Systemic Therapy

RESUMEN:
En el presente texto se revisan las principales intervenciones basadas en el paradigma narrativo en el contexto del modelo sistémico. En primer lugar recapitulamos de forma somera, aún a riesgo de resultar excesivamente simplistas, la evolución del modelo sistémico para describir la manera en que este proceso acompaña el desarrollo de la óptica narrativa. En segundo lugar, nos centramos en la descripción del modelo de terapia narrativa de Michael White y el procedimiento de externalización, deteniéndonos en los principales pasos del proceso terapéutico e ilustrando cada fase con ejemplos clínicos con el objeto de dar al lector una visión detallada de las intervenciones narrativas al uso. Un último apartado está dedicado a reseñar la afinidad entre la teoría de constructos personales y las intervenciones narrativas destacando su relevancia para el futuro desarrollo del modelo sistémico.

Palabras clave: terapia familiar, terapia narrativa, externalización, constructos personales, integración en psicoterapia

ABSTRACT
In this article we review the main interventions based on the narrative paradigm in the context of the systemic model. Firstly, we briefly recapitulate, at the risk of being overly simplistic, the evolution of family therapy describing how this process accompanies the development of narrative practice. Second, we focus on the description of Michael White’s narrative therapy and his externalization procedure detailing every stage of the therapeutic process with clinical examples in order to give the reader a detailed view of common narrative interventions. A final section is allocated to describe the affinity between personal construct theory and narrative therapy highlighting its fruitfulness for the evolution of the systemic model.

Keywords: family therapy, narrative therapy, externalization, personal constructs, integration in psychotherapy"

As the use of qualitative inquiry increases within the field of social work, researchers must consider the issue of establishing rigor in qualitative research. This article presents research procedures used in a study of autoethnographies that were written regarding the experience of being Jewish. In this project, the researchers utilized reflexivity, audit trail, triangulation by observer, peer debriefing, member check and prolonged engagement in order to manage the threats to trustworthiness as discussed by Padgett (1998). Implications of the project suggest that research procedures utilized by qualitative researchers to establish rigor are an important way to increase our confidence that the voice of the participants is heard, therefore fitting the mission of the social work profession.

Mind Alone For many years psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy was singularly centered on the unconscious mind and conscious mind. There was only mind and the mind could become aware of its own self and its own representational realm. The self itself was representational and the emphasis on the mind was in the light of analytic thinking and analytic observation. There was an emphasis on objectification of mental phenomena and subjectivity itself. Knowing was knowledge by association, by reflection and mediation by linguistic signifiers. Knowing was neither non-conceptual nor pre-reflective, nor was there a place for direct experiential knowingness. Knowing was associated as mind alone and singular mind functions such as thinking, feeling, sensation, memory and imagination. Transitional Space as Space of Awareness With the presentation of the work of Donald Winnicott there was a shift in the psychoanalytic understanding of knowingness. A similar change in psychoanalytic thinking about knowing was also taking place in the Jungian and archetypal analytic schools. In psychotherapy Winnicott emphasizes a focus on the suspension of mind and in the process of suspension of mind, awareness was freed to focus within awareness, free to focus itself on itself. In the suspension of mind (a Winnicottian form of the phenomenological reduction,) the patient relocates themselves. The patient relocates from being located in mind alone or even located in a particular function of mind alone such as: feeling function or thinking function or sensation function or memory function; the patient enters or relocates themselves into the intermediate area of experience. This intermediate area of experience or this in-between space of experience is also described as the transitional area of experience and relatedness. Sometime this place is also described as the place of potential space. The sense of self shifts from being located in the mind or mental function of the mind into the more embodied sense of spacious awareness or as the place of potential space. Winnicott would described this knowing

Back cover text: Real Social Science presents a new, hands-on approach to social inquiry. The theoretical and methodological ideas behind the book, inspired by Aristotelian phronesis, represent an original perspective within the social sciences, and this volume gives readers for the first time a set of studies exemplifying what applied phronesis looks like in practice. The reflexive analysis of values and power gives new meaning to the impact of research on policy and practice. Real Social Science is a major step forward in a novel and thriving field of research. This book will benefit scholars, researchers, and students who want to make a difference in practice, not just in the academy. Its message will make it essential reading for students and academics across the social sciences.

This thesis re-thinks the theory of systemic family therapy by investigating the role played by Gregory Bateson's ideas
and by reading his ideas alongside the writings of poststructuralist philosophers Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze.
While Bateson's contribution to the early development of systemic family therapy is widely recognised, the subsequent
emergence of narrative and social constructionist versions of systemic family therapy has been held to have superseded
Bateson. In this thesis it is argued that when Bateson is read alongside the writings of Foucault and Deleuze, his contribution
is reinvigorated. The concepts that emerge out of these encounters are used to articulate a new conceptualization for
systemic family therapy.
The thesis is divided into two parts. The first part explores the historical development of systemic family therapy and
defines the problem in terms of a double irony. The first irony relates to Bateson's frustration with prevalent theoretical
models within the social sciences. This frustration was at the base of his investigations into cybernetics which, in turn,
were central to the emergence of systemic family therapy. Bateson's theoretical work provided the clinic with a relational
alternative to prevalent inrapsychic approaches. The second irony relates to a critical reflection on the contemporary
configuration of theory in systemic family therapy with particular reference to Bateson's insights. This critical reflection
constitutes a continuous reminder of the difficulties inherent in a rigorous engagement with the complexity of a relational
approach to the clinic.
The second part provides a positive alternative to the presenting problem by engaging in a constructive reading of the
philosophical projects of Foucault and Deleuze. These projects are interrogated in their relationship to the work of Bateson.
Out of these encounters, a number of central concepts of Bateson's work are reconsidered, including Bateson's insights into
cybernetics and the sacred. The cybernetic notions of reflexive and immanent knowledge that is self-forming becomes the
means by which to understand one's position as an observer and a participant in society. Bateson's late explorations of grace
and the sacred are used to provide evaluative guidelines for an approach that engages fully with a philosophy of difference.

