Affiliation: University of Roehampton
I am interested in conversation and discourse analysis. One strand of this interest involves using conversation and discourse analysis to investigate issues such as communicative impairment (autism and aphasia), interactions with robots and political talk. A second strand of this interest concerns the various debates to be had with and within various aspects of social psychology.
Email: p.dickerson@roehampton.ac.uk
Affiliation: University of Winchester
I am Reader in Media Psychology. After working for several years as a freelance music journalist for publications such as NME and the Independent, I studied Psychology at the University of Manchester and did a PhD with the University of Bristol looking at children’s spelling.
Wondering why there was so little research on the influence of the media on human behaviour, I began to develop the field of media psychology, with particular interest in the meanings that celebrity holds for audiences and for the celebrities themselves (Giles, 2000, 2002; Rockwell & Giles, 2009). Since then I have also explored the framing processes of news media (e.g. Giles & Shaw, 2009) and interaction in online mental health communities (Giles, 2006, 2014; Giles & Newbold, 2011, 2013). I have become increasingly interested in the way that social media have transformed the relationship between celebrities and audiences, and my current work looks at the way these developments challenge many of the assumptions of media and audience research (Giles, in prep).
I have an interest in psychological research methods generally, and I set up the journal Qualitative Research in Psychology (Taylor & Francis) with Brendan Gough and Martin Packer, whose first issue appeared in 2004. More recently I have been involved in an international network exploring the development of qualitative methods for studying online communication (MOOD – Microanalysis Of Online Data).
Email: David.Giles@winchester.ac.uk
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.
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.
Please distribute widely among your friends, colleagues and students!
social science”. 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
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
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.
‘Language and Psychoanalysis’ has been officially accepted for coverage in PsycINFO
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).
AbstractPeople 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.
Using language algorithms to detect fake online profiles that deceive other users
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Abstract
Constructivist psychotherapy and contemporary metaphor theory, as part of the neighboring fields of psychology and linguistics, share fundamental assumptions rooted in constructivist philosophy. There has been much cross-disciplinary discