Toward A Psychology of Persons

Toward A Psychology of Persons
Author: William E. Smythe
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2013-05-13
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1134807457

This closely integrated collection of essays constitutes a wide-ranging and comprehensive attempt to understand persons within psychology--a long-lost enterprise. The volume was inspired by the observation that contemporary psychology has become increasingly depersonalized in its conceptions and its methodology, and has thereby lost touch with its traditional subject matter of human individuality and the nature of persons. This development now threatens the integrity of psychology as a discipline. Using both a critical and constructive approach, the various contributors share two common objectives: *to explore the roots of depersonalization in modern psychology through systematic criticism of contemporary functionalist and neo-functionalist approaches; *to articulate some alternative holistic-interpretive and historical approaches to the psychology of persons. Despite these common objectives, the chapters reflect a wide variety of theoretical perspectives and approaches, including cognitive science and neuroscience, discursive psychology, hermeneutics, social constructionism, semiotics, rhetorical analysis, and psychological aesthetics. These essays do not converge on a unified psychology of persons, but they do serve to reopen a form of discourse that has long been absent from mainstream psychology. This volume emerged from the deliberations of the Western Canadian Theoretical Psychologists (WCTP)--a group of scholars primarily from Western Canadian universities with shared interests in the history and theory of psychology. From its founding in 1989 to the present, the WCTP has been actively engaged in promoting and contributing to the development of theoretical psychology. Over the past half dozen years, scholars have greatly benefitted from the close collaboration and collegial support that participation in the WCTP makes possible. The annual meetings provide an opportunity for them to catch up on each other's work and also to pool their expertise to work on topics of shared interest.

Toward a Psychology of Uncertainty

Toward a Psychology of Uncertainty
Author: Doris Brothers
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2011-04-12
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1135469024

Since trauma is a thoroughly relational phenomenon, it is highly unpredictable, and cannot be made to fit within the scientific framework Freud so admired. In Toward a Psychology of Uncertainty: Trauma-Centered Psychoanalysis, Doris Brothers urges a return to a trauma-centered psychoanalysis. Making use of relational systems theory, she shows that experiences of uncertainty are continually transformed by the regulatory processes of everyday life such as feeling, knowing, forming categories, making decisions, using language, creating narratives, sensing time, remembering, forgetting, and fantasizing. Insofar as trauma destroys the certainties that organize psychological life, it plunges our relational systems into chaos and sets the stage for the emergence of rigid, life-constricting relational patterns. These trauma-generated patterns, which often involve denial of sameness and difference, the creation of complexity-reducing dualities, and the transformation of certainty into certitude, figure prominently in virtually all of the complaints for which patients seek analytic treatment. Analysts, she claims, are no more strangers to trauma than are their patients. Using in-depth clinical illustrations, Dr. Brothers demonstrates how a mutual desire to heal and to be healed from trauma draws patients and analysts into their analytic relationships. She recommends the reconceptualization of what has heretofore been considered transference and countertransference in terms of the transformation of experienced uncertainty. In her view the increased ability of both analytic partners to live with uncertainty is the mark of a successful treatment. Dr. Brothers’ perspective sheds fresh light on a variety of topics of great general interest to analysts as well as many of their patients, such as gender, the acceptance of death, faith, cult-like training programs, and burnout. Her discussions of these topics are enlivened by references to contemporary cinema and theatre.

Irreducible Mind

Irreducible Mind
Author: Edward F. Kelly
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 836
Release: 2010
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9781442202061

Current mainstream opinion in psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind holds that all aspects of human mind and consciousness are generated by physical processes occurring in brains. Views of this sort have dominated recent scholarly publication. The present volume, however, demonstrates empirically that this reductive materialism is not only incomplete but false. The authors systematically marshal evidence for a variety of psychological phenomena that are extremely difficult, and in some cases clearly impossible, to account for in conventional physicalist terms. Topics addressed include phenomena of extreme psychophysical influence, memory, psychological automatisms and secondary personality, near-death experiences and allied phenomena, genius-level creativity, and 'mystical' states of consciousness both spontaneous and drug-induced. The authors further show that these rogue phenomena are more readily accommodated by an alternative 'transmission' or 'filter' theory of mind/brain relations advanced over a century ago by a largely forgotten genius, F. W. H. Myers, and developed further by his friend and colleague William James. This theory, moreover, ratifies the commonsense conception of human beings as causally effective conscious agents, and is fully compatible with leading-edge physics and neuroscience. The book should command the attention of all open-minded persons concerned with the still-unsolved mysteries of the mind.

Adoption Detective

Adoption Detective
Author: Judith Land
Publisher: Wheatmark, Inc.
Total Pages: 301
Release:
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1604945729

A passionate love affair between high school sweethearts creates an accidental pregnancy during a sultry night on the shore of Lake Michigan. Rebecca's unforgiving parents banish her to an unwed mother's home where she secretly gives birth to a baby girl. Her daughter Judy is placed in the loving care of foster parents before being callously given to Mario and Rosella Romano for adoption on her first birthday. Reoccurring visions and fantasies of her birthmother plague Judy's consciousness for three decades until a life-changing passage into adulthood causes her to question why she was abandoned. What begins as a simple investigation into her medical and ancestral history slowly evolves into a passionate quest to discover her roots. Through good timing, perseverance, and a few small miracles, Judy eventually solves the mystery of her origins. But will the woman she has been seeking welcome Judy back into her life? About the Authors Judith and Martin Land live in Colorado and Arizona. They told the entire story of Judith Land's adoption, from her birth through adulthood, to provide the reader with unique insights into the mind of an adoptee at various stages of her life.

Toward a Psychology of Awakening

Toward a Psychology of Awakening
Author: John Welwood
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
Total Pages: 443
Release: 2002-02-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0834825546

A guide to understanding the relationship between Western psychology and the contemplative sprituality of the East—and how one’s spiritual journey can be enriched by both How can we connect the spiritual realizations of Buddhism with the psychological insights of the West? In Toward a Psychology of Awakening John Welwood addresses this question with comprehensiveness and depth, building on his innovative psychospiritual approach to health, healing, and spirituality. He covers the following topics: • What can the spiritual methodologies of the East teach us about psychological health? • What issues arise when the recognition of our larger nature challenges our very conception of individual self ? • What new directions become possible when psychological work is undertaken in a spiritual context? • How does Western psychological understanding affect our approach to spirituality? Welwood's psychology of awakening brings together three major dimensions of human existence: personal, interpersonal, and suprapersonal in one overall framework of understanding and practice.

Do Apes Read Minds?

Do Apes Read Minds?
Author: Kristin Andrews
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2012-07-20
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0262017555

Andrews argues for a pluralistic folk psychology that employs different kinds of practices and different kinds of cognitive tools (including personality trait attribution, stereotype activation, inductive reasoning about past behavior, and generalization from self) that are involved in our folk psychological practices.

Towards a Contextual Psychology of Disablism

Towards a Contextual Psychology of Disablism
Author: Brian Watermeyer
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2013
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 041568160X

This innovative work argues that a psychological framework of disability is an essential part of developing a more cohesive disability movement. Presenting conceptual ideas which describe psychological dynamics confronting disabled people in an exclusionary and prejudiced world, this volume is an important contribution to the literature. It will interest students and researchers of disability studies.

The Psychology of Personhood

The Psychology of Personhood
Author: Jack Martin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2012-11-29
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1107018080

A new examination of the psychology of personhood, which views persons as irreducibly embodied and socially situated beings.

Toward a Global Psychology

Toward a Global Psychology
Author: Michael J. Stevens
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 466
Release: 2007
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0805853766

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