Jill Schostak and I wrote this book as part of our evolving interest in doing research radically.  By radically we mean engaging with people's voices to learn how to create the conditions for social justice and for democratising all the organisations of everyday life.  We draw on our own research but also on the ways in which the media is used to shaw people's voices and behaviours.  We explore all the ways in which the desires and demands of elites are inscribed upon minds and bodies as well as how writing may create the conditions for counter inscriptions.  Writing research is to engage politically.  Whether it is the Arab Spring re-inscribing hopes for freedom, the Occupy Movement or young people challenging orthodoxies at home or in classrooms through use of the media, it is the power of writing in its broadest sense that makes the difference.

Este Trabajo de Investigación se enmarca en la perspectiva desarrollada por el Grupo de Trabajo sobre Constructivismo y Evolucionismo de la Facultad de Psicología de la Universidad de Oviedo, formado entre otros por los Profesores Jose Carlos Sanchez González, Tomás R. Fernández Rodríguez e Ignacio Loy Madera. Su objetivo es ensayar una visión general de la Psicología desde un Constructivismo
volcado en la coordinación, sin reduccionismos, de evolución, acción e historicidad. La tarea de la que este texto se ocupa es la de extender esa visión al ámbito de la Psicoterapia.
Para ello se desarrolla la diferencia entre constructivismo y construccionismo, se recorren los conceptos de sujeto y agente en diversos modelos psicoterapéuticos y se amplia la noción de psicoterapia como encuentro entre sujetos. Se proponen algunos aspectos centrales de la psicoterapia en clave constructivista.

A critical review of some of the historical debates among systemic therapists suggests that the enactment of systemic practice has largely been eclipsed by an over-emphasis on interpretation, narrative, and theoretical understanding. We argue that being principally organized by any therapeutic model-whether it advocates a postmodern, narrative, systemic, or other view-maintains the hegemony not of only a singular form of interpretation, but of interpretation itself. We suggest the practical shift intended by systemic and cybernetic contributions to the field involved its implicit encouragement of an always readyto-change therapy, creatively guided by interactivity rather than allegiance to any habituated form.

There is a widespread idea that in grounded theory (GT) research, the researcher has to delay the literature review until the end of the analysis to avoid contamination – a dictum that might turn educational researchers away from GT. Nevertheless, in this article the author (a) problematizes the dictum of delaying a literature review in classic grounded theory, (b) presents arguments for using extant literature in the substantive field within a constructivist grounded theory, and (c) suggests data sensitizing principles in using literature, which are: theoretical agnosticism, theoretical pluralism, theoretical sampling of literature, staying grounded, theoretical playfulness, memoing extant knowledge associations, and constant reflexivity.

There is ferment in the social sciences. After years of sustained effort to build a science of society modelled on the natural sciences, that project, long treated with suspicion by some, is now openly being rethought. A critical intervention in this period of reflection was Making Social Science Matter (MSSM) by Bent Flyvbjerg, published in 2001. In that book Flyvbjerg challenged the very idea of social science as a science modelled on the natural sciences. Flyvbjerg argued that, as the social sciences study human interactions that involve human consciousness, volition, power and reflexivity, attempts to build generalizable, predictive models such as those for the natural world are misplaced and even futile.

The concept of role is central to the field of drama therapy, where it is considered by many to be not only a useful construct to conceptualize an individual's personality, but also a vehicle for psychological change. This study was concerned with exploring the concept of role in drama therapy as it specifically relates to working with families. Using a theoretical methodology to examine the intersection of drama therapy and family
therapy, this study made links between Landy's application of Role Theory and Systems Theory, focusing especially on the concept of family roles. Through an integrative review, this study examined the concept of family roles as it is defined and considered in
family therapy literature from the foundational models of the mid-twentieth century to the postmodern approaches of today. Based on this review, this research proposed a new taxonomy of family roles, laying the groundwork for a future systemic application of the Role Method. Drama therapy holds much potential for families seeking to uncover, explore and work through the multiple roles that make up their role system. The author argued that despite the fact that family roles in systemic literature are couched in a
modern framework that views these roles as rigid and problematic entities, the creation of a systemic Role Method would place them in a postmodern context, integrating old and
new systemic frameworks as well as making valuable link between the fields of family therapy and drama therapy.

The article introduces discourse analysis as a fruitful approach to psychotherapy change-process research. Extracts are presented from a successfully resolved, client-specified, problematic theme that was selected from a successful 8-session psychodynamic-interpersonal therapy of a female client presenting with a major depressive episode. The study offers a heuristic demonstrating (a) how resolution of the client's problem evolved from implications raised by the client's own description of her predicament and involved the therapist's legitimation of a morally defensible account of the client's actions and (b) how cultural meanings can be brought into the consulting room as intimately personal problems. The implications of studying therapeutic change as a discursive activity comprising the use and negotiation of sociocultural meanings are discussed.

For over fifty years, successive waves of critique have underscored that the apolitical character of much of Political Science research betrays the founding mission of the discipline to have science serve democracy. The Caucus for a New Political Science was originally based on such a critique, and the Perestroika movement in the discipline included a call for more problem-driven as opposed to theory- or method-driven work that would better connect Political Science research to ongoing political struggles. In recent years, movements for a public Sociology and public Anthropology as well as dissonant movements in Economics and related fields have added to the insistence that social science research was too often disconnected from the real world. Phronetic Social Science has emerged out of the ferment for change in the social sciences, starting with the much-debated book by Bent Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter (Cambridge 2001). Flyvbjerg critiqued the social sciences for mimicking the natural sciences while proposing an alternative approach that focuses research on helping people address the problems they are facing in the context they are facing them. Today, Phronetic Social Science goes beyond the call for an alternative approach to social inquiry and its growing adherents are providing evidence that this alternative approach to doing research can enrich the social sciences by more effectively connecting research to efforts to address real world problems as people experience them. This essay provides a genealogy of efforts to connect Political Science to politics, a review of the major critiques of mainstream research, an explication of the rationale for more problem-driven, mixed methods research, a specification of the key principles of the phronetic approach, and examples of its application in the public realm. The essay concludes with implications for realizing a more political Political Science by way of taking a phronetic approach.

