For A Measure Of Opacity: Psychoanalysis In A Time Of Transparency – Rosmary Rizq, December 1st 2018

Date/Time

Saturday, December 1st, 2018

9:30 am – 4:00 pm

Location
BCA Conference Venue

St Alban’s Centre, Baldwins Gardens, Holborn – London

For A Measure Of Opacity: Psychoanalysis In A Time Of Transparency – Rosmary Rizq

Transparency is deemed central to today’s democratic systems, institutions and services. Our insistence on open government, freedom of information and the public’s right to know privileges not only the visibility of information but also the visibility of the self. How might psychoanalytic practitioners think about and respond to the ever-increasing demand for transparency in the consulting room? This paper draws on the ideas of Derrida, Laplanche and Glissant to argue for what has been called ‘the right to opacity,’ suggesting that psychoanalytic counsellors and psychotherapists are particularly well-placed to offer a critical perspective on today’s culture of surveillance.

Rosemary Rizq, PhD. C. Psychol. AFBPsS. FHEA. is a UKCP accredited psychoanalytic psychotherapist and an HCPC registered Counselling Psychologist. She is Professor of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy at the University of Roehampton and has worked for many years in the NHS, most recently as an Adult Psychotherapist in North-East London Foundation Trust’s Forest House Psychotherapy Clinic. She now has a part-time private practice in West London. Rosemary was Submissions Editor for Psychodynamic Practice from 2004-2010, is a reviewer for a number of academic journals and she has published widely on issues related to organisational dynamics and psychotherapeutic training and practice.

BOOKING: https://birkbeckcounsellingassociation.org/event/a-plea-bca-autum-talk-agm-with-rosemary-rizq/

 

Facts and Fallacies: Cultural Representations of Mental Health, 14th November 2018 Edinburgh

Facts and Fallacies: Cultural Representations of Mental Health

On Wednesday, 14 November, join us in the Project Room, 50 George Square, for a series of short talks centring on cultural representations of mental health as part of Student Wellbeing Week.

Session 1 – Talks (11am to 1pm)

Marking a joint effort between several Schools and Support Services across the University, Facts and Fallacies aims to open up an honest discussion on mental health in a safe environment through six wide-ranging talks comprising neuroscience perspectives on mental wellbeing, complex mental illness in the media, BAME mental health in the UK, mental health representations in the Lothian Health Services Archive, and gendered aspects of mental health.

Staff and students from the Chaplaincy and Wellcomm Kings will be on hand throughout this event to support attendees and offer additional information regarding University of Edinburgh resources for mental wellbeing.

Tea and coffee will be shared on arrival from 11am to 11:10am.

Short talks chaired by Professor Jolyon Mitchell

  1. Professor Stephen LawrieNine Myths about Depression and its treatment.
  2. Dr. Alice WhiteGendered representations of mental health in history (tbc).
  3. Dr. Laura A. CariolaPresentations of Complex Mental Illness in the Media: A discursive focus on Borderline Personality DisorderThis presentation reports on an in-depth corpus-assisted discourse analysis which explores how borderline personality disorder is presented in UK newspaper articles and medical case studies. Special attention is given to identifying how discourse types compare in their communication of stereotypes and prejudices that create and reinforce existing social stigma against individuals affected by mental illness.
  4. Louise Neilson – Inside the Asylum: Archival records of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. Looking at the surviving records of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital this talk will focus on the asylum buildings and the conditions for the patients housed within them.
  5. Rianna Walcott – The Colour of Madness – BAME mental health and scholarship. This talk will explore issues of poor mental health amongst BAME students, and in the wider UK. With reference to Rianna’s own experience as a black student at the University of Edinburgh and in collating BAME experiences for the anthology The Colour of Madness, the talk will address current failings in mental health services as well as contemporary activist efforts for improvement of UK healthcare.
  6. Angela McLaughlinProject Soothe. A unique ‘Citizen Science’ project combining research and public engagement with the goal of developing a bank of soothing images to improve mental health and wellbeing. Since its launch in 2015, Project Soothe has collected over 700 images from members of the public in 29 countries. Its multi-cultural global research has already established that viewing 25 of these images significantly improves people’s mood even if depressive symptoms are present. Find out more and get involved at www.ProjectSoothe.com

This session will also conclude with an open discussion on the topics presented facilitated by two co-chairs offering both staff and student perspectives. We hope you’ll join us for what promises to be an insightful morning. Together, we hope to build deeper understandings of mental health in order to strengthen our community as a whole.

Book here for session 1 in the Project Room (11am-1pm).

Session 2 – Wikipedia editing event (1.30pm-5.30pm)

Join us in Computing Lab 1.02 on the first floor of 50 George Square, for a Wikipedia editathon focused on improving the coverage of mental health online.

Have you ever wondered why the information in Wikipedia is extensive for some topics and scarce for others? On Wednesday, 14 November, the University’s Information Services team are hosting an edit-a-thon as part of Wellbeing Week. Full Wikipedia editing training will be given at the beginning of the workshop. Thereafter the afternoon’s editathon will focus on improving the quality of articles about all things related to mental health.

Working together with liaison librarians, archivists & academic colleagues we will provide training on how to edit and participate in an open knowledge community. Participants will be supported to develop articles covering areas which could stand to be improved.

Come along to learn about how Wikipedia works and contribute a greater understanding of mental health!

Book here to join the Wikipedia editing event from 1.30pm-5.30pm

Session 3 – Screening the Inner World: Mental Health and Emotion in Film and Television (6pm-7.30pm)

Cinema and television have contributed greatly to public understanding and misunderstanding of mental health, emotion and psychological and psychiatric practices. In this panel discussion we will screen a number of clips from a range of films and programmes and invite panellists and the audience to reflect on the representations of mental health and illness. We will discuss the practical effect that such representations may have on the public perception of mental health and also explore the specific ways in which the moving image tries to show our apparently invisible inner worlds and emotional lives.

This event will be chaired by Dr. David Sorfa, Programme Director MSc Film Studies at the University of Edinburgh.

Invited panellists include:

  • Dr. Calum Neil – Associate Professor of Psychoanalysis & Cultural Theory at Edinburgh Napier University.
  • Dr. Laura Cariola – applied linguist and a chartered member of the British Psychological Society, Division of Academics, Researchers and Teachers in Psychology, and a member of the Division of Counselling Psychology.
  • Dr. Rosie Stenhouse – With a background in Social Science and mental health nursing, Rosie joined Nursing Studies at the University of Edinburgh as a full time lecturer in 2013. Her teaching focuses on research methods in mental health including a course she developed on Contemporary issues in mental health: engagement through the arts, humanities and social science, and critical engagement with professional issues relating to working in healthcare organisations.
  • Professor Stephen Lawrie – Chair of Psychiatry and Neuro-Imaging & Head of the Division of Psychiatry at the University of Edinburgh.

While we will steer away from the more lurid and gruesome representations of mental distress, some may find the topics raised or scenes depicted upsetting. Please do check the BBFC descriptions of the material to be screened here: http://www.bbfc.co.uk

Short clips from the following films may be shown:

  • Cabinet of Dr Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920)
  • A Page of Madness (Teinosuke Kinugasa, 1926)
  • Gaslight (George Cukor, 1944)
  • Spellbound (Alfred Hitchcock, 1945)
  • Whirlpool (Otto Preminger, 1950)
  • The Three Faces of Eve (Nunnally Johnson, 1957)
  • Asylum (Peter Robinson, 1972)
  • Demons of the Mind (Peter Sykes, 1972)
  • The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
  • Frances (Graeme Clifford, 1982)
  • An Angel at My Table (Jane Campion, 1990)
  • Girl, Interrupted (James Mangold, 1999)
  • In Absentia (Stephen and Timothy Quay, 2000)
  • Prozac Nation (Erik Skjoldbjærg, 2001)
  • Lunacy (Jan Švankmajer, 2005)
  • Mad Detective (Johnnie To, 2007)
  • A Dangerous Method (David Cronenberg, 2011)
  • Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell, 2012)
  • Inside Out (Pete Docter and Ronnie Del Carmen, 2015)
  • Mad to Be Normal (Robert Mullan, 2017)
  • Killing Eve (BBC1, 2018)
  • Maniac (Netflix, 2018)
  • Eat Pray Love (Ryan Murphy, 2010)
  • We Need To Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay, 2011)
  • The Orphan (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2009)
  • The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976)

Book here to join session three in the Screening Room at 50 George Square from 6pm-7.30pm.

Language and Psychoanalysis – Call for Papers Volume 8 Spring/Summer Issue 2019

Language and Psychoanalysis – Call for Papers Volume 8 Spring/Summer Issue 2019
The open access journal “Language and Psychoanalysis” is currently accepting manuscripts for Volume 8, Spring/Summer 2019Articles accepted for publication will be available as online first publications, expediting access to the latest peer-reviewed research.  
 
Manuscript submission due date: 30th April 2019
 
Language and Psychoanalysis” is a fully peer reviewed online journal that publishes twice a year. It is the only interdisciplinary journal with a strong focus on the qualitative and quantitative analysis of language and psychoanalysis. The journal is also inclusive and not narrowly confined to the Freudian psychoanalytic theory, but open to most language-based psychotherapeutic modalities. 
 
We welcome a wide range of original contributions that further the understanding of the interaction between Linguistic Analysis and Theory & Psychoanalytic Theories and Techniques. Any relevant manuscripts with an emphasis on language and psychotherapy will be considered, including papers on linguistics, methodology, theory, philosophy, child development, psychopathology, psychotherapy, embodied cognition, cognitive science, applied dynamical system theory, consciousness studies, cross-cultural research, and case studies. The journal also publishes short research reports, book reviews, interviews, obituaries, and readers’ comments.

Manuscripts should be send to the managing editor Dr. Laura A. Cariola <laura.cariola@ed.ac.uk>
 
Language and Psychoanalysis” is indexed by PsycINFO (APA), Scopus and Emerging Sources Citation Index.

Please share and distribute widely among your friends, colleagues and students!

Job Ad “Counselling Psychology DoS (Research)” at the Metanoia Institute

DCPsych Director of Studies (Research)

This is a Senior Management Post for a Counselling Psychologist with a doctoral level qualification and significant research, management and teaching experience. The applicant would need to have extensive knowledge about research methodologies with a particular emphasis on qualitative research. Commitment would be for three days per week.

The applicant would need to have a solid presence, with a particular interest in a reflexive stance within a practitioner doctorate that integrates research and clinical practice. A good knowledge of higher education processes, and the place of creativity within these, would also be important attributes on a doctorate of this kind, as would a capacity and interest in engaging in an interpersonal and collaborative culture within the DCPsych team.

In addition, the applicant would need to commit to the undertaking of research supervision with a number of DCPsych candidates.

To apply, please contact Dr Sofie Bager-Charleson (sofie.bager-charleson@metanoia.ac.uk)

“Core Conflictual Relationship: Text Mining to Discover What and When” by Fionn Murtagh and Giuseppe Iurato

Abstract

Following detailed presentation of the Core Conflictual Relationship Theme (CCRT), there is the objective of relevant methods for what has been described as verbalization and visualization of data. Such is also termed data mining and text mining, and knowledge discovery in data. The Correspondence Analysis methodology, also termed Geometric Data Analysis, is shown in a case study to be comprehensive and revealing. Quite innovative here is how the analysis process is structured. For both illustrative and revealing aspects of the case study here, relatively extensive dream reports are used. The dream reports are from an open source repository of dream reports, and the current  study proposes a possible framework for the analysis of dream report narratives, and  further, how such an analysis could be relevant within the psychotherapeutic context. This Geometric Data Analysis here confirms the validity of CCRT method.

Link to original article

Annual ‘Corpus Linguistics in Scotland’ network meeting, 30th November 2018, Edinburgh

Call for Papers

On 30th November 2018 (Friday), the School of Health in Social Science will host the annual meeting of the Corpus Linguistics in Scotland network.

We are delighted to announce that the theme of the meeting will be “Corpus Linguistics in the Arts and Humanities”. The meeting is an opportunity for networking and bringing together researchers using corpus linguistics methods in the Arts and Humanities (e.g., anthropology, film, geography, history, law, literature, music, and also health/medical humanities).

The event will allow researchers to present their work (either completed or in progress) and to discuss their challenges of using corpus analytic methods and tools to data in the Arts and Humanities. MA and PhD students are particularly encouraged to submit their abstracts. Arts and Humanities scholars who do not know about corpus methods but would like to find out more about it are also welcome to attend the event.

Venue

The meeting will be held at the University of Edinburgh, School of Health in Social Science, Teviot Place, Doorway 6, Edinburgh EH8 9AG, Room 4.1 (4th floor). For a campus map, please follow this link https://www.ed.ac.uk/maps/maps

Procedure for Submission

We invite submission of abstracts of papers on any topic relevant to the application of Corpus Linguistics in the Arts and Humanities. Abstracts can be for short work-in-progress papers (10 minutes) and full paper presentations (20 minutes). Abstracts should include a title, name and academic affiliation. Please send an abstract (approx. 150 words) to the organiser Dr. Laura Cariola (laura.cariola@ed.ac.uk).

Conference Registration

To submit your abstract and to register for the meeting, please send an email to the organiser Dr. Laura Cariola (laura.cariola@ed.ac.uk) with the following information:

  • Name
  • Email
  • Affiliation
  • Area of interest
  • Expression of interest to be included in the CLiS membership database

There is no charge for the attendance, and tea/coffee and biscuits will be provided for breaks. Lunch can be purchased in the vicinity and nearby shops.

Key Dates

Closing date for abstract: 31st October 2018

Confirmation of abstract acceptance: 9th November 2018

Closing date for registration: 23rd November 2018

CLiS meeting: 30th November 2018

We look forward to welcoming you to Edinburgh and will keep you updated on the latest news via the CLiS Twitter account https://twitter.com/corpusnscotland and the following hashtag #CLIS_2018.

2018 CLiS meeting organizer: Dr. Laura Cariola (University of Edinburgh)

CLIS conveners: Dr. Vander Viana (University of Stirling) and Dr. Brona Murphy (University of Edinburgh)

The Creative Power of Metaphor, 29th – 30th March 2019 at Worcester College, Oxford, UK

The Creative Power of Metaphor

#creativemetaphor

29th – 30th March 2019 at Worcester College, Oxford, UK

Join us for a 2-day conference on the nexus between Metaphor, Linguistic Diversity, and Creativity.

The conference will be structured around four themes. Each theme will be introduced in a keynote lecture, and developed in a panel discussion.

  1. Metaphor and Linguistic Diversity

Keynote speaker: Lera Boroditsky 

  1. Metaphor and Emotion

Keynote speaker: Zoltán Kövecses

  1. Metaphor and Communication

Keynote speaker: Gerard Steen

  1. Metaphor and Creativity

Keynote speaker: Rachel Giora

Call for Panel Participation

Each panel is designed to explore issues raised by the preceding lecture, elucidating current thinking on areas relevant to the theme, and debating matters of controversy. We invite expressions of interest in participation. Your submission should include the following:

  • The panel in which you wish to participate
  • Your name, affiliation and, if relevant, the URL for your web profile
  • What you consider to be the most burning questions concerning the theme (max. 150 words)
  • Your relevant expertise and research (max. 150 words)
  • Your main relevant publications.

Call for Poster Presentations

We invite abstracts (max. 300 words) for poster presentations that are relevant to one or more of the four themes of the conference. Your abstract should include the following:

  • The theme or themes of the conference your poster will address
  • Your name, affiliation and, if relevant, the URL for your web profile
  • Your relevant research
  • Your research methods
  • Your findings and/or theoretical advances.

Submissions

We welcome submissions from early career researchers to the panels and posters.

Please send submissions as email attachments to the following address:

creativemetaphor2019@gmail.com

DEADLINE: 31ST OCTOBER 2018.

Registration

Conference fee: £90

Reduced fee for students: £50

Registration will open in early November. Limited accommodation will be available.

The Organisers

Professor Katrin Kohl

Dr Marianna Bolognesi

Dr Ana Werkmann Horvat

The conference is part of the multi-institutional research programme Creative Multilingualism (www.creativeml.ox.ac.uk), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Our research group is a large cross-disciplinary team of academics working on the nexus between linguistic diversity and creativity. The conference is being organised by Strand 1 of Creative Multilingualism: Embodying Ideas – the Creative Power of Metaphor: https://www.creativeml.ox.ac.uk/research/metaphor.

We look forward to welcoming you in Oxford!

THEMES AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Research questions on the four themes include, but are not limited to, the following:

  1. Metaphor and Linguistic Diversity
  • What is the significance of linguistic diversity for metaphor theory?
  • How does linguistic diversity in metaphorical expression affect and interact with thought?
  • Is a unified metaphor theory that can account for the variability in linguistic data possible?
  • How are cultural differences actualized in metaphorical expressions?
  • Do truly universal metaphors exist?
  1. Metaphor and Emotion
  • What is the connection between metaphor and emotion? Is it systematic across languages?
  • Are emotions more likely to be expressed using figurative language?
  • Is there a correlation between expression of emotion and creative use of metaphor? If so, is this universal or culturally specific?
  • To what extent are metaphors that are used to express emotions universal? Is there a systematic difference by comparison with other areas of expression?
  • How does multilingual competence relate to the interaction between metaphor and emotion? Does the expression of emotions using figurative language differ depending on whether the speaker is using a native language or a non-native language?
  1. Metaphor and Communication
  • Is the use of metaphors favoured as a persuasive communicative device across languages or are there languages/cultures/cultural contexts in which metaphors are avoided for such a purpose? To what extent are creative and deliberate metaphors used in communication (e.g., in political speech) affected by cross-linguistic and cross-cultural variability?
  • Does the use of metaphor to change attitudes and opinions correlate with the conventionality/creativity of the chosen metaphors?
  • How and why does resistance to metaphor develop?
  • What is the role of figurative language use in multilingual settings and does this differ from such use in monolingual settings?
  1. Metaphor and Creativity
  • Is metaphor an area of language that offers more scope for creativity than other areas of language? Is any correlation universal or culturally specific?
  • What are the differences in understanding creative vs. non-creative figurative language?
  • How are creative figurative expressions perceived by speakers and listeners?
  • What constitutes a good metaphor in terms of creativity?
  • Are speakers of different languages creative in different ways in metaphor use?

BSA Annual Conference 2019 Call for Papers, Glasgow 24–26 April 2019

Dear Colleague,

We cordially invite you to contribute a paper to the Sociology, Psychoanalysis and the Psychosocial Study Group’s ‘grouping’ or  ’sub-stream’  at the 2019 BSA conference to be held at Glasgow Caledonian University 24–26 April 2019.  The submission deadline for conventional 20 minute papers is 12th October 2018 and the deadline for panel submissions is 5th October 2018 (for panels, see the ’special event submission pack’ on the submissions page of the conference site). Note you do NOT have to be a member of the BSA or the Study Group to submit a paper.

Submission guidelines are available on the BSA conference website. To be included in the Study Group’s ‘grouping’ papers and panel proposals should be submitted to the FRONTIERS stream (identified in a drop down menu in the submission form) and should include the words ‘psychosocial’ or ‘psychoanalysis, ideally in the title but at least in the abstract.  This will ensure your paper is reviewed by a specialist in the field.

If you have problems with the submission process, contact the BSA office. Tel: 0191 383 0839 or alternatively email at events@britsoc.org.uk

With our very best regards, as ever,

Peter and Julie

Peter Redman and Julie Walsh

Sociology, Psychoanalysis and the Psychosocial Study Group conveners

Study Group homepage

KeyDates: 

Special Event Submission Deadline: Friday, 5 October 2018

Abstract Submission Deadline: Friday, 12 October 2018

Abstract decisions to go out: beginning of December 2018

Presenter booking deadline: Friday, 11 January 2019

Postgraduate Day Event: Tuesday, 23 April 2019

BSA Annual Conference: Wednesday, 24 – Friday, 26 April 2019

Critical Praxis Cooperative’s website by Dr Robert Beshara

Dr Robert Beshara is pleased to announce, on behalf of the Critical Praxis Cooperative, a website, which will serve as a resource for students, faculty, and non-academics: www.criticalpsychology.org

The critical psychology website is one step in the direction of critical praxis, which entails transdisciplinary collaboration between critical scholars and radical activists. Currently Robert is trying to organize a conference for next year with that theme in mind, and when Robert has more information he will update the “events” section on the website.

Feel free to browse through the site, and kindly contact Robert to let him know if he needs to change anything. The idea behind the site is that it serves as a free collaborative resource, so if you have any corrections or suggestions do let him know. Robert is open to making changes. Also, you are more than welcome to share this website with anyone who might find it useful. Robert created the website because he felt there was a need for it.

Call For Papers: ‘Literature, Law and Psychoanalysis, 1890-1950’, University of Sheffield, 11-13 April, 2019

Call For Papers:

The twentieth-century was a period of worldwide literary experiment, of scientific developments and of worldwide conflict. These changes demanded a rethinking not merely of psychological subjectivity, but also of what it meant to be subject to the law and to punishment. This two-day conference aims to explore relationships between literature, law and psychoanalysis during the period 1890-1950, allowing productive mixing of canonical and popular literature and also encouraging interdisciplinary conversations between different fields of study.

The period examined by the conference included: developments in Freudian psychoanalysis and its branching in other directions; the founding of criminology; continuing campaigns and reforms around the death penalty; landmark modernist publications; the ‘Golden Age’ of detective fiction; and multiple sensational trials (Wilde, Crippen, Casement, Leopold and Loeb, to name but a few). Freud’s followers, like Theodor Reik and Hans Sachs, would publish work on criminal law and the death penalty; psychoanalysts were sought after as expert witnesses; novelists like Elizabeth Bowen would serve on a Royal Commission investigating capital punishment; while Gladys Mitchell invented the character of Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley as a literary detective-psychoanalyst.

