Diss.--Theologische Fakultät--Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 1990.

Diss.--Universität Zürich, 1998. / Bibliogr. p. 282-300.

“What does a hug mean in counselling practice?” In this autoethnographic research, I explore the role and implications of physical touch in therapeutic practice. Researchers argue that the use of hugs is controversial, as the fields of counselling and psychotherapy do not provide either a culture in which physical touch is regarded to be an appropriate therapeutic tool or where it is suitably introduced via generalised training that best prepares professionals to appropriately apply touch in practice. Yet, I argue that the reasons behind practitioners' potential struggle with the use of touch are much more complex and involve both the personal and professional spheres. In this qualitative study, I utilise autoethnography as my research method which illuminates the dynamics between my own sociocultural values, my personal relationship with my mother and my professional experience with a counselling client who requested a hug. I also employ poetry and storytelling as I argue that these creative methods assist me to recollect, analyse and present difficult memories, which implies that reflective practice helps to reveal potential issues that may arise in our interaction with therapeutic clients. By doing so, I demonstrate how these interactions formed and deformed my subjective notion of what it means to hug a client in a therapeutic context and show how the meaning and use of touch is significantly influenced by both sociocultural factors and subjective experiences. Thus my research illustrates that a practitioner’s potential struggle with the use of physical touch in practice can be a symptom of dissonance between his/her professional and subjective perceptions of and experience with touch. This autoethnographic study aims to show psychotherapists and counsellors how they may better understand the use of touch in professional practice by reflecting on their own personal and socio-cultural experiences with physical contact in various contexts.

My work is a symptom of my ongoing quest to achieve immortality. I perpetually attempt to make permanent the traces we leave behind and the impressions we make upon each other. I use the body to portray boundaries – between the skin and the heart, comfort and disquiet, holding and letting go. The objects I make serve both as an agent for physical contact and as the commemoration of an ephemeral interaction. I create personal fossils, revealing the interstices formed when two bodies come into contact with one another. I use materials that reference endurance and longevity to record transient spaces whose edges continuously shift and whose membranes are particularly tenuous. This work is an ongoing catalog of the people in my life and my persistent efforts to hold on to those fleeting connections.

The diploma thesis deals with takeover techniques and regulation of takeovers in the Czech law system. In the theoretical part of the paper there are explained key definitions and general facts concerning with takeovers. The main theme of the theoretical part analyzes the most frequent takeover techniques. The paper studies how particular techniques work. It also takes into account expert discussions about the takeover theme. The takeover laws of the Czech Republic are analyzed in the second part of the diploma thesis. The paper contains a synthesis of theoretical findings and regulation of corresponding laws. It reveals practical use of particular takeover techniques in the Czech Republic.

Arbetet har genomförts med målet att skapa ett mervärde för Sony Ericssons produkter, utan att fokusera på telefoner. Vi har undersökt hur man kan öka användarens band till en teknologisk produkt som man alltid bär med sig. Vi har, genom att anordna en workshop, studerat användare och deras attityd gällande personalisering av mobiltelefoner. Vidare har vi besökt Milano och Berlin, och studerat hur mobiltelefoner kommuniceras hos återförsäljare och hur de används, för att få ett globalt perspektiv. Studierna har resulterat i att vi funnit en brist i hur personliga teknologier svarar mot människors känslor. Vi har baserat på detta skapat ett koncept vi kallar Selectíf som innebär en serie riktlinjer, eller kriterier för att skapa tillbehör till mobiltelefoner. Dessa tillbehör skall ta större hänsyn till emotionella aspekter och fokusera mindre på att vara funktions orienterade. Selectíf-produkter sätter känslorna i främsta rummet och skapar därmed ett mervärde baserat på emotionella band. / We have in this thesis studied the area of emotive design as a way to create a stronger user experience. Functionality and features are still important to break new grounds and develop artifacts that can make our life easier, but the value of the product must beconsidered in a new way and communicated on new level, an emotional level.We have within the thesis, in collaboration with Sony Ericsson,investigated how emotions can be evoked by personal technologies.The human computer interaction is today so advanced that we might not always reflect over the impact the technology has on us. Our personal technology is getting more sophisticated which could allow stronger emotional bonds between the user and a device. What we have created is a concept for designing what we call emotional triggers.To find out what triggers users’ emotions towards technologyin order to create an added value, we have studied the relationshipbetween users and their mobile phones. These studies included a workshop where we aimed to find out how users perceive their mobile phone and also how willing they are to personalize it.Furthermore we conducted trend research in Berlin and Milan to see international differences in mobile usage and also tocompare it to other industries such as the fashion industry.The result is a concept we call Selectíf. The concept is a set of design criteria for designing add-ons that are made to illustratemore emotional values of a technical device. The concept is based on the notion of a series of add-ons and we have also createda first prototype, called Selectíf no1 based on the criteria.The prototype focuses less on technology and more on a user’s emotional needs and illuminates how personal technologies canbe designed to be more emotive and thereby create a stronger user experience.