Research into the use of transitional objects (Winnicott, 1971) by adult clients in psychotherapy has given little attention to the question of how a transitional object (TO) works. This question is addressed through the use of a semi-structured interview. Data was collected on the clinical practice and theoretical understanding of TO emergence and use of three psychodynamic-interpersonal (PI) and three Gestalt psychotherapists. A grounded theory analysis suggests that a TO works by a process of embodiment which can be structured with reference to a four-level model consisting of physical, process, contextual and conceptual levels. Therapists of both orientations emphasized the TO as a focus of intersubjectivity within the therapeutic relationship. Differences between the PI and Gestalt therapists are also examined. The clinical implications of this four-level model of embodiment for the use of TOs in psychotherapy are explored, together with suggestions for further research.

This paper describes the rationale and context for eight key markers of quality in qualitative systemic practitioner research. The criteria are designed for systemic practitioner researchers who are researching from the position of practitioner-at-work. The criteria include Systemic Practice, Methodology, Situatedness, Relational Ethics, Relational Aesthetics, Reflexivity, Coherence, and Contributions. They build on existing criteria for quality developed within the fields of post-positivist qualitative research and professional practice research by embedding them in systemic practice theory, activity and values. Distinctions are made between practitioner research and research about practice, and between positivist and post-positivist research. This eight-point framework brings together existing systemic methods of inquiry which recognise the importance of understanding context, movement and relational know-how. The paper proposes that systemic or relationally reflexive practice is already a form of collaborative inquiry or action research in which any action, research included, inevitably contains intention and acts as an intervention. While working with people in small and immediate systems, systemic practitioner researchers are critically reflexive in understanding how local issues are connected to wider socio-political systems and discourses.

Phronetic organizational research is an approach to the study of management and organizations focusing on ethics and power. It is based on a contemporary interpretation of the Aristotelian concept phronesis, usually as ‘prudence’. Phronesis is the ability to think and act in relation to values, to deliberate about ‘things that are good or bad for humans’ in the words of Aristotle (1976:1140a24–b12). Phronetic organizational research effectively provides answers to the following four value-rational questions, for specific problematics in management and organization studies: 1. Where are we going with this specific management problematic? 2. Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? 3. Is this development desirable? 4. What, if anything, should we do about it?

The aim of this study was to examine how transitional objects (TOs) work from the perspective of adult clients in psychotherapy. Data were collected using a semistructured interview with 6 female clients in humanistic psychotherapy. Grounded-theory analysis of this material suggests that a TO works through a 5-phase process of ‘holding’ in which the client successively integrates 3 themes: (a) the continuity of the therapist's existence, (b) connectedness with the therapist, and (c) the development of a new sense of self. A spiral microtheory is proposed that shows how these themes interact across time and relate to the client's experience of shame. The analysis suggests a use of TOs that is broader than D. W. Winnicott's (1953) conception and includes selfobject functions (H. Kohut, 1971).

This study explores the meaning of the death of a companion animal through autoethnographic poetry in conjunction with narrative reflections. This method expands the depth and scope of poetry in qualitative research by transforming expressive works into both the subject and product of inquiry.

The term ‘phronetic social science’ was coined in Making Social Science Matter (Flyvbjerg 2001). However, as pointed out in that volume and by Schram (2006), phronetic social science existed well before this particular articulation of the concept, but it was just not organized, recognized or named as such. Rather, it occurred here and there as scholars had adopted phronesis-like methods for their own purposes. The present title is the first organized volume of empirical–practical work in phronetic social science. Before Making Social Science Matter, phronesis, as a critical term of Aristotelian philosophy, had been theorized and its continuing importance as a key concept in Western thought had been convincingly argued by distinguished philosophers like Hans Georg Gadamer, Hannah Arendt, Alasdair MacIntyre and Richard J. Bernstein, among others. But no one had developed the theory and philosophy of phronesis into a practical methodology that could be applied by researchers interested in actually practising a phronetic social science. Making Social Science Matter developed such a methodology. Its implications were discussed and developed further in Making Political Science Matter (Schram and Caterino 2006). After these two theoretical–methodological contributions, it was evident that an important next step in demonstrating the usefulness of phronetic social science would be to illustrate, with concrete examples, how applied phronesis works in practical, empirical social science research. The contributions on applied phronesis contained in the present volume make clear that this next step has now been taken.

With a point of departure in the concept "uncomfortable knowledge," this article presents a case study of how the American Planning Association (APA) deals with such knowledge. APA was found to actively suppress publicity of malpractice concerns and bad planning in order to sustain a boosterish image of planning. In the process, APA appeared to disregard and violate APA's own Code of Ethics. APA justified its actions with a need to protect APA members' interests, seen as preventing planning and planners from being presented in public in a bad light. The current article argues that it is in members' interest to have malpractice critiqued and reduced, and that this best happens by exposing malpractice, not by denying or diverting attention from it as APA did in this case. Professions, organizations, and societies that stifle critique tend to degenerate and become socially and politically irrelevant "zombie institutions." The article asks whether such degeneration has set in for APA and planning. Finally, it is concluded that more debate about APA's ethics and actions is needed for improving planning practice. Nine key questions are presented to constructively stimulate such debate.