We therefore hope to consider areas including literature’s connection with historical debates around crime and punishment; literature and authors on trial and/or on the ‘psychiatrist’s couch’;and literature’s effect on debates about human rights. The event is linked to and partly supported by an AHRC project on literature, psychoanalysis and the death penalty, but the aim of this conference is much wider. Interdisciplinary approaches, especially from fields such as psychoanalysis, philosophy, law or the visual arts, are particularly encouraged. We also welcome papers on international legal systems and texts. All responses are welcome and the scope of our interdisciplinary interests is flexible, with room in the planned programme for strands of work that might be more or less literary.

Possible topics might include:

  • psychoanalysis in the real or literary courtroom;
  • literary form and the insanity defence;
  • canonical authors as readers of crime fiction and vice versa;
  • censorship cases;
  • the influence of famous legal cases on literary productions or on psychoanalytic theory;
  • influences of criminology and criminal psychology on literature;
  • representations of new execution methods (for example, the gas chamber and the electric chair);
  • portrayals of restorative versus retributive justice;
  • literary responses to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
  • relationships between modernism and Critical Legal Studies (CLS).

You can also view more information about keynote speakers etc here:

https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2018/05/31/conference-cfp-literature-law-and-psychoanalysis-1890-1950-university-of-sheffield-11

Please send 250 word paper proposals or 300 word proposals for fully formed panels to Dr Katherine Ebury at litlawpsy2019@gmail.com by 28th November 2018.

 

“How language and image construct synaesthetic metaphors in print advertising” by Bologonesi & Lievers

How language and image construct synaesthetic metaphors in print advertising

Marianna Bologensi & Francesca Strik Lievers

Research in (multi-)sensory marketing suggests that engaging consumers’ senses is an efficient way to create effective advertisements. In this study, the authors explore how sensory cues are used in print advertising. In particular, they identify and describe print advertisements featuring instances of synaesthesia, that is, a metaphor by which properties of a given sensory modality are attributed to a concept that relates primarily to a different sensory modality. They propose that these advertisements can be classified based on the role played by the image and the text, as well as based on the way visual and linguistic elements interact. They also outline how their contribution can set theoretical groundwork for the design of new empirical research questions in cognitive sciences and marketing studies.

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1470357218782001?journalCode=vcja#articleShareContainer

‘Prediction of psychosis across protocols and risk cohorts using automated language analysis” by Cheryl M. Corcoran et al.

Abstract

Language and speech are the primary source of data for psychiatrists to diagnose and treat mental disorders. In psychosis, the very structure of language can be disturbed, including semantic coherence (e.g., derailment and tangentiality) and syntactic complexity (e.g., concreteness). Subtle disturbances in language are evident in schizophrenia even prior to first psychosis onset, during prodromal stages. Using computer‐based natural language processing analyses, we previously showed that, among English‐speaking clinical (e.g., ultra) high‐risk youths, baseline reduction in semantic coherence (the flow of meaning in speech) and in syntactic complexity could predict subsequent psychosis onset with high accuracy. Herein, we aimed to cross‐validate these automated linguistic analytic methods in a second larger risk cohort, also English‐speaking, and to discriminate speech in psychosis from normal speech. We identified an automated machine‐learning speech classifier – comprising decreased semantic coherence, greater variance in that coherence, and reduced usage of possessive pronouns – that had an 83% accuracy in predicting psychosis onset (intra‐protocol), a cross‐validated accuracy of 79% of psychosis onset prediction in the original risk cohort (cross‐protocol), and a 72% accuracy in discriminating the speech of recent‐onset psychosis patients from that of healthy individuals. The classifier was highly correlated with previously identified manual linguistic predictors. Our findings support the utility and validity of automated natural language processing methods to characterize disturbances in semantics and syntax across stages of psychotic disorder. The next steps will be to apply these methods in larger risk cohorts to further test reproducibility, also in languages other than English, and identify sources of variability. This technology has the potential to improve prediction of psychosis outcome among at‐risk youths and identify linguistic targets for remediation and preventive intervention. More broadly, automated linguistic analysis can be a powerful tool for diagnosis and treatment across neuropsychiatry.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wps.20491

“‘Widening cross-disciplinary research for mental health’: what is missing from the Research Councils UK mental health agenda?” by Diane Rose et al.

This current issues article is a brief critical examination of the recent Research Councils UK agenda and call for cross-disciplinary research in mental health. Our argument is based on the fact that patient and public involvement (PPI) is the only involvement and influencing strategy for service users and survivors in the agenda. Service user and survivor research as a discipline in itself remains unacknowledged. We conclude that service user and survivor research is distinct and is different to PPI, and should be recognised in any mental health research agenda.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09687599.2018.1423907

New Issue of “Language and Psychoanalysis” Volume 7 Issue 1

We are very pleased to inform you that Volume 7 Issue 1 of the open access journal “Language and Psychoanalysis” has gone online.

“The Spanish Tragedy Redux” by Dianne M. Hunter, Ph.D.
“Experience of Joy and Sadness in Alexithymic Emotional Discourse” by Marie-Mathilde Dupont-Leclerc, B.A., & Sege Lecours, Prof.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Metaphor across cultures and social spheres. Conference in Castelló de la Plana, 8-9 November 2018

CALL FOR PAPERS: Metaphor across cultures and social spheres. Conference in Castelló de la Plana – 8-9 November 2018

The V International Conference on Metaphor and Discourse will focus especially on the use of metaphor in a variety of modal manifestations across different cultures and social spheres. However, all aspects of metaphor in discourse are object of study and debate in the Conference. Following previous editions, the V International Conference on Metaphor and Discourse will be held at Universitat Jaume I (UJI), Castelló de la Plana (8-9 November 2018).

Contributions are encouraged on all aspects of metaphor and discourse studies, departing from the basic tenets of conceptual metaphor theory already set by landmark publications like Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) up to the more recently emergent trends that deal with the study of metaphor across different types of discourse, modes of expression and thought.

Our aim is to bring together specialists and researchers involved in these research matters in order to discuss recent contributions to the field, as well as to open new debates about the relevance of metaphor in discourse with special emphasis on the following topics:

• Quantitative and qualitative methods for metaphor analysis in discourse

• Metaphor and cultural diversity

• Discursive, cognitive and communicative functions of metaphor

• Corpora and technology in metaphor analysis

• Multimodal and monomodal metaphor

• Metaphor in virtual domains

• New cognitive domains in science and technology

• Social relevance of metaphor (in Education, Ideology, etc.)

The following keynote speakers have so far accepted the invitation to participate in the conference:

Dr. Alice Deignan, University of Leeds

Dr. Charles Forceville, University of Amsterdam

Dr. Marianna Bolognesi, Oxford University

Contributions, either in English or Spanish, may be submitted as either oral presentations or posters. Oral presentations will be 20 minutes in length plus a 10-minute discussion. As for poster sessions, a suitable time will be reserved so that poster presentations receive due attention on the part of all the assistants. Abstract submission may be realized through an email to: metaphor@fue.uji.es. Only abstracts between 600-700 words (including 3- 5 references and 3-5 keywords) will be accepted. The abstract must explicitly mention the aims or motivation, theoretical framework, method, (expected) results and conclusions of the contribution.

All submissions will undergo a double-blind peer-review process. Please, do not include the author’s name, email and affiliation in the abstract files.

Important Dates

20 July,  2018: Deadline for abstract submission (oral presentation and /or poster)

6  August 2018: Notification of acceptance/rejection

30 September 2018: Deadline for early bird registration and payment

8-9 November 2018: V International Conference on Metaphor and Discourse

14 January 2019: Deadline for full manuscript submission

Organizers

GReSCA. Grup de Recerca en Semántica Contrastiva i Aplicada. Universitat Jaume I 

Departament d’Estudis Anglesos. Facultat de Ciències Humanes i Socials UJI

Digitization of the Melanie Klein Archive by the Wellcome Trust Library

Digitization of the Melanie Klein Archive by the Wellcome Trust Library

The Melanie Klein Archive

In her Will Melanie Klein left her notes and papers to the Melanie Klein Trust, and they were at first in the care of Hanna Segal. In 1984 they were given to the Contemporary Medical Archives Centre of the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine, where they could be more easily preserved and made available to scholars. Thus the material is now owned by the Wellcome Library, while the Melanie Klein Trust retains copyright.

Visit the Wellcome Library website to view the archive catalogue

The archive online

The archive has recently been digitised, making it freely available online. To access the material:

  • Go to the Wellcome Library homepage
  • Type ‘Melanie Klein’ into the ‘Search the Library Catalogues’ field, then on the results page filter by ‘Online’
  • Or, in the same field, search for ‘digklein’
  • Select the result you want and click ‘View online’

Archive Blog

The Trust’s honorary archivist, Jane Milton, posts extracts from this rich trove of unpublished material in her blog, ‘Exploring Melanie Klein’s Archive at the Wellcome Library’.

Visit the archive blog.

The Collection

There are 29 boxes, each containing several hundred pages of papers. Some, especially the earlier papers, are in German and some of this is written in ‘Deutschschrift’, which is difficult to decipher. Some of the early correspondence of Moritz and Libussa (Deutsch) Reizes – Klein’s parents – includes extensive passages in Yiddish. However the later material, written once Klein had settled in England, is in English. Some material is handwritten by Klein; other material is in typescript, often with corrections in Klein’s handwriting. Most of the archive has now been microfilmed and is available for study in this form by bona fide scholars.

The papers had already been catalogued in 1961, just after Klein’s death, and this cataloguing was used as a guideline by Dr Lesley Hall, senior archivist at the Wellcome Library, who made corrections and added further material as it was donated. Further donations were as follows:

  • From Klein’s biographer Phyllis Grosskurth.
  • From Betty Joseph – translations of letters from Klein’s family members and photographs of Klein’s original small toys used in child analysis, 2005.
  • From Paul O’Farrell – photographs of the unveiling of a plaque in Pitlochry where the analysis of Richard took place in Narrative of a Child Analysis, 1987.
  • From Klein’s grandchildren – consisting of family correspondence, 1990.
  • From the Royal Danish Library, Copenhagen- copies of drawings by ‘Richard’ and copies of Klein’s letters to Georg Brandes about the posthumous publication of her brother Emanuel Reizes‘ writing, 2005.
  • Description of the material

Material includes correspondence, diaries, drafts of letters and publications, case material, photographs, files on the controversies within the British Psychoanalytical Society, 1939-1944, family correspondence and literary fragments. The collection is not considered to be complete; Melanie Klein retained hardly any professional letters, although more family letters survive. However, she kept an enormous amount of case material – there are 12 boxes of clinical notes – so it is clear that Klein, unlike Freud, thought that her unpublished notes were worth preserving, and may well have been intending to use some of them in future publications. Klein tended to date her clinical notes, but most of her notes on theory and technique are undated.

The material is arranged in five sections as follows:

A. Personal and biographical, 1879-1982;

B. Case material;

C. Manuscripts;

D. Notes;

E. Controversy within the British Psycho-Analytical Society, 1939-1944;

F. Family papers

Access and reproduction conditions

Unless otherwise stated, the papers are available subject to the usual conditions of access to Archives and Manuscripts material, after the completion of a Reader’s Undertaking. Certain clinical files are restricted and readers must additionally complete a Restricted Access application form to apply for access. Researchers who wish to publish material must seek copyright permission from the copyright owner, the Melanie Klein Trust.

