This is a postmodernist dissertation contextualised within the new epistemology. The dissertation's descriptive methodology mirrors a personal journey from intrapsychic to ecosystemic psychology which operates within the domain of language and narrative discourse. As such it is founded on the principles of ecosystemic rather than Newtonian thinking. A conversation between various participants constructs the dissertatioi1 through polyphony and academic dialogue. This is then deconstructed through the use of metalogue thereby allowing the dissertation to operate simultaneously on a number of different levels. As it is a postmodernist text, the structure is in a sense an 'anti-structure' in that it is indirect while it is still acknowledged as a construction. In this way it is constructed and deconstructed in terms of its own premises. Expectations in terms of conventional dissertation formulae are challenged without negating academic requirements. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

<div>This dissertation redefines the placebo effect in light of new empirical observations and certain strands of philosophical ethics. </div>Chapter 1 critically reviews available definitions of placebo responsiveness against their abilities to hang together the diversity of empirical observations and emerging research interests. Projecting Wittgenstein's example of a child learning pain language, Chapter 2 redefines the phenomenon as a particular kind of experience of meaning and reconsiders clinical empathy in terms of the loss and recovery of language that belongs to illness experience and diagnosis. Chapter 3 broadens the account of psychosomatic responsiveness from the experience of meaning to the experience of values, utilising Canguilhem's definition of health and Nietzsche's genealogical account of the health of values. Chapter 4 explores the foregoing by recounting how Wittgenstein's moral philosophy might hold together the traditional ethical and bioethical question of what makes life worth living with psychosomatic responsiveness.

In my earlier work, ‘First steps towards a rhetorical hermeneutics of literary interpretation’ (2006), I argued that academic reading takes the form of an argument between readers. Four serious weaknesses in that account are its elision of the distinction between reading and discourse on reading, its inattention to non-academic reading, its exclusive focus on ‘interpretation’ as if this constituted the whole of reading or of discourse on reading, and its failure to theorise the object of literary reading, ie. the work of literature. The current work aims to address all of these problems, together with those created by certain other approaches to literary reading, with the overall objective of clearing the ground for more empirical studies. It exemplifies its points with examples drawn primarily from non-academic public discourse on literature (newspapers, magazines, and the internet), though also from other sources (such as reading groups and undergraduate literature seminars). It takes a particular (though not an exclusive) interest in two specific instances of non-academic reception: the widespread reception of Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses as an attack on Islam, and the minority reception of Peter Jackson’s film trilogy The Lord of the Rings as a narrative of homosexual desire. The first chapter of this dissertation critically surveys the fields of reception study and discourse analysis, and in particular the crossover between them. It finds more productive engagement with the textuality of response in media reception study than in literary reception study. It argues that the application of discourse analysis to reception data serves to problematise, rather than to facilitate, reception study, but it also emphasises the problematic nature of discourse analysis itself. Each of the three subsequent chapters considers a different complex of problems. The first is the literary work, and its relation to its producers and its consumers: Chapter 2 takes the form of a discourse upon the notions of ‘speech act’ and ‘authorial intention’ in relation to literature, carries out an analysis of early public responses to The Satanic Verses, and puts in a word for non-readers by way of a conclusion. The second is the private experience of reading, and its paradoxical status as an object of public representation: Chapter 3 analyses representations of private responses to The Lord of The Rings film trilogy, and concludes with the argument that, though these representations cannot be identical with private responses, they are cannot be extricated from them, either. The third is the impossibility of distinguishing rhetoric from cognition in the telling of stories about reading: Chapter 4 argues that, though anecdotal or autobiographical accounts of reading cannot be taken at face value, they can be taken both as attempts to persuade and as attempts to understand; it concludes with an analysis of a magazine article that tells a number of stories about reading The Satanic Verses – amongst other things. Each of these chapters focuses on non-academic reading as represented in written text, but broadens this focus through consideration of examples drawn from spoken discourse on reading (including in the liminal academic space of the undergraduate classroom). The last chapter mulls over the relationship between reading and discourse of reading, and hesitates over whether to wrap or tear this dissertation’s arguments up.