En este trabajo exploramos la narrativa, operativizada como constructos
personales, de personas con distimia. Primero se examina, mediante el sistema de
categorías de constructos personales, el contenido general del sistema de construcción
de los distímicos (n = 53) y se compara con una muestra no clínica (n = 53). A
continuación, se analizan las dimensiones de significado más relevantes de la muestra
clínica en comparación al grupo control. Finalmente, analizamos la presencia y el
contenido de los dilemas implicativos identificados con la técnica de la rejilla de Kelly.
Los resultados indican que las personas con distimia utilizan significativamente más
constructos de tipo emocional, y menos de tipo intelectual. Las dimensiones de
significado “fuerte-débil” y “tolerante-autoritaria” resultan de especial relevancia en la
narrativa de los distímicos. Por otro lado, el contenido de los constructos congruentes de
los dilemas implicativos, que reflejan aspectos relacionados con la identidad y los
valores, pertenecen en su mayoría al ámbito de la moralidad y la calidez emocional.
Mientras que los constructos discrepantes presentan contenido vinculado al ámbito de la
afectividad y especialmente a la dimensión de significado “fuerte-débil”. Se dibuja un
mapa de la narrativa en la distimia y se relaciona con los modelos explicativos
existentes. Se concluye el trabajo proponiendo nuevas aproximaciones de investigación.

This paper provides a worked exemplar of psychotherapy research using the approach of conversation analysis inspired discourse analysis (CA/DA), sometimes known as discursive psychology (Edwards & Potter, 1992; Potter, 2003; Potter & Wetherell, 1987). The aim of the paper is to explore the potential usefulness of discursive analysis for qualitative psychotherapy research within a relational centred ethos. The paper presents an analysis of extracts from a case of psychodynamic-interpersonal psychotherapy based on Hobson’s (1985) conversational model. This model has a particular relational focus in assuming clients’ problems arise from relationship disturbances and that the therapeutic encounter is a vehicle for the manifestation, exploration, and modification of such problems. The model is conversational in that intervention consists of therapists’ use of strategies such as negotiation, metaphor, and development of a ‘common feeling language’...

A reference work for specialists in student counselling and for those who employ counsellors in mental health services. It provides an analysis of research in this area and provides useful information on the extent and severity of student mental health problems and the effectiveness of counselling and psychotherapy across the student population. This is the first publication to systematically identify, assess and review research in this area.

Silence, as we may know from our own experiences, can be beautiful, welcoming, terrifying, confusing, grounding-so many things. But a therapist's reading of a silence may not tell us whether it is a desirable and friendly silence for people or whether people want help with talking in general or about something in particular. My training in psychoanalytic therapy and my experience of having psychoanalytic therapy taught me about the uses of just sitting with people without feeling a responsibility to populate the space between us with a wordy attempt to understand and process through questions and answers and reflections. On the other hand, I think back with horror to other times in my therapeutic career, when I may have contributed to unnecessary discomfort for some people by not creating additional choices with them. The move in systemic therapy towards dialogical and collaborative relationships in therapy brings me great relief. A reflexive, appreciative and learning stance in therapy opens space for therapists and the clients to negotiate rewarding and creative ways of communicating together. This is a better ethical and practical fit for me. It opens up possibilities to get alongside people in their silence and find useful and fitting ways of being together. The spoken word is not everyone's first or preferred language. In this chapter, I share some examples of how people coming to therapy and I have experimented and found ways of talking without being so dependent on talking aloud. And I show how I have tried to get over some of the insidious narratives in our profession which privilege aloud talk as the optimum medium for a successful therapeutic outcome and the use of therapeutic techniques over spontaneous responsiveness (Shotter & Katz, 1998; Vedeler, 2011) in therapeutic relationships. In the following story, Susan and I work out how to coordinate in the silence. Despite what I said about being prepared for silences and not being in a rush to talk and understand, I can sometimes feel a discomfort which reflects my need to set a context for silences. If talking exchanges are not available in therapy, it creates a dilemma for the collaborative practitioner. How can I avoid imposing my agenda or my way of talking on people coming for therapy without them offering me guidance? The reflexive rescuer in me needs to know the extent of her responsibilities and establish that the 'call' button is working and that people know how to use it. Susan and I try to work out how to talk Months go by. We sit in silence most of the time. But it is a silence which is far from quiet. Susan's discomfort is apparent. She looks pained when I ask questions. And doesn't answer. Well, not in any way which I can make sense of. I just see-hear-feel her pain. There is an

In the following essay I propose some thoughts concerning stability (percepts and affects) and modification (desire). The two works written by Deleuze and Guattari that I consider are What is Philosophy? and the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia – Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus. I make reference to Joyce’s literature, although mention of Joyce in Deleuze and Guattari is rare. The reason for using Joyce is that the Irish writer seems to have more than one affinity with the texts produced in the intersecting lives (Dosse, 2011) of the two French writers.
At the same time, Spinoza, among the philosophers who influenced Deleuze, is the benchmark of my essay for understanding the distinction between stability, concerning the work of art, and the work of the unconscious. The distinction between the philosophical mainstream (particularly Aquinas) in regards to “desire” and the importance of body in Spinoza’s philosophy is the path I follow for demonstrating that Schizoanalysis is a breaking point for philosophy, for psychology and for psychoanalysis.
In continuing the line traced out by Spinoza, and followed by Nietzsche and Bergson, Deleuze and Guattari break with the psychoanalytical vision of desire as a negative instance (the missing of something to be endlessly fulfilled) and foster the positive instance of desire as a production of the unconscious. Finally I note that the distinction between the stability of the work of art and the modification of desire – in connection with the distinction made by Spinoza – permits Deleuze to entirely regain the issue concerning: “what a body can do”.