Work in the archives

Material in German is in the process of being transcribed and translated by the Melanie Klein Trust. Elizabeth Spillius was the Honorary Archivist for the Trust for many years. Since 2014 the post has been held by Jane Milton, who is continuing her predecessor’s work of making the archives more available to scholars and facilitating publication of interesting material.

References

Spillius, E. (2007) Encounters with Melanie Klein. Edited by Roth and Rusbridger. London: Routledge.

Melanie Klein (1882-1960) List of papers in the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine, Compiled by Jens Lazarus and Lesley Hall (available via the Wellcome Library).

http://www.melanie-klein-trust.org.uk/archive

New book series “Language, Discourse and Mental Health” (University of Exeter Press)

New Book Series “Language, Discourse and Mental Health”

Editors: Dr. Laura A. Cariola (Lead Editor) (University of Edinburgh), Dr. Stefan Ecks (University of Edinburgh), Dr. Billy Lee (University of Edinburgh) and Dr. Lisa Mikesell (Rutgers University).

The editors are very pleased to announce the new book series “Language, Discourse and Mental Health” published with the University of Exeter Press. This book series is a unique resource to further knowledge and understanding of mental health from a pluralistically informed linguistic perspective.

Using qualitative and quantitative approaches to language-based analysis, the empirical and theoretical contributions will provide a compelling insight on mental health from a range of perspectives and contexts, including psychotherapeutic communication, public presentations of mental health, literary accounts of lived experiences, and language features associated to specific mental health problems. This interdisciplinary book series will be an essential reference for students, researchers and practitioners in linguistics and communication, education, cognitive science, psychology, counselling and psychotherapy, special needs, medicine, nursing, and medical anthropology.

Scope of the Book Series

The book series is framed in terms of linguistic perspectives that differentiate between communication about mental health (i.e., language performance or use), and the communication of individuals with mental health problems (i.e., language competence or systems) in real-world and research contexts. Such a focus is anticipated to be captured through the following linguistic perspectives: sociolinguistics and sociocultural linguistics, cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics, literary linguistics and stylistics. These can be applied through a range of language-based methodologies, including qualitative methods (e.g., discourse analysis, conversation analysis, interpretative phenomenological analysis, narrative analysis, thematic analysis), quantitative methods (e.g., corpus-based approaches, quantitative content analysis), and also experimental methods.

Consistent with an interdisciplinary framework that seeks to encourage and strengthen interdisciplinary research of mental health, the book series aims to encompass a wide repertoire different theoretical and philosophical views and a broad range of themes that add significant value to the field of mental health research, including:

  • ‘Understanding of mental health and mental health problems’ by developing empirical and theoretical knowledge of mental health from different perspectives. 
  • ‘Living with mental health problems’ by improving understanding of individuals’ perceptions of living with mental health problems.
  • ‘Effective interventions’ by focussing on the effectiveness of psychological intervention in the treatment and prevention of mental health problems.
  • ‘Wider inequalities in society’ (e.g., issues around gender, ethnicity, poverty sexuality and faith)
  • ‘Vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations’ in society, including drug users, migrants and homeless people.

Call for Book Proposals

The book series “Language, Discourse and Mental Health” is accepting book proposals for monographs and edited volumes. To discuss your book proposals, please contact the book series editors. Book series launch spring 2019.

Book proposal form: UEP – CE Book Proposal Form 2018 (see also http://www.exeterpress.co.uk/for-authors)

Dr. Laura A. Cariola (Lead Editor). Laura.Cariola@ed.ac.uk

Dr. Stefan Ecks. Stefan.Ecks@ed.ac.uk

Dr. Billy Lee. Billy.Lee@ed.ac.uk

Dr. Lisa Mikesell Mikesell.Lisa@gmail.com

Presentations of Borderline Personality Disorder in the UK Press by Laura A. Cariola

Presentations of Borderline Personality Disorder in the UK Press

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is the most stigmatised and misunderstood, yet also one of the most common diagnosed personality disorders. Within the UK there is an estimated prevalence between 0.7% to 2% of BPD in the general population, with women, 0.6% twice as often diagnosed compared to men (0.3%) (NHS, 2011 factsheet), and in the U.S. between 0.5 % and 1.4 % (ten Have, Verheul, Kaasenbrood, van Dorseelaer, Tuithof, Kleinjan & de Graaf, 2016), and women are particularly over-represented in the forensic population with 20% of women fulfilling criteria for a BPD diagnosis (Singleton, Meltzer & Gatward, 1998; Sansone & Sansone, 2009). Despite the relatively common diagnosis of BPD in both inpatients and outpatients, the presentation of personality disorders in newspapers has received only very limited attention (Bowen, 2016; Goulden et al., 2011).

For my postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (University of Edinburgh), I am using in-depth corpus-assisted discourse analysis to explore how BPD is presented in UK newspapers. Special attention is given to identify how discourse types compare in their communication of stereotypes and prejudices that create and reinforce existing social stigma against individuals affected by BPD. To this end I have conducted a corpus-assisted qualitative frame analysis and a comparison of gender presentations. The slides of these analyses might be of interest to anyone with an interest in public presentations of mental health:

Framing of Borderline Personality Disorder in the UK Press. 

Presentations of Complex Mental Illness in the UK Press: A Corpus-Assisted Discourse Study.

European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry 2019

European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry 2019

Wednesday 13 February – Friday 15 February
Pre-conference workshops: Tuesday 12 February

https://kuleuvencongres.be/ecqi2019/home

Conference theme: ‘Qualitative Inquiry as Activism’

The Centre for Creative-Relational Inquiry (CCRI) at the University of Edinburgh looks forward to welcoming qualitative scholars – students, researchers, artists, independent scholars – from across the globe to the 3rd European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry.

CCRI fosters qualitative research that is situated, positioned, context-sensitive, personal, experience-near, and embodied; research that embraces the performative and the aesthetic; research that engages with the political, the social, and the ethical; research that problematizes agency, autonomy, and representation; research that cherishes its relationship with theory, creating concepts as it goes; research that is dialogical and collaborative; and research that is explicit and curious about the inquiry process itself.

Come and join us to extend, deepen, re-frame and challenge these propositions and to bring, create and generate new ones; propositions that are slow and urgent, generous and edgy, open and restless.

Let’s meet in February 2019. Tell others. Bring others. Bring students, fellow students, colleagues. Bring your energies, commitments, imaginations, creativities, and possibilities. Bring coats, hats, gloves, and scarves.

Bring your activism. Your work as activism. Let’s explore what ‘activism’ means, what it looks like, what it can do. You may not see yourself as ‘activist’ nor your work as ‘activism’: please come, please bring that.

Keynote speakers:  

Sweet voice and round taste: Cross-sensory metaphors and linguistic variability

Sweet voice and round taste: Cross-sensory metaphors and linguistic variability

Date: 9 May 2018
Time: 12.30 – 2pm
Location: Jesus College – Ship Street Lecture Centre, Oxford

How do we define a sound or a taste for which our language does not have a dedicated word?

Typically, we borrow words from another sensory modality. Wines, for example, are often described by words that belong to other sensory perceptions: a “soft flavour” borrows the adjective soft from the domain of touch, and a “round taste” borrows the adjective round from the domain of sight.

It remains an interesting open issue to what extent these cross-sensory metaphors are universal across languages, and to what extent they are language-specific.

Dr Francesca Strik Lievers will address these questions and provide an overview of the latest scientific discoveries in the field, using examples taken from different languages. Her talk will be followed by an opportunity for questions.

The event is organised and hosted by Creative Multilingualism in collaboration with TORCH. Creative Multilingualism is a research programme led by the University of Oxford and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council as part of the Open World Research Initiative.

Participation is free and open to the public. Lunch will be provided.

Book ticket: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sweet-voice-and-round-taste-cross-sensory-metaphors-and-linguistic-variability-tickets-45371843405

CfP Uniting Two Perspectives on Mental Illness: Philosophy and Linguistics

University of Essex, 13-14 September 2018

https://www.uea.ac.uk/arts-humanities/graduate-school/news-and-events/uniting-two-perspectives

Mental illness has long been of interest to researchers in the humanities, including philosophy, linguistics, sociology, history and politics. In a domain where psychologists and psychiatrists have focused on identifying interventions and developing explanatory models, scholars in the humanities have preferred to explore broad conceptual and cultural questions. For instance:

  • Where do notions like “mental health” and “mental illness” come from? What can we learn from their history?
  • How do specific diagnostic categories emerge?
    How does psychiatric language shape the way we think about ourselves and each other?
  • How should we understand the relationship between mental illness and personal responsibility?
  • How does stigma about mental illness function?
  • How can we distinguish illness and disorder from other kinds of difference?
  • To what extent can psychiatry be considered a science?

The aim of this conference is to demonstrate that a dialogue between two of these disciplines – philosophy and linguistics – can help shed light on these important issues.

With this in mind, we specifically encourage contributions that bring together methods and ideas from both of these fields. We also welcome submissions from philosophers who are specifically interested in discussing their work with linguists, and vice versa.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Diagnosis and treatment ideologies
  • Mental illness in institutional discourse (e.g. clinical texts, law, government policy)
  • Models of mental illness (e.g. medical, social)
  • Feminist and minorities perspectives on psychiatry
  • Conceptualisation and portrayal of specific conditions
  • Diagnosis and self-understanding
  • Verbal and non-verbal communication in neurodiverse communities (e.g. autism communities)
  • Mental illness in clinical, education, workplace, or family settings
  • Mental illness in the media (e.g. newspapers, magazines, films, cartoons, advertisements)
  • Identity and political representation (e.g. the neurodiversity movement, mad pride)
  • Stigma and anti-stigma campaigns

Abstracts of up to 300 words (references excluded) should be submitted via the form provided (please see below). All abstracts will go through a double blind-review process. Deadline for Submissions: This is now EXTENDED until 4 May 2018 at 12:00 noon.

We will let you know if your paper has been accepted on the 4 of June 2018.

Presentations should be 20 minutes, plus 10 minutes for questions. The language of the conference is English.

IMPORTANT: We have been notified about a recurrent bug in the online submissions system. Please make sure you receive a confirmation message when completing the submission, otherwise the abstract has not been received. Do not hesitate to contact any of the organizers if confirmation is missing. Alternatively, you can send the abstract (anonymised) to humgrad.enquiry@uea.ac.uk.

Please provide the information requested in the form in your email (i.e. name and surname, affiliation, department, contact e-mail address, keywords, area of study, and the conference topics that apply to your paper).

