in systems science, especially complex global issues, can only be dealt with adequately through a pluralist research practice. Section Three looks at the implications of these social and ecological arguments for a pluralist systems science, and reexamines some of the philosophical ideas lying behind Critical Systems Thinking. Through this reexamination a different understanding of ontology begins to emerge. Having developed a set of interlinked arguments ranging from the ontological to the practical, the thesis concludes with an assertion that pluralism is actually necessary for the continued legitimation of systems science.

<p>The relationship between horse and human has been one of mystery and deep fascination for ages, inspiring countless myths, works of art, dreams, and an entire other world of equine obsessed humans who center their lives around their horses. This research explores, through imaginal, embodied, narrative, and intuitive inquiry methods, the complexities of this trans-species relationship. The purpose of this embodied autoethnographic inquiry is to inspire a different way of imagining the individuation process as it occurs in the context of the horse-human relationship. Through this transformative process the authentic Self has the opportunity to evolve to a more integrated state of consciousness that is informed by the immersion in a trans-species engagement, which challenges human bias and anthropocentric psychological theory. </p><p> Questioning and re-imagining our ways of relating across species lines, the ego becomes the apprentice of an in-between realm that is created when horse and human engage. The integration of such trans-species experiences between horse and human challenges psychological constructs that are centered around individualism and anthropocentrism. A re-visioning of the psychological concept of dream animals, their purpose, symbolism, and autonomy are explored through a discussion of accounts of dreaming with horses, creating an interinforming reality between dreaming and waking worlds, and apprenticing the ego through dreaming experiences. Through the interfaces of horse and human, the body is awakened to a new way of being in the world and the deeply imbedded construct of dualistic modes of experiencing is challenged through the dismemberment of old ways of being. From this place of dismemberment, a new imagining of riding through an exploration of archetypal image and the deconstruction of popular assumption is reached, with careful consideration on behalf of Equus. Taking into consideration the fact that our lives are intricately interwoven with other than human species, this research calls for the integration of a trans-species ethic within depth psychology with the hope of re-conceptualizing the ultimate importance of a more harmonious human-animal relationship. </p>

<p> Models of memory in cognitive science and philosophy have traditionally explained human remembering in terms of storage and retrieval. This tendency has been entrenched by reliance on computationalist explanations over the course of the twentieth century; even research programs that eschew computationalism in name, or attempt the revision of traditional models, demonstrate tacit commitment to computationalist assumptions. It is assumed that memory must be stored by means of an isomorphic trace, that memory processes must divide into conceptually distinct systems and phases, and that human remembering consists in inner, cognitive processes that are implemented by distinct neural processes. This dissertation draws on recent empirical work, and on philosophical arguments from Ludwig Wittgenstein and others, to demonstrate that this latent computationalism in the study of memory is problematic, and that it can and should be eliminated. Cognitive psychologists studying memory have encountered numerous data in recent decades that belie archival models. In cognitive neuroscience, establishing the neural basis of storage and retrieval processes has proven elusive. A number of revised models on offer in memory science, that have taken these issues into account, fail to sufficiently extricate the archival framework. Several impasses in memory science are products of these underlying computationalist assumptions. Wittgenstein and other philosophers offer a number of arguments against the need for, and the efficacy of, the storage and retrieval of traces in human remembering. A study of these arguments clarifies the ways that these computationalist assumptions are presently impeding the science of memory, and provides ways forward in removing them. We can and should characterize and model human memory without invoking the storage and retrieval of traces. A range of work in connectionism, dynamical systems theory, and recent philosophical accounts of memory demonstrate how the science of memory can proceed without these assumptions, toward non-archival models of remembering.</p>

Thèse (M.A.)--Université de Sherbrooke (Canada), 2008. / Titre de l'écran-titre (visionné le 1 février 2007). In ProQuest dissertations and theses. Publié aussi en version papier.