An illustrative analysis is offered demonstrating the potential of conversation analysis for psychotherapy research. Extracts are presented from an unresolved problematic theme selected from an unsuccessful eight-session psychodynamic-interpersonal therapy of a female client presenting with a major depressive episode. The authors identify descriptive devices and communicative skills on which the client and therapist draw in the process of problem formulation. They demonstrate the way in which differing versions of the client’s problems were presented and how the client and therapist pursued differing attributional projects. Specifically, the authors examine how internal and external accounts of the client’s underlying problems were accomplished and warranted and how the therapist attempted the transformation of problems. The quality criteria pertaining to conversation analysis are indicated, the implications for therapeutic practice explored, and the relationship between the present findings and previous research discussed.

Background: Research evidence on unprofessional relationships across the caring professionsc onsiders a range of activities and definitions (Halter, Brown & Stone, 2007). The evidence on sexual boundary violations (SBVs) in psychological therapy is sparse, but suggests that SBVs are under-reported; there is also a small but significant component of complaints. Conversely an increasing literature exploring client experience of SBV suggests that the effects are profound (Ben-Ari & Somer, 2004; Somer & Nachmanil, 2005). The prevalence literature is primarily quantitative, often using survey methodology. Conclusions have limited accuracy; there are issues raised, for example, when considering recruitment and sample characteristics, response rates, and questionsand definitions used. Some studies identified general characteristics associated with SBVs, including middle age, being male, working alone and outside the public sector; more recent literature, however, has been critical of the notion of the 'bad apple'. Halter, Brown and Stone (2007) conclude that provision of information is insufficient; evidence for the effect of recent innovations in training is promising, but evaluation of these is necessarily limited. It is unlikely, however, that UK accredited practitioners are ignorant of the code of ethics to which they have signed up; other reasons are more likely to play a part in sexual boundary violations.

Research Aims and Questions: The aims of the current research were to (1) Identify the indicators that signal potential or actual sexual boundaryviolations by healthcare providers who are relevant to the remit of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy; (2) Explore how practitioners manage these in their therapy work and the effects of such management strategies; (3) Make detailed recommendations to minimise risk of sexual boundaryviolations by such healthcare providers.

Methodology: Thirteen practitioners were interviewed about their experiences of managing the risk of sexual boundary violations. Inclusion criteria were: accreditation as a counsellor or psychotherapist within specified counselling or psychotherapy organisations; a preparedness to confirm that he or she had not committed, or been subject to an investigation concerning, a sexual boundary violation; extensive experience of clinical work since qualifying, some of this being outside the NHS. To maximise the potential variety in participants and accounts, participation was invited through advertising and electronic distribution lists. The sample was completed through purposive sampling; to ensure that the sample varied sufficiently in terms of sex, disclosed hetero or homo-sexual orientation, age, cultural background, experience and time since qualified, working environments, therapy models, registering body and geographical location, four participants were identified through personal and professional contacts. The sample therefore included individuals from both higher and lower risk categories. Semi-structured interviews were used to elicit therapist experiences. The focus was on gaining detailed accounts of boundary breaches and potential SBVs, on reactions,choices and strategies adopted by practitioners, and opinions and judgements. Data were analysed thematically (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Braun & Clarke, 2000), each interview analysed initially by pairs consisting of an academic and a clinician. Principles of Free Association Narrative (Hollway & Jefferson, 2000) were employed when extending the analysis beyond the participan's opinions and explicit themes, using the interviewer's experience to understand the complexities of the constructed account.

Findings: Participants described SBV as one extreme on a continuum of boundary breaches; many accounts focussed on recognition and management of small breaches. Experiences of sexual attraction originating from client and therapist were seen as ubiquitous and unavoidable, and occurred without reference to sex of therapist and client, or sexual orientation; the management of the experience was seen as critical in determining whether a serious breach had taken place. Definitions of breaches and boundary violations varied, especially in views on touch. The key factor identified in definitions of boundary breaches concerned motive, i.e. whether the practitioner was acting in their own interests rather than for the client's benefit. For some, boundaries and their management, including sexual boundaries, were integral to therapeutic work. Elements of the steps involved in the therapeutic management of boundaries were developed into a process model created through analysis of what seemed to work positively for therapists and clients. The model articulates the following process: (1) noting; (2) facing up to it personally; (3) reflecting; (4) processing; (5) formulating; (6) working for therapeutic benefit. This model represents an ideal; therapists viewed the process as an ongoing struggle. Practitioners described a tension between engagement and sense making; we came to view this as a participant/observerstance, with similarities to Celenza's (1995) definition of empathy. Some accounts of managing boundaries were deemed problematic, even though they were not descriptions of sexual boundary violations, by participant or research team; for example, the strategies adopted for managing pressure on therapeutic boundaries sometimes resulted in distress to clients and difficulties with therapeutic work. These were grouped into a typology of four categories: self-protective/defensive; moralising/omnipotent; neediness/over-identification, and over-protective anxiety. A feature of all examples was a difficulty in maintaining a constructive balance between participation and observation. Supervision was seen as the primary source of support for successfully managing boundaries; we focussed on experiences of supervision and views of its functions. Supervisors were expected to focus on client benefit, manage the supervisory relationship, facilitate understanding, and an ethical and therapeutic stance. These mirror the practitioner's roles, so that supervisors might support therapist work at any point. One of the major aims of supervision seemed to be the development of an internal supervisor (Casement, 1985). Additionally, supervisors were expected toprovide quality checks, monitoring the therapist's account and their own experience, speaking of difficulties, so that threats of boundary breaches could be discussed. This extended for some to a responsibility to report serious unprofessional misconduct.

Conclusions and Recommendations: These findings are not inconsistent with the literature and research on sexual boundary violation, victims and transgressors, even though participants had avoided sexual boundary violations and had experience of successfully managing boundary threats. The sample tended to favour more conservative stances towards boundary limits such as touch; this may have been a protective factor. Recommendations for practice have been framed as issues for reflection for practitioners, supervisors, employing organisations, accrediting bodies, and training organisations. These include: increasing clarity over reporting; support during investigation; training in boundary management; supervisor contracting; formulation of practitioner learning needs; for practitioners to develop and own a rationale for therapeutic boundaries and prohibitions. There are finally suggestions for future research.