Keynotes

Dr. Nelya Koteyko – Reader in Applied Linguistics, Queen Mary, University of London
Prof. Tim Thornton – Professor of Philosophy and Mental Health, University of Central Lancashire

Key Dates

Deadline for Submissions: 4 May, noon
Notification of Acceptance: 4 June
Registration: 11 June – 20 August
Conference: 13 – 14 September

Organizing Committee

Ian Hare – PhD Candidate in Philosophy

Constantin Mehmel – PhD Candidate in Philosophy

Sara Vilar-Lluch – PhD Candidate in Linguistics

This event is sponsored by the Consortium for Humanities and the Arts South-East England (CHASE).
Programme

Available soon
Venue

University of Essex

Wivenhoe Park

Colchester

Essex

CO4 3SQ

IPU Berlin Summer School 2018

IPU Berlin Summer School 2018

Week of events for potential students from abroad considering psychology studies

Interested in Psychoanalysis in Berlin? Then come and join us for one week this summer at the International Psychoanalytic University Berlin!

The IPU Berlin Summer School 2018 gives you the opportunity to see what studying clinical psychology and psychoanalysis and the exciting campus-life in Berlin is all about.

Faculty, staff and students of the International Psychoanalytic University are happy to share with you the atmosphere and results of their work. We will present to you our studies and interests in the domains of psychoanalytically inspired clinical psychology, subject theory, as well as developmental, neuroscientific and social research. And we will try to introduce you to the slices of the life of Metropolis: its troubled yet inspiring political and cultural histories, every cuisine you can think of, nightlife that only insomniacs can follow, and, last but not least, its distinct psychoanalytic history.

If you are considering applying for the English language master‘s programme in clinical psychology, this Summer School will enable you to gain insight into the lectures, libraries, international collaboration, student organisations and social life at the IPU.

Date: 2 July to 6 July 2018

Price: Euro 290,- inclusive of five lunches, boat trip and guided walking tour.

Participants will be issued certificates for 3 ECTS credits.

Applications are open until 15 June 2018!

https://www.ipu-berlin.de/en/archiv/detail/ipu-berlin-summer-school-2018.html

New open-access journal platform “Social Science Protocols”

Social Science Protocols is a new peer reviewed open-access online journal with a focus on publishing study reports in the social sciences, including the disciplines of anthropology, communication studies, economics, education, geography, history, law, linguistics, political sciences, psychology, social work and sociology.

Study protocols can be for proposed and ongoing studies, and should provide a detailed account of the research hypothesis, rationale and methodology of the study. Study protocols that have received funding from a major funding body and ethical approval will be published without peer review.

The editors Prof. Matthias Schwannauer and Dr. Laura Cariola are inviting researchers in the social sciences to submit study protocols for publication. We are also looking for academics to join the editorial board.

http://journals.ed.ac.uk/social-science-protocols/index

“Language, Mind and Body: A Conceptual History” by Prof. John E. Joseph

“Language, Mind and Body: A Conceptual History” By Prof. John E. Joseph

Cambridge University Press

Book description

Where is language? Answers to this have attempted to ‘incorporate’ language in an ‘extended mind’, through cognition that is ’embodied’, ‘distributed’, ‘situated’ or ‘ecological’. Behind these concepts is a long history that this book is the first to trace. Extending across linguistics, philosophy, psychology and medicine, as well as literary and religious dimensions of the question of what language is, and where it is located, this book challenges mainstream, mind-based accounts of language. Looking at research from the Middle Ages to the present day, and exploring the work of a range of scholars from Aristotle and Galen to Merleau-Ponty and Chomsky, it assesses raging debates about whether mind and language are centred in heart or brain, brain or nervous-muscular system, and whether they are innate or learned, individual or social. This book will appeal to scholars and advanced students in historical linguistics, cognitive linguistics, language evolution and the philosophy of language.

Reviews

‘Joseph vividly defamiliarizes linguistic categories we are accustomed to – abstract and concrete, langue and parole, embodied cognition, even language and mind. Rereading our histories, he rethinks what’s at stake when we affirm a ‘discipline’ of linguistics.’

Mark Amsler – University of Auckland

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/language-mind-and-body/241FA66A2B3BE70004282E9B7F2EF95C#fndtn-information

“The tangled roots of inner speech, voices and delusions” by Cherise Rosen et al.

The tangled roots of inner speech, voices and delusions

Cherise Rosen, Simon McCarthy-Jones, Kayla A. Chase, Clara S. Humpston, Jennifer K. Melbourne, Leah Kling & Rajiv P. Sharma

Highlights

  • This exploratory study examined the role of inner speech in the experience of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) and delusions.
  • Greater levels of dialogic inner speech were found in participants with psychosis compared to non-clinical controls.
  • Greater levels of dialogic inner speech reported better relations both with and between their voices.
  • Qualitative narratives also highlighted the tangled dynamics of inner speech, AVHs and delusions.
  • These results underscores the need for phenomenological and clinical research into the potential interrelatedness of inner speech, voices and delusions, and the complexities involved in disentangling this network of inner experience.

Abstract

The role of inner speech in the experience of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) and delusions remains unclear. This exploratory study tested for differences in inner speech (assessed via self-report questionnaire) between 89 participants with psychosis and 37 non-clinical controls. We also tested for associations of inner speech with, i) state/trait AVH, ii) AVH-severity; iii) patients’ relations with their voices, and; iv) delusion-severity. Persons with psychosis had greater levels of dialogic inner speech, other people in inner speech, and evaluative/motivational inner speech than non-clinical controls. Those with state, but not trait AVH had greater levels of dialogic and evaluative/motivational inner speech than non-clinical controls. After controlling for delusions, there was a positive relation between AVH-severity and both evaluative/motivational inner speech and other people in inner speech. Participants with greater levels of dialogic inner speech reported better relations both with and between their voices. There was no association between delusion-severity and inner speech. These results highlight the importance of better understanding relations between inner speech and AVH, provide avenues for future research, and underscore the need for research into the interrelatedness of inner speech, voices and delusions, and the complexities involved in disentangling these experiences.

http://www.psy-journal.com/article/S0165-1781%2817%2931563-9/abstract

Using qualitative content analysis to explore young people’s view on sexting

Youth-produced sexual images: A victim-centred consensus approach By Dr. Ethel Quayle and Dr. Laura Cariola

The report reflects the views of a sample of young people who have taken and shared
sexual images of themselves, and three groups of professionals whose work exposes
them to the challenges of managing these cases if, and when, they come to light. The
aim was to complement existing UK procedural guidelines for Schools and Colleges
(UKCCIS, 2016) and Police (College of Policing, 2016) through explicitly seeking the
involvement of adolescents (Study 1) alongside those of multiple stakeholders across
three sites (Study 2). This work is supported by ESRC Impact Accelerator funding and
follows the earlier work from the SPIRTO project.

With s foreword by Chief Constable Simon Bailey (QPM)– Norfolk constabulary & national policing lead
for Child Protection Abuse Investigation (CPAI) and Violence & Public Protection
(VPP).

New book chapter by Prof. Robert Stolorow

Stolorow, R. D. (2018). Emotional disturbance, trauma, and authenticity: A phenomenological-contextualist psychoanalytic perspective. In Existential Medicine: Essays on Health and Illness, ed. K. Aho. London, UK: Rowman and Littlefield International, pp. 17-25.

The chapter offers a radicalization of phenomenological psychopathology and a critique of psychiatric diagnoses as manifestations of what Robert Stolorow calls “the illusion of metaphysical essences.” He claims that there are no psychiatric entities, only traumatizing contexts.
Here is also a Psychology Today blog post that expands on Robert Stolorow’s view. “Deconstructing Psychiatry’s Every-Expanding Bible”: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/feeling-relating-existing/201204/deconstructing-psychiatrys-ever-expanding-bible

Call for Participation: Symposium on Mind – Body – Violence, June 28th, 2018

Call for Participation: Symposium on Mind – Body – Violence

Funded by the British Academy

June 28th, 2018

University of Edinburgh

Defining, researching and understanding the concept of ‘violence’ is challenging and contested. At the centre of debates around violence is the enduring problematic of a mind/body dualism. Ongoing developments in the fields of disability studies, the health humanities, illness studies, and violence studies place conversations about mind and body at the centre of their disciplines; in part, this symposium seeks to address some of the following questions: What is the effect of bodily violence on the mind? How do we categorise and understand the intersections of body and mind through the experiences of violence? What can the emerging field of health humanities offer to understandings of mind-body-violence?

This one-day symposium will provide an engaging and innovative forum in which to explore and interrogate intersections between violence, mind, and body. Attendance is free, but limited to 25-30 delegates, which we hope will draw from a wide range of working scholars, graduate students, and non-scholars with interest in the topic. We invite contributions from a range of disciplinary perspectives allied to health humanities (e.g. literature, drama, history, gender studies, sociology, and anthropology) who are interested in violence and how this intersects with wider understandings of what Margaret Price, among others, suggests calling “bodyminds.”

The day will be organised around a series of workshops and roundtable discussions; as such, attendees will not present formal work but will rather be a part of what we hope is an cross-disciplinary investigation of the body, mind, and violence.

In lieu of more formal presentations, we also invite proposals with the application for contributions of 5-minute provocations around the following thematic areas (see below). Proposals may take the form of oral presentations, as well as more creative contributions (e.g. music, dance, poetry, theatre). The 5 minute limit is strict, however, as we want to maximise opportunities for mutual discussion and form a base from which to launch interdisciplinary conversations:

Bodymind in Parts (Georgie Lucas, University of Nottingham): This session invites perspectives that consider how the performance of violence (e.g. massacre, rape, dismemberment) that literally or figuratively reduces the body into parts can inform understandings of the temporal and eternal self. Approaches and subjects might include, but are not limited to, historical or contemporary understandings of violence and the self; artistic or creative responses to, or representations of, violence and the bodymind experience; and different cultural conception of this dynamic.

Bodymind in Pain (Sarah Nance, United States Air Force Academy): This session investigates the relationship of the bodymind to pain, whether through suffering, illness, or violence. Particular attention will be paid to the way that pain can reify or “repair” the perceived division between mind and body; that is, does pain distance us from our bodies or return us to our bodies? The session will also consider the possibility of representing pain within language. Approaches might include, among others: literary and artistic representations of pain; medical and health intersections with the body and/or pain; and narrated accounts of pain, whether through memoir, visual art, medical narratives, or sociological/anthropological study.

Bodymind in Practice (Amy Chandler, University of Edinburgh): This session considers how violent practices – and practices of accounting for these – produce or unsettle the concept of an integrated bodymind. In doing so, the session explicitly engages with definitions of violence and of bodies/selves, and will attend to the ways in which different practices come to be understood as ‘violent’ – or not. Particularly relevant practices might include (but are not restricted to): self-harm, suicide, intimate partner abuse, gender-based violence, surgeries.

To apply to attend: please submit a short paragraph summarising your interest in the symposium topic; to apply to contribute a 5-minute provocation (not required for attendance), please also include a 250-word abstract, giving an indication of the content of your contribution, as well as the medium of presentation.

Please send abstracts/applications to: mindbodyviolence@gmail.com by 4th May 2018. Applications will be reviewed and decisions made by 11th May 2018.

For further information: please feel free to contact mindbodyviolence[at]gmail.com.