O presente trabalho teve por objetivo pesquisar sobre o fenômeno religioso e a fé como dimensão da alteridade, assim como pesquisar possíveis relações com a Gestaltterapia do diálogo e cura. A pesquisa foi de natureza bibliográfica numa perspectiva fenomenológica e existencial que teve como fundamento as obras de Martin Buber da Filosofia do Diálogo e seu existencialismo religioso da eterna relação entre Eu-Tu, o Eu-Isso e o Tu eterno. Somado a este, também se problematizou a visão de Rudolf Otto do numinoso e outros autores como Mircea Eliade, teóricos da Gestaltterapia, Heidegger, Viktor Frankl, entre outros. Nossos resultados e discussões foram apresentados a partir de três dimensões. A primeira foi focalizar o fenômeno religioso em íntima relação com a noção da experiência de alteridade. O segundo passo consistiu em pesquisar sobre uma possível aproximação entre o pensamento da Gestaltterapia e a experiência religiosa. Por fim, se pretendeu compreender a Gestaltterapia e a espiritualidade como espaço de encontro do diálogo e cura.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T18:08:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 otaviano_bezerra_santana_filho.pdf: 1062308 bytes, checksum: cdd12d5b5acef7774e9d55ae6378a36e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-06-11 / The present study aimed to research the religious phenomenon and faith as a dimension of otherness , as well as investigate possible relations with Gestalt therapy dialogue and healing. The research was a phenomenological nature of literature and existential perspective that was founded the works of Martin Buber 's Philosophy of Dialogue and its religious existentialism of the eternal relationship between " I-Thou , I - It and the eternal Thou ." Added to this , also problematized the vision of Rudolf Otto 's numinous and other authors such as Mircea Eliade , Gestalt therapy theorists , Heidegger , Viktor Frankl , among others . Our results and discussions were presented from three dimensions . The first was to focus on the religious phenomenon intimately related to the notion of the experience of otherness . The second step was to search for a possible rapprochement between the thought of Gestalt Therapy and religious experience . Finally , we sought to understand Gestalt Therapy and Spirituality as a space for dialogue and healing. / O presente trabalho teve por objetivo pesquisar sobre o fenômeno religioso e a fé como dimensão da alteridade, assim como pesquisar possíveis relações com a Gestaltterapia do diálogo e cura. A pesquisa foi de natureza bibliográfica numa perspectiva fenomenológica e existencial que teve como fundamento as obras de Martin Buber da Filosofia do Diálogo e seu existencialismo religioso da eterna relação entre Eu-Tu, o Eu-Isso e o Tu eterno . Somado a este, também se problematizou a visão de Rudolf Otto do numinoso e outros autores como Mircea Eliade, teóricos da Gestaltterapia, Heidegger, Viktor Frankl, entre outros. Nossos resultados e discussões foram apresentados a partir de três dimensões. A primeira foi focalizar o fenômeno religioso em íntima relação com a noção da experiência de alteridade. O segundo passo consistiu em pesquisar sobre uma possível aproximação entre o pensamento da Gestaltterapia e a experiência religiosa. Por fim, se pretendeu compreender a Gestaltterapia e a espiritualidade como espaço de encontro do diálogo e cura.

<p>  </p> <p>We cannot fully assess the normative and epistemic implications of online discourse, especially political discourse, without recognizing how it is being systematically leveraged to undermine the credibility and autonomy of those with marginalized identities. In the following chapters, I supplement social/feminist epistemological methodologies with norm theory to argue that online discourse entrenches the mechanisms of political dominance and cultural hegemony by ignoring and devaluing the experiences and struggles of marginalized individuals. Each chapter investigates a different, concrete manifestation of this dynamic. In Chapter 1, I argue that digital capitalist enterprises like Facebook facilitate the targeting of minoritized users with disproportionate instances of abuse, misinformation, and silencing. This is exemplified by the practice of using racial microtargeting to engage in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) voter suppression. I contend in Chapter 2 that, given the exploitative nature of racially-microtargeted political advertising campaigns, these social media companies are ultimately morally responsible for initiating and sustaining a burgeoning digital voter suppression industry. In Chapter 3, I argue that the presence of online disinformation, in tandem with key party figures’ explicit endorsement of vicious group epistemic norms like close-mindedness and dogmatism, have directly contributed to the formation and epistemic isolation of conservative political factions in the US. Finally, I argue in Chapter 4 that social media and hostile media bias rhetoric directly reinforce sexist and racist credibility norms, effectively creating a toxic environment of misogynistic online discourse that hurts the perceived credibility of women journalists.</p>