Social construction continues to exert significant influence in the social sciences – particularly psychology. As a movement, it has captured the imagination of many in the field perhaps because of its critique of empiricism and its claims of addressing issues of equity and diversity. In this paper, we question the status of social construction using Deleuzian conceptualizations. From a Deleuzian perspective, far from being transformative, social construction is successful only if a number of its core assumptions are left unquestioned. The idea(l) of social construction Social construction is a concept that has continued to capture the imagination of many within the social sciences. This is in spite of many critical interventions (Hibberd, 2005; i.e., the special later editions of Theory & Psychology edited by Stam, 2001; 2002). One major concern of social construction's critics has been its consistency. Danziger reviewed eleven titles in the influential Sage series Inquiries in Social Construction and found it hard to specify a consistent set of claims. Danziger argued that, as a concept, social construction [SC] has " fraying boundaries " and can only stand scrutiny in terms of its consistency if " one focuses on the contrast between traditional psychological approaches and that of social construction […] but once one adopts a wider, cross-disciplinary, perspective, the " ism " in social constructionism becomes virtually impossible to pin down " (1997, p. 400). SC has survived such critiques, which demands some reflection by theoreticians and practitioners alike as to the mechanisms and conditions that support this state of affairs. Danziger may have been mistaken to focus on inconsistency: perhaps, despite the apparent inconsistencies, there is indeed an internal consistency within SC. We will argue in this paper that SC is both internally consistent, and misguided. We will attempt to explore some of its mechanisms and to articulate some of the theoretical limitations that arise from these. In particular, we will explore SC under two aspects that, in our view, SC has not considered adequately: the body and the fictional. In articulating these limitations, we are mostly interested in exploring the ways in which a Deleuzian approach proves to have a far more powerful effect in terms of both theory as well as insights into living practices. We will conclude the paper by summarizing the application of these ideas to the clinical setting. There seems to be a general agreement amongst theorists that SC had a distinct origin in the seminal

The author’s personal artistic process of inquiry into arts-based research is presented. Altered book making and poetry were used to explore the epistemological, theoretical and practical aspects. The growing literature on arts-based research is reviewed and incorporated into the artistic inquiry. Current challenges and opportunities in art-based research are outlined, including applications to art therapy and the beginnings of a new transformation-through-the-arts paradigm, rooted in an aesthetic epistemology. As a strategy for inquiry, the altered book served to express some of the beauty, energy and complexities of this topic.

"Franz G. Riffert & Michel Weber (eds.), Searching for New Contrasts. Whiteheadian Contributions to Contemporary Challenges in Neurophysiology, Psychology, Psychotherapy and the Philosophy of Mind, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, Whitehead Psychology Nexus Studies I, 2003. (444 p. ; ISBN 3-631-39089-0 ; 68,5 €)
Whitehead claimed that “to sustain a civilization with the intensity of its first ardour requires more than learning. Adventure is essential, namely, the search for new perfections” (Adventures of Ideas, 258). Since humility is—more than ever—urgently needed in scholarship, we have chosen to qualify our conceptual adventure as a search for new contrasts, thus invoking an essential Whiteheadian concept. As the reader will have already understood, contrast does not mean here contention, or strife, or even comparison between fields that are essentially foreign to each other; it means emphasizing the complementariness of differences and the promotion of synergies.
"


Foreword, Franz G. Riffert and Michel Weber
List of Contributors
Introduction. Reconnecting Science and Metaphysics: General Considerations and Pioneer Works on Process-Psychology, Franz G. Riffert and John B. Cobb, Jr.
Part I. Neurophysiology
Value in Mind and Nature, Jason W. Brown
Consciousness, Whitehead and Quantum Computation in the Brain: Panprotopsychism Meets the Physics of Fundamental Space-Time Geometry, Stuart Hameroff
Consciousness: The Brain’s Private Psychological Field, Marcel Kinsbourne
The Common Origin of Perception and Action: A Process Perspective, Avraham Schweiger
Part II. Psychology
Whitehead's Faculty-Psychology, Jean-Claude Dumoncel
Psychology Moves Towards Whitehead, John Pickering
On Scientific Confirmation of Causal Efficacy, Franz G. Riffert
What is Called “Feeling”?—Lure and Certainty in Whitehead and Descartes, Pierre Rodrigo
The One and the Many. Reflections on Whitehead’s notion of Personal Identity, Luca Vanzago
Part III. Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy in Process, John B. Cobb, Jr.
The Promise of Process Psychology, David E. Roy
The Universality of Impermanence, C. R. F. Sherlock
The Art of Epochal Change, Michel Weber
Part IV. Philosophy of Mind
A Psychology for the Ecosystem, Liliana Albertazzi
Mind as Process, Mark H. Bickhard
Direct Realism in Perception and Memory, Peter Farleigh
Untangling “Self,” “Person,” and “I”, David Galin
Whitehead and the Revival (?) of Panpsychism, William Seager
Psychology and Physics Reconciled: Whitehead’s Vision of Metaphysics, Anderson Weekes
Critical Apparatus
General Bibliography
Index of Subjects
Index of Names
Detailed Table of Contents

This article is about organizational change based on the new perspective of Systemic Constellations, by means of a brief analysis of two doctoral theses, one in Spanish from Spain, one in English from the Netherlands. The results were obtained from various geographical and professional contexts, and suggest new ways of decision-making in organizations, more from the perspective of what can be done, than of what should be done.

This paper explores issues concerning personal agency in discursive psychology and discourse analysis, with a particular emphasis on agency in terms of motivational accounts of the person. Issues are discussed in relation to the efficacy, acceptability, and accessibility of discourse analytic research for the practising psychotherapist. We suggest that such an approach may raise problems in four areas. First, we argue that without explicit theorization of the subject as language user, discourse analysis may be vulnerable to the charge of determinism. Second, theorization of the subject as language user may be required to account successfully for individual consistency and continuity of identity. Third, although claiming to critique commonsense notions of subjectivity, implicit dualist assumptions facilitate a reading of discursive psychology that is compatible with a motivational model of the person. Finally, we argue that discursive psychology itself implies a particular model of the strategically motivated language user. We conclude that, although these issues require clarification, discursive psychology and discourse analysis have much to offer psychotherapy research.

Aim: To identify therapists’ views on sexual boundaries and the strategies they employ to manage them in therapeutic practice. Method: In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with a sample of 13 accredited, experienced practitioners of psychotherapy or counselling. A grounded theory approach, informed by principles from Free Association Narrative methodology, was employed, in which team members used debriefing sessions for extending depth of understanding of the interviews. Findings: There is consensus about boundaries at the extremes, but variability about fantasy, flirtation and touch. A core process was generated from accounts of successful management of sexual attraction. We identified four problematic ways of reacting to boundary pressure, each with potential to harm clients and therapy. Discussion: A participant-observer stance was conceptualised as essential for managing threats to boundaries, consistent with the empathic stance. Minor boundary crossings were viewed by interviewees as both potential precursors of more serious transgressions, and as opportunities for understanding the client's difficulties. Implications for practice: These span training, accrediting organisations, supervision and therapy practice.

Acne is a common inflammatory skin disease which affects the pilosebaceous units of the skin. It can have severe psychological effects and can leave the patient with severe skin scarring. There are four well-recognized pathological factors responsible for acne which is also the target for acne therapy. In this review, different treatment options are discussed, including topical (i.e., retinoids, and antibiotics) and systemic (i.e., retinoids, antibiotics, and hormonal) treatments. Since the general public has been showing an increasing interest in more natural and generally safer treatment options, the use of complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) for treating acne was also discussed. The use of physical therapies such as comedone extraction, cryoslush therapy, cryotherapy, electrocauterization, intralesional corticosteroids and optical treatments are also mentioned. Acne has been extensively researched with regards to the disease mechanism as well as treatment options. However, due to the increasing resistance of Propionibacterium acnes towards the available antibiotics, there is a need for new treatment methods. Additionally, the lack of necessary evidence on the efficacy of CAM therapies makes it necessary for researchers to investigate these treatment options further.

The aim of this article is to present a succinct review and evaluation of the main areas of contention in the false memory debate and, from this basis, to suggest ways in which the best from both sides can be utilized. We examine the potential pitfalls of therapy in terms of the fallibility and suggestibility of autobiographical memory and therapists and therapeutic techniques as the architects of false memories. We then evaluate the case for false memory formation examining if some researchers hold misconceived views of psychotherapy, if experimental studies lack ecological validity, and the effect of trauma on memory. Finally, we explore how the potential pitfalls of therapy can be avoided in practice, reflecting on the usefulness of British Psychological Society guidelines, how clinicians can implement research findings, and how research on the false memory debate can be improved. We conclude that the way forward is researcher–clinician collaboration in the development of ecologically valid research paradigms.

« A systemic reading of Whitehead's organic philosophy », Process Studies, 49/1, 2020, pp. 115-142.

The aim of this article is to explore the importance of biological and social networks in Whitehead's philosophy. This exploration will involve a consideration of pluridisciplinarity in Whitehead, including a consideration of the relationship between scientific understanding and philosophical thinking, the question of method in Whitehead's thought, and the crucial distinctions between mechanism and organicism and between nature lifeless and nature alive.

In this chapter, I propose how as professionals, we need to shift our skills from diagnostic activities to relational curiosity and so develop collaborative ways of conversing with people who have Asperger Syndrome and others in their networks. Through immersing ourselves in dialogue with people and their social and professional networks, we can bring forth evidence of people with Asperger Syndrome having unique and useful expertise which can play a part in resolving concerns and improving communication between those in their networks. Not only is it socially productive but it is also ethical for professionals to shift their focus from an exploration of ‘mind’ as commonly believed to exist solely within an individual person and to the relational contexts so influential on what we are constructing with each other through talk and how that shapes what is able to be recognised and developed.

By foregrounding dialogue over diagnosis, we see how experimenting with user friendly talk can provide opportunities for symptoms and features of High Functioning Autism / Asperger Syndrome (Wing 1981; Gillberg 1991) to be understood as meaningful communications in which the ‘disabled’ person is experienced as able and enabling. The individualised account of the person having been diagnosed as having Asperger’s Syndrome is exchanged for descriptions of an interactive social system. I will show how ‘mind’ is relocated from the cognitive brain to the social opportunistic space created between people.

Draft
Simon, Gail (2016). Thinking Systems. 'Mind' as relational activity. opportunities for communicating within relationships. In Re-thinking Autism: critical approaches in a global context by Runswick-Cole, K., Mallett, R. & Timimi, S. (Eds.). London: Jessica Kingsley Publications.

Como respuesta al reto considerable que supone para la terapia familiar el desarrollar modelos de evaluación, presentamos una propuesta que se articula en tres vertientes: la epistemológica, la teórica y la metodológica. La posición epistemológica de este modelo es el constructivismo. En este movimiento interdisciplinar participan desde físicos, biólogos, y cibernéticos hasta terapeutas familiares. También en Psicología el constructivismo ha tenido sus representantes, entre los que cabe destacar la Teoría de los Constructos Personales de G. A. KELLY. HARRY PROCTER ha desarrollado una extensión de esta teoría que abarca los fenómenos familiares e integra los planteamientos sistémicos. Se trata de una teoría constructivista muy fructífera y elaborada de la cual se deriva un diseño metodológico para la evaluación familiar: la rejilla familiar. Su descripción se acompaña de una aplicación a una familia con un miembro alcohólico. Las ventajas principales de este modelo son su coherencia entre la posición epistemológica, la teoría y el método; su fecundidad en la generación de hipótesis clínicas y su potencialidad integradora entre distintos enfoques sistémicos y la Psicología de los Constructos Personales.

This chapter from Systemic Therapy as Transformative Practice reframes systemic practice as research and offers several ideas and examples of research methodologies which are a close fit with what systemic practitioners are already doing! In effect, the chapters unravels and challenges the idea that reflexive, siutated practice is not already a collaborative form of inquiry.

Simon, Gail (2016). Systemic Therapy as Systemic Inquiry as Transformative Research. In McCarthy, Imelda & Simon, Gail (Eds.), Systemic Therapy as Transformative Practice. Farnhill: Everything is Connected Press.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Systemic-Therapy-as-Transformative-Practice/dp/0993072321/

La differenza tra epistemologia e ontologia può essere rintracciata, nel pensiero di Gregory Bateson, a partire dal saggio The Cybernetics of "Self", pubblicato nel 1971 1 , tradotto in italiano come Cibernetica dell'"io". Invero, il termine "Self", così come usato da Bateson, maiuscolo e virgolettato, è significante ironico; rinvia alla distanza dalla tradizione occidentale moderna. L'alcolista nel discorso batesoniano, è un personaggio tipicamente moderno e Bateson sembra essere il suo Prologo. In preda al paradosso della volontà, l'alcolista ingaggia una sfida simmetrica con la bottiglia e finisce per non riuscire mai a "smettere, di smettere di bere", come ben dice Deleuze 2 . Il cosiddetto "Self", virgolettato e maiuscolo -parte essenziale e intraducibile del titolo dell'opera di Bateson -si presenta sulla scena occidentale come personaggio che pretende di esaurire la propria vita attraverso le forme della rappresentazione mentale. Oggi lo chiamano mentalismo o "teoria della mente". L'alcolista -lungi dall'essere in primo luogo una persona con patologia individuale -è la cifra del fallimento di questa ipotesi puritana sul mondo. Come il giocatore d'azzardo, l'alcolista è intrattabile dalla psicologia cognitiva perché il cognitivismo esercita la neutralità nei confronti del mondo sociale, non prende posizione. Perciò, foucaultianamente, non può conoscere l'alcolismo, si limita a balbettare un imperativo lineare: "devi smettere di bere", cosa che l'alcolista sa meglio di chiunque altro, e risponde: "non riesco a smettere di smettere, ci riprovo sempre". Il "Self" -con l'iniziale maiuscolo, come tipicamente nei nomi di origine germanica -è espressione ironica di un processo che parte dalla sua negazione e giunge, purificato da ogni inclinazione sentimentale, al suo opposto nel self made man. Ciò che unisce il diabolico Self puritano all'intraprendente Self americano è il paradigma del controllo. In questo mondo di uomini fatti da sé -in questo trionfo della volontà di matrice liberista -la mente subisce uno scacco, non fa i conti col corpo. L'uomo che si fa da sé, di fronte alla frustrazione sociale -come non ricordare Morte di un commesso viaggiatore di Arthur Miller -perde la grazia 3 . Vuole dimenticare la prima grande crisi del trionfo della volontà, 1929, e per dimenticare ci vuole un pharmacon. L'alcol fa il suo ingresso legale negli Stati Uniti nel 1933, lo stesso anno in cui, come un sol uomo, il trionfo della volontà totalitario inizia la sua marcia in Germania, con le conseguenze catastrofiche che conosciamo. Nell'opzione liberale, orientata al soggetto come individuo, l'alcol diventa mezzo per dimenticare e il suo potere commerciale crea il paradosso dell'uomo con la bottiglia, relazione simmetrica perdente. Dimenticare serve a rinnovare quotidianamente la sfida, coazione a ripetere della frustrazione, circolo mnemotecnico: per dimenticare è necessario ricordare la pratica quotidiana, il rituale con la bottiglia. Bateson, nel descrivere la simmetria con la bottiglia, anticipa la svolta ontologica proposta da Bruno Latour 4 a proposito dell'indistinzione funzionale tra attanti umani e non umani. L'uomo "The Cybernetics of "Self". A theory of Alchoolism", Psychiatry, 34, 1, 1971. Tr. it. in Verso un'ecologia della mente, Milano, Adelphi, 1976. L'opera di Gregory Bateson è stata tradotta, con grande cura e attenzione, da Giuseppe Longo. Tuttavia, per una serie di ragioni relative ai cambiamenti storici e ai riferimenti a Bateson allora poco noti (la sua partecipazione nel 1967 al convegno Dialectics of Liberation, insieme a figure come Allen Ginsberg e Herbert Marcuse, la sua frequentazione di psicoanalisti, i riferimenti a lui di Deleuze e Guattari, ecc.), la traduzione italiana risulta, a mio avviso, oggi un po' carente. Bateson è autore che, a seconda di chi lo legge, può ispirare differenti tipi di traduzione. Come noto, ogni traduzione si sovrappone al punto di vista del traduttore. In molte parti di questo saggio, dunque, riprenderò una mia traduzione del testo originale inglese. 2 Deleuze, G., Abecedario, Roma, Derive/Approdi, 2005. 3

We present A Galveston Declaration which is intended as a statement of values shared by family therapists and the broader community of collaborative practitioners.  In the preface, the authors describe the process by which they created this declaration, as well as its purpose.  The authors declare that family therapy is experiencing another significant transformation, not unlike a previous historical shift from first- to second-order family systems therapies. The authors propose a statement of shared values, thematized within four categories: (1) pluralism, (2) flux, (3) opening space, and (4) responsibility.  The authors invite colleagues and peers to sign on to support or otherwise respond to the declaration.  http://galvestondeclaration.org