To discuss contributing to a particular theme in advance of your submission, please email the theme lead:

Dr. Georgie Lucas (Bodymind in Parts) – georgina.lucas[at]nottingham.ac.uk
Dr. Sarah Nance (Bodymind in Pain) – sarah.nance[at]usafa.edu
Dr. Amy Chandler (Bodymind in Practice) – a.chandler[at]ed.ac.uk

“Language, dehumanisation, rehumanisation” April 25th 19.00-21.00

Language, dehumanisation, rehumanisation

Wednesday April 25th 19.00-21.00

Litteraturhuset, Wergelandsveien 29, 0167, Oslo

A limited number of tickets are available via Deltager.no until April 24th 2018 – registration may close earlier if the event fills up before this date. Please note that the tickets are non-refundable. This event will be in English.

Link to get tickets

Ethno-nationalism is on the rise in today’s world, largely driven by politicians and the media. Othering is based on the conscious or unconscious assumption that a certain identified group poses a threat to the favoured group.

Human attributes such as race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, language, gender or sexual orientation are made salient, and are manipulated to dehumanise groups and categories of people. Dehumanisation can take the form of demonising certain ‘others’ (Livingstone Smith 2011), or that of making them invisible – indistinct elements of a mass, devoid of subjectivity (Auestad 2015).

Trump’s language and rhetoric has begun to both define and normalise dehumanisation. When Mexicans can be called “rapists and drug dealers”, calling for their deportation becomes a much easier step, and for the building of a wall to divide people. After the Portland stabbings, in response to a horrific and high-profile hate crime, the US president said absolutely nothing for three whole days, before finally offering a condemnation so half-hearted that many white supremacists assumed it came with a wink and a nod.

A UN report, published by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, concluded in 2015 that the Norwegian authorities are doing too little to combat the threat of racism and far-right extremist violence. The report states that Norway has failed to take the connection between right-wing extremist violence and hate speech seriously enough. This situation still prevails, one in which racist and islamophobic hate speech proliferates and has been normalised by politicians, intellectuals and journalists. Thus Victor Klemperer’s modern classic feels relevant once more in its call for increased and constant vigilance about language: wherever the machinery of atrocity is in motion, the misuse of language will be supporting it: “But it’s not simply that language composes poetry and thinks for me, it also drives my feelings, it directs my entire spiritual being, the more self-evidently, the more unconsciously I give myself up to it. So what happens when the language of the educated is composed of poisonous elements, or bears poisons? Words may be little doses of arsenic: they are consumed without being noticed; they seem at first to have no effect, but after a while, indeed, the effect is there (Klemperer 2000).”

The political and habitual use of language to shapes how we think, or fail to think, of human dignity. We will focus on the contemporary relevance of this issue in short talks followed by a general discussion.

References:

Auestad, L. (2015) Respect, Plurality, and Prejudice. London: Karnac.

Klemperer, V. (2000, first published 1957) The Language of the Third Reich. London: Bloomsbury.

Livingstone Smith, D. (2011) Less than Human. New York: St Martin’s Griffin.

UN (2015) Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination considers the report of Norway, Aug. 18th http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=16330&

About the speakers:

Lene Auestad (PhD in Philosophy from the University of Oslo) writes and lectures internationally on ethics, critical theory and psychoanalysis. Books include Respect, Plurality, and Prejudice: A Psychoanalytical and Philosophical Enquiry into the Dynamics of Social Exclusion and Discrimination, Karnac, 2015 and Shared Traumas, Silent Loss, Public and Private Mourning, Karnac, 2017.

Yacoub Cissé is an author who has written about black presence, racism and identity. He has published the book Afrikanere i Norge gjennom 400 år (Africans in Norway through 400 years) with Ann Falahat. He has also contributed with a chapter in the book Les Africains et leurs descendants en Europe (Dieuddonne Gnammankou and Yao Modzinou Eds).

Narratives, Agency and Social Change: Analysis Across Disciplines

Centre for Narrative Research will run the pre-conference workshop ‘Narratives, Agency and Social Change: analysis across disciplines’ on 2 July 2018, as part of the Conference Narrative Matters at the University of Twente, Netherlands. Registration details can be viewed on this link
Abstract: 
Narratives, Agency and Social Change: Analysis Across Disciplines
Workshop by Molly Andrews, Cigdem Esin, Aura Lounasmaa and Corinne Squire, Centre for Narrative Research (University of East London).

Narratives are a primary tool by which individuals recognise and affirm themselves as members of a collective, thereby often acting as a catalyst for the raising of political consciousness. In this workshop, viewing narratives as social acts, we will explore the function of narratives for (the) individual and/or collective storytellers, the conditions of possibility for narratives to be constituted and performed, the ways in which narratives constitute meaning linking the past, present and the future, and the relationality in narratives through which individuals shape the conditions of their lives. 

The workshop will raise questions about how stories’ stylistic structures relate to social change: in particular, certain forms of metaphor and other rhetorical tropes that can work to support social change, the peculiar dynamics surrounding research that is on overtly political, the coalescence of place, time, subjectivity and the social in narratives and the ethical complexity of working with personal-political narratives. 

The workshop leaders will use examples from political speeches, community stories of living with HIV, and other forms of political talks as well as examples from their own research on political narratives in various socio-political contexts.

Please see the full list of all pre-conference workshops on the 2nd of July below. The schedule for the day and further details can be viewed on this link. https://www.utwente.nl/en/bms/narrativematters2018/program/#pre-conference-workshops

‘Do you know why you’re here?’: Obstetric framings of large pregnant bodies

“Discourse and Health Research Group” 9th April 2018, School of Health in Social Science, University of Edinburgh

Sue Chowdhry (Ph.D Nursing Student) presents her research on ‘Do you know why you’re here?’: Obstetric framings of large pregnant bodies

Abstract

‘Do you know why you’re here?’: Obstetric framings of large pregnant bodies In this presentation I discuss some of the findings from my PhD study investigating maternal healthcare in the context of maternal obesity discourse. In Western societies, medical and cultural representations of people labelled as ‘obese’ have been implicated in the Othering of larger people (Puhl & Heuer, 2009). Larger women’s pregnancies are labelled as ‘high-risk’ pregnancies, and consequently, involve higher levels of medicalisation than ‘low-risk’ pregnancies. Obstetricians therefore, play a significant role in the medical governance of larger women’s pregnancies; and yet, there is a gap in knowledge about how they construct this aspect of their work. The research findings I present are based on interviews with five Scottish obstetricians about their management of larger women’s pregnancies. The research data was analysed using a narrative structural approach to examine the ways obstetricians, obstetric practices, and larger women were framed in the stories obstetricians told about this aspect of their work. The findings provide a context for further discussion with which to examine the Othering of larger women in the context of maternal obesity policy: providing a focus on which to improve maternal healthcare experience, and a context for further examination of the medical management of larger women’s pregnancies in the context of neoliberal public health policy and anti-obesity discourse.

“Resistance” at the IASH

RESISTANCE

Event date: Friday 9 March
Time: 09:45 – 17:00
Location: Scottish Storytelling Centre, 43-45 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1SR
RESISTANCE

RESISTANCE: an all-day symposium hosted by Scottish PEN Women Writer’s Committee and the Institute for the Advanced Studies in Humanities

Featuring Jackie Kay, Sim Bajwa, Caroline Bowditch, Beth Banjeree-Richards, Afshan D’souza-Lodhi and Alice Tarbuck

This will be an open, supported discussion on Resistance as a way of exploring and fighting for change around the boundaries of gender, womenhood, the limits of language and experiences of misogyny, violence and power. The day will be built on a fully intersectional approach, and the discussions and panel will include women and non-binary people across a range of classes, ethnicities, abilities, races, and sexualities. The day is open to all and free to attend, and includes lunch and refreshments.

Organised to align with International Women’s Day, we are interested in ensuring that our discussions of gender and discrimination remain inclusive, open, and actively support the ever-changing and dynamic nature of these issues.

The event will be BSL-interpreted throughout.

Free tickets are available here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/resistance-tickets-42869159811

“Therapists Have a Lot to Add to the Field of Research, but Many Don’t Make it There” by Sofie Bager-Charleson et al.

Therapists Have a Lot to Add to the Field of Research, but Many Don’t Make it There: A Narrative Thematic Inquiry into Counsellors’ and Psychotherapists’ Embodied Engagement with Research

Sofie Bager-Charleson, Simon Du Plock & Alistair McBeath
Metanoia Institute London

Abstract

Research frequently addresses a gap between practice and research in the field of psychotherapy. Castonguay et al (2010) suggest that the practice of many full-time psychotherapists is rarely or nonsubstantially influenced by research. Boisvert and Faust (2005) ask ‘why do psychotherapists not rely on the research to consistently inform their practice?’ and suggest that concerns ‘have echoed through the decades’ about psychotherapists’ failings to integrate of research and practice. This study focuses on therapists’ (counsellors and psychotherapists) reasoning about their engagement with ‘research’ as described in dissertations and in personal, anonymously presented documents, research journals and interviews included. The study focuses on the stages which generally are referred to as ‘data analysis’, which in this study refers research stages where interpretation typically is required with synthesising and analysing in mind. Turning our attention to the therapists’ ‘narrative knowing’ about research during these stages where generating own new knowledge is put to the forefront, have highlighted a complex relationship involving epistemological discrepancies, real or imagined, between practice and research. It also highlighted gender issues, culture and commonly held constructs about what constitutes a ‘counsellor’, which we believe influence therapists’ presence in research. We decided to include the citation “Therapists have a lot to add to the field of research, but many don’t make it there” in the title to illustrate some of the complexity. The study is based on a Professional Doctorate programme, which engages with psychologists, counsellors and psychotherapists in practice-based research. In addition to drawing from dissertations already in the public domain students and graduates from the doctoral programme were invited to contribute their own embodied experiences from ‘doing’ a data analysis. The paper suggests a hybrid for narrative analysis, discussing the options to (re-)present narratives guided by a combined interest into the unique, personal whilst also looking for ‘themes’ within and across these narratives.

http://www.language-and-psychoanalysis.com/article/view/2603

Registration is now open for Narrative Matters 2018

Registration is now open for Narrative Matters 2018
Conference theme: The ABCs of Narrative
July 2-5, 2018, Enschede, the Netherlands
https://www.utwente.nl/en/bms/narrativematters2018/

Narrative Matters is a bi-annual conference on the study of narrative, which brings together scholars from different disciplines. The current booming interest for narrative or “story-telling” across academic disciplines and professional fields comes with a number of challenges. One of these challenges, as captured by the conference theme “the ABCs of narrative”, is the need for a better understanding and an interdisciplinary dialogue between A) the arts and humanities; B) the natural and computer sciences; C) the behavioral, social, and health sciences. A thorough interdisciplinary exchange can enrich our understanding of the cognitive, affective, motivational, social, political, ideological, or ethical workings of narrative, and provide insights from which also diverse professional uses of narrative can benefit. A second challenge is that of learning about exciting new developments in technological expression and computational analysis of narrative that might be productive both for researchers and professionals. A third challenge the “ABCs of narrative” aims to address is the need to stimulate “critical narrative savviness” among citizens, in particular in the many professional practices in which narrative or story-telling play a central role. A keen critical acumen and sense of responsibility are needed, in our days as much as ever in the past, to detect and resist unwanted effects of narrative world-making and persuasion.

We identified a number of topics that address these three challenges and seem relevant for a fruitful understanding and improved uses of narrative across disciplines and professions.
· Narrative coping with complexity and uncertainty;
· Narrative and the shaping of identities;
· Narratives and innovative technological modes of expressing and computational modes of analyzing;
· Narrative, affect, and the fabrication of truth;
· Narrative and power in societies, organizations, and practices.

Dr Anneke Sools has been awarded with the Early Career Award

Dr. Anneke Sools has been awarded with the Early Career Award by the Narrative Special Interest Group (SIG) of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). The award is designed to recognize a researcher’s outstanding accomplishment in the area of narrative research and to honor an individual in the early career phase. The judgement of the committee on Anneke’s work: “we were particularly impressed by the unique contributions your work makes to the theoretical understandings in narrative studies. It was a great privilege to read your work.”

Identifying Depression through Language

In an Absolute State: Elevated Use of Absolutist Words Is a Marker Specific to Anxiety, Depression, and Suicidal Ideation

Mohammed Al-Mosaiwi & Tom Johnstone

Abstract

Absolutist thinking is considered a cognitive distortion by most cognitive therapies for anxiety and depression. Yet, there is little empirical evidence of its prevalence or specificity. Across three studies, we conducted a text analysis of 63 Internet forums (over 6,400 members) using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software to examine absolutism at the linguistic level. We predicted and found that anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation forums contained more absolutist words than control forums (ds > 3.14). Suicidal ideation forums also contained more absolutist words than anxiety and depression forums (ds > 1.71). We show that these differences are more reflective of absolutist thinking than psychological distress. It is interesting that absolutist words tracked the severity of affective disorder forums more faithfully than negative emotion words. Finally, we found elevated levels of absolutist words in depression recovery forums. This suggests that absolutist thinking may be a vulnerability factor.

Full Text

 

“Therapists and Research – an ambivalent relationship?” by Dr Sofie Bager-Charleson

Therapists and Research – an ambivalent relationship? 

References are frequently made to a strained relationship between therapeutic practice and research. Goldfried and Wolfe (1996) described the relationship as a ‘strained alliance’. Tasca (2015) refers to a ‘practice–research divide, which is widely acknowledged as a problem in psychotherapy’ and Henton (2012) has suggested that psychotherapy and research are often characterised as ‘opposing domains’.

The Research Academy at Metanoia offers workshops focusing specifically on Psychotherapy research, including two recent studies into Therapists and Research (Bager-Charleson et al 2018a, 2018b). One study focuses on therapists’ (counsellors and psychotherapists) reasoning about their engagement with ‘research’ as described in dissertations and in personal, anonymously presented documents, research journals and interviews included. Turning our attention to the therapists’ ‘narrative knowing’ about research highlighted a complex relationship involving epistemological discrepancies, real or imagined, between practice and research. It also highlighted gender issues, culture and commonly held constructs about what constitutes a ‘counsellor’, which we believe influence therapists’ presence in research. We decided to include the citation “Therapists have a lot to add to the field of research, but many don’t make it there” in the title to illustrate some of the complexity.

The Metanoia workshops touches some of these difficulties, and ranges from qualitative to quantitative research with focus on improving practice through reflexive research. The speakers include Carla Willig, Mick Cooper, Bill Stiles, Dr Marie Adams and Dr Alan Priest.

*Bager-Charleson, S., du Plock, S., McBeath, A (2018a in press) “Therapists Have a lot to Add to the Field of Research, but Many Don’t Make it There: A Narrative Thematic Inquiry into Counsellors’ and Psychotherapists’ Embodied Engagement with Research” Journal for Language and Psychoanalysis

Bager-Charleson, S., McBeath, A., du Plock, S. (2018b in Press) “The Relationship Between Psychotherapy Practice and Research: A Mixed-Method Exploration of Practitioners’ Views” Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, CPR, Journal, special issue, winter 2018.

“Social Science Protocols”

Social Science Protocols is a new open-access journal platform published by Edinburgh
University Library Open Journals. The official launch of the journal platform is March 2018.

Social Science Protocols is the only platform with a strong focus on publishing study protocols in the social sciences, including the disciplines of archaeology, the arts, communication studies, economics, education, geography, history, law, literature, linguistics, philosophy, politics, psychology, religious studies, sociology and social work.

Study protocols can be for proposed and ongoing studies, and should provide a detailed account of the research hypothesis, rational and methodology of the study. Study protocols that have received funding from a major funding body and ethical approval will be published without peer review. All published study protocols will receive a doi number and appear in academic databases.

Benefits of Publishing Research Protocols

  • Ensures transparency and documentation of research processes, such as a study’s plan, research question, methodology and analytic approach to data.
  • Benefits the researcher from obtaining critical and constructive feedback on their proposed study through a vigorous peer reviewing process.
  • Provides a platform to compare the initial research intent and the actual research outcome.
  • Enables the research community to identify studies that are currently being conducted in their research field.
  • Reduces duplication bias and encourages collaboration between researchers.
  • Benefits researchers who are conducting systematic reviews to source relevant studies that could reduce distortion of evidence from publication bias.
  • Improves standards of social science research to develop a strong evidence base and better societal impact.
Submissions of study protocols are welcome throughout the year for prompt online publication.
Social Science Protocols does not publish results of accepted study protocols, but it provides electronic links to associated publications and documents, such as journal articles and datasets.
We are also still looking for academics across the social science disciplines to join the editorial team. To join the editorial team or to submit study protocols, please contact the managing journal editor Dr. Laura Cariola (laura.cariola@ed.ac.uk).

Digital Scholarship talk on Complex Mental Illness in the UK Press — November 22, 2017

Presented by Laura Cariola 

Abstract: This seminar reports on an in-depth corpus-assisted discourse analysis which explores how complex mental illnesses are presented in UK newspaper articles and medical case studies.

Special attention is given to identifying how discourse types compare in their communication of stereotypes and prejudices that create and reinforce existing social stigma against individuals affected by mental illness. I will outline an analysis of discursive constructions of borderline personality disorder in the UK Press that was based on 2,139 articles (with total count of 1,868,320 words) from the first mentioning of the term “borderline personality disorder” in 1990, until 2016. The results indicated that discourses were highly gendered with significantly more references to women than men, which is consistent with women being associated with borderline personality disorder (Becker, 1997). Women’s identities were often described through familial relationships, and women’s ownership status was restrained to simplistic existential themes.

Although early parental losses and trauma were reported in both women and men, there were also stereotypical gender-based differences associated to borderline personality disorder-diagnosed women, including reports of suicide and matricide as well as unresolved parental dependencies and conflicts. This alludes to parental conflicts as the cause of developing borderline personality disorder (Whalen et al., 2014). In relation to the home environment, women were also presented as passive victims of others’ coercive or destructive behaviour. In summary, the results of this semantic analysis showed that newspaper articles present stereotypical gender-based differences of borderline personality disorder, which reinforce public’s negative ideologies towards mental illness and women, and may also interfere with clinical perceptions.

“Language and Psychoanalysis” – Call for papers Volume 7 Spring-Summer Issue 2018

The journal “Language and Psychoanalysis” is currently accepting manuscripts for Volume 7, Spring-Summer 2018. Manuscript submission due date: 31th March 2018
Language and Psychoanalysis” is a fully peer reviewed online journal that publishes twice a year. It is the only interdisciplinary journal with a strong focus on the qualitative and quantitative analysis of language and psychoanalysis. The journal is also inclusive and not narrowly confined to the Freudian psychoanalytic theory.
We welcome a wide range of original contributions that further the understanding of the interaction between Linguistic Analysis and Theory & Psychoanalytic Theories and Techniques. Any relevant manuscripts with an emphasis on language and psychoanalysis will be considered, including papers on linguistics, methodology, theory, philosophy, child development, psychopathology, psychotherapy, embodied cognition, cognitive science, applied dynamical system theory, consciousness studies, cross-cultural research, and case studies. The journal also publishes short research reports, book reviews, interviews, obituaries, and readers’ comments
Manuscripts should be send to the managing editor Laura A. Cariola <laura.cariola@ed.ac.uk>

“Language and Psychoanalysis” has also been officially accepted to be covered by PsycINFO (APA).

Please distribute widely among your friends, colleagues and students!

“Discourse Analysis Workshop” at University of Edinburgh, School of Health in Social Science

There will be a series of workshops with an focus on “discourse analysis in health and social science”.
  
ALL ARE WELCOME but places are limited. Please contact me directly laura.cariola@ed.ac.uk to reserve your place for the workshops. No prior knowledge of discourse analysis is required, but an interest of using qualitative approaches to health-related data is necessary.
 
Workshop 1 – 9thth October 2017, 3-5pm
Workshop 2 – 30th October 2017, 3-5pm
Workshop 3 – 20th November 2017, 3-5pm

Location: Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities
 

“‘I was seeing more of her’: international counselling trainees’ perceived benefits of intercultural clinical practice” by Lorena Georgiadou

Abstract

Counsellor education in Britain is steadily turning into a multicultural environment. The limited relevant literature focuses on the challenges that ‘culturally different’ and international trainees may encounter. The aim of this paper is to elucidate a rarely exposed aspect of international counselling trainees’ training experience, namely, the benefits they identify in practising across languages and cultures during placement. The illustration of this positive perspective is pertinent to the profession, as it expands existing knowledge on international trainees’ experience of clinical practice and it challenges the prevailing conceptualisation of this situation as potentially problematic. It is argued that a shift towards a more holistic understanding of this population’s counselling experiences is likely to have particularly useful implications for counsellor education and the profession more broadly.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03069885.2014.996735?journalCode=cbjg20

 

 

“‘My language thing … is like a big shadow always behind me’: International counselling trainees’ challenges in beginning clinical practice” By Lorena Georgiadou

Abstract

Background: While counsellor education becomes increasingly culturally diverse, little is known about international trainees’ experiences of training. Objective: The present study explores one aspect of training, namely clinical practice from the perspective of international, non-native speaking trainees. In particular, this paper focuses on the challenges this group encounters when practicing in a second language. Methodology: Semi-structured interviews with four non-native English-speaking trainees were conducted and analysed following the principles of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Results: Findings suggest that participants encounter practical difficulties related to their non-native/foreign identity in practice, such as problems with articulate self-expression and understanding the client’s speech. These difficulties generate anxiety and impact on the trainees’ confidence. Conclusions and implications for counsellor training: This study elucidates language as a fundamental aspect of culture, and identifies second language use as a significant source of difference in counselling practice. This paper highlights the need for attention to linguistic diversity and for appropriate support during counsellor education. This will improve international trainees’ experiences of training, but also enhance all trainees’ understanding of difference, resulting in better service provision for the community.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1080/14733145.2013.770896/abstract

“Social Change Through Critical Knowledge Work: The case of ADHD” by Charles Marley & David Fryer

Abstract

This paper addresses the questions of what it is to engage in social change through knowledge work. The authors engage critically with the constitution as a ‘social reality’ of ‘evidence-based practice’ in relation to ADHD.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304024946_Social_change_through_critical_knowledge_work_The_case_of_ADHD

Continue reading

“Presentations of borderline personality disorder in the UK press” by Laura A. Cariola

This study “Presentations of borderline personality disorder in the UK press: A corpus-assisted discourse analysis” has been presented on the 5th May 2017 as an invited speaker talk at the Cross Disciplinary Perspectives on ‘anti-social personality disorder’: Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) in Context” seminar series in London (Funded by the ESRC).

Abstract

People with borderline personality disorder are exposed to stigma and discrimination towards mental illness, which impacts on their quality of life and recovery. Through the use of corpus-assisted discourse analysis, this presentation explores the discursive constructions of borderline personality disorder in the UK Press. The corpus included 2,139 articles (with total count of 1,868,320 words) from the first mentioning of the term “borderline personality disorder” in 1990, until 2016.

An initial analysis of frequent key words indicated that discourses were highly gendered with significantly more references to women than men – “her” (23,820), “she” (22,539) vs. “he” (11,382), “his” (9,691), which is consistent with women being associated with borderline personality disorder (Becker, 1997). Women’s identities were often described through familial relationship – “her mother” (871), “her daughter” (591), “her family” (567), “her son” (470) and “her father” (405) – and women’s ownership status was restrained to simplistic existential themes – “her life” (1,179), “her death” (860), “her problems” (124). Suicide was more frequently reported in relation to women – “took (119), take (94), end (32), taken (40) her life” or “jumped (56) to her death”, compared to men. Women are also more often reported of having killed their own mother – e.g., “killed (46), stabbing (39), killing (23) her mother”, whereas in men, mothers were implicitly or explicitly blamed – e.g., “his mother was jailed”, “his mother was an alcoholic”, “his mother was largely to blame”, which alludes to parental conflicts as the cause of developing borderline personality disorder (Whalen et al., 2014). Although early parental losses and trauma were reported in both women and men, women were found to have continuous parental dependencies and conflicts – “her parents did take her back into their home”, “was thrown out of her home by her own parents”. In relation to the immediate home environment, women were also passive victims of others’ coercive or destructive behaviour – e.g., “she was taken from her home”, ”she was raped on her way home”.

In summary, the results of this initial semantic analysis showed that newspaper articles present stereotypical gender-based differences of borderline personality disorder, which reinforce public’s negative ideologies towards mental illness and may also interfere with clinical perceptions.

 

“Fake it till you make it: Fishing for Catfishes” by Walid Magdy et al.

Using language algorithms  to detect fake online profiles that deceive other users

Abstract

Many adult content websites incorporate social networking features. Although these are popular, they raise significant challenges, including the potential for users to “catfish”, i.e., to create fake profiles to deceive other users. This paper takes an initial step towards automated catfish detection. We explore the characteristics of the different age and gender groups, identifying a number of distinctions. Through this, we train models based on user profiles and comments, via the ground truth of specially verified profiles. Applying our models for age and gender estimation of unverified profiles, we identify 38% of profiles who are likely lying about their age, and 25% who are likely lying about their gender. We find that women have a greater propensity to catfish than men. Further, whereas women catfish select from a wide age range, men consistently lie about being younger. Our work has notable implications on operators of such online social networks, as well as users who may worry about interacting with catfishes.

Paper to appear in IEEE/ACM ASONAM 2017 https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.06530

Dr Walid Magdy, University of Edinburgh, School of Informatics.

Research Fellowship in the Humanities

The Institute for Advances Studies in the Humanities has offered Laura Cariola (that’s me) a postdoctoral research fellowship to explore “Presentations of Complex Mental Illness in Media and Medical Discourses using Corpus-Based Approaches to Discourse Analysis”. This project forms part of ongoing work that investigates mental health in public and medical discourses. Collaborators include academics across the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, such as clinical psychology, counselling and psychotherapy, anthropology, social work and medicine. The fellowship will also provide ample opportunities for knowledge exchange events and activities, research colloquia and a ‘Health Humanities’ invited speakers series.

The IASH was established in 1969 to promote interdisciplinary research in the arts, humanities and social sciences at the University of Edinburgh. It support innovative research and public engagement activities across the arts, humanities and social sciences through a range of interdisciplinary and international projects and programmes. The IASH provides an international, interdisciplinary and autonomous space for discussion and debate. Since its foundation more than 1000 scholars from 66 countries have held Institute fellowships; and up to 28 Fellows are in residence at any one time.

Presentations of Complex Mental Illness in Media and Medical Discourses: A Protocol for a Corpus-Assisted Study http://www.language-and-psychoanalysis.com/article/view/1889

 

“Association for Psychosocial Studies Biennial Conference” 5th-7th April 2018

Bournemouth University, 5th-7th April 2018

CALL FOR PAPERS

‘Psychosocial Reflections on a Half Century of Cultural Revolution’

Fifty years after the hippie counterculture of 1967 (‘the summer of love’) and the political turbulence of 1968 (‘May 68’), this conference will stage a psychosocial examination of the ways in which today’s world is shaped by the forces symbolised by those two moments. It will explore the continuing influence of the deep social, cultural and political changes in the West, which crystallised in the events of these two years. The cultural forces and the political movements of that time aimed to change the world, and did so, though not in the ways that many of their participants expected. Their complex, multivalent legacy of ‘liberation’ is still developing and profoundly shapes the globalising world today, in the contests between what is called neo-liberalism, resurgent fundamentalisms, environmentalism, individualism, nationalisms, and the proliferation of identity politics.

A counter-cultural and identity-based ethos now dominates much of consumer culture, and is reflected in the recent development of some populist and protest politics. A libertarian critique of politics, once at the far margins, now informs popular attitudes towards many aspects of democratic governance; revolutionary critiques have become mainstream clichés. Hedonic themes suffuse everyday life, while self-reflection and emotional literacy have also become prominent values, linked to more positive orientations towards human diversity and the international community.

We invite psychosocial analyses of the development and legacy today of the ‘revolutions’ of the sixties, either through explorations of contemporary issues in politics, culture and artistic expression, or through historical studies. All proposals for papers, panels and workshops must indicate how they address both psychological and social dimensions of their topic.

Topics could include:

•  What happened to hate in the Summer of Love?
•  Lennon vs Lenin: did 1967 and 1968 announce two divergent trends in contemporary culture – and what has happened since to the psychosocial forces they expressed?
•  What are the meanings of ‘liberation’ today?
•  New inequalities in post-industrial societies
•  The resurgence of religion
•  The Six Day War, intifadas, and intractability
•  The planetary environment: fantasies and politics
•  Trajectories of feminism
•  The changing nature of ageing
•  ‘The personal is political’ and other rhetoric in historical context
•  Free minds and free markets
•  The ethics of freedom: for example, where now for freedom of speech?
•  From the Manson Family to the Islamic State
•  Pop music’s global conquest and musical hybridity
•  Changes in artistic practice, creativity and commodification
•  The transformation of media
•  The digitisation of everything
•  Higher education: democratisation and marketisation
•  The potential and limitations of theories of narcissism as a major tool for understanding late modern/post-modern cultures
•  New narcissisms in the twenty-first century
•  Therapeutic culture and its critics
•  Where are they now? Biographical narratives of the revolutionaries
•  States of mind in pivotal moments: San Francisco 67, Paris 68, and since
•  The sense of entitlement: narcissism or social justice?
•  The decline of deference and its consequences
•  The hatred of government and authority
•  The sexualisation of culture
•  Controlled decontrolling or repressive desublimation? Elias and Marcuse on cultural liberalisation
•  Our bodies ourselves: shifting patterns and perceptions of embodiment.

Send your abstract of 250-300 words to: APS2018@bournemouth.ac.uk<mailto:APS2018@bournemouth.ac.uk>
Deadline: 31 May 2017.

Decisions on acceptance will be taken by early July 2017.

Workshops on “Corpus Linguistics and Content Analysis”

In May and June 2017, the School of Health and Social Science at the University of Edinburgh offers a series of workshops on the use of corpus linguistics and content analysis to explore language data. Such quantitative approaches to language analysis are carried out using software and can provide in-depth insight on language use and word patterns that would be too difficult and too time-consuming to identify using qualitative methods.

Psychoanalysis and Sexuality Today Clinical Conference – 21st October 2017 in Dublin

Psychosocial Factors on Transference & Countertransference in Psychoanalysis & Psychotherapy

Irish Museum of Decorative Arts & History, Collins Barracks, Benburb Street, Dublin 7, Ireland

Saturday 21 October 2017 at 9 am-5.15 pm

This clinical conference considers a range of issues relating to sexuality, as it exists in our consulting rooms today, from a clinical psychoanalytic perspective. The conference brings together clinical practitioners of psychoanalysis from a number of different traditions (Freudian, Kleinian, Lacanian, Jungian, Relational), who work in a range of settings (private practices, public services, training organisations), and in a variety of ways (with adults and/or children and adolescents, individuals, couples and groups). Speakers come from all the clinical psychoanalytic organisations operating in the South and North of Ireland: the Irish Forum for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (IFPP), the Association for Psychoanalysis & Psychotherapy in Ireland (APPI), the Irish Analytical Psychology Association (IAPA), the Irish Forum for Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (IFCAPP), the Irish Group Analytic Society (IGAS), the Northern Ireland Institute for Human Relations (NIIHR), the Irish Psycho-Analytic Association (IPAA), the Irish School for Lacanian Psychoanalysis (ISLP), the Irish Circle of the Lacanian Orientation-New Lacanian School (ICLO-NLS), the Northern Ireland Association for the Study of Psychoanalysis (NIASP), and the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC), and from a number of different traditions of psychoanalysis: Julie Brown, Gráinne Casey, José Castilho, Barbara Fitzgerald, Dr Noreen Giffney, Dr Belinda Moller, Dr Ian Miller, Ann Murphy, Pauline O’Callaghan, Dr Barry O’Donnell, Dr Ray O’Neill, Dr Medb Ruane, Florencia Shanahan, David Smith, Dr Julie Sutton, Dr Eve Watson and Rob Weatherill. Many of the speakers also work as clinical supervisors and are involved in the training and further professional development training of practitioners working in the field of clinical psychoanalysis. 

This conference is organised by Dr Noreen Giffney (the Irish Forum for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and the Psychoanalytic Section in the Irish Council for Psychotherapy) and Dr Eve Watson (the Association for Psychoanalysis & Psychotherapy in Ireland and the Psychoanalytic Section in the Irish Council for Psychotherapy). We expect the conference to book out so early registration is advised.

Registration: 85 eu (full fee) and 50 eu (reduced fee for people who are retired, unemployed or in training).

Registration is via Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/psychoanalysis-and-sexuality-today-clinical-conference-tickets-34075099540?utm_term=eventname_text

See the attached notice for further details about the conference and how to register. To contact the organisers, email Noreen
(info@psychoanalyticpsychotherapyclinic.ie) and Eve (eve.watson@leesonanalytic.com).

“Borderline States of Mind and destructive Feelings: A diagnosis for our times?” 5th May 2017

ASPD in Context — Cross Disciplinary Perspectives on ‘anti-social personality disorder’
Borderline States of Mind and Destructive Feelings: A diagnosis for our times?
The Institute of Group Analysis, London NW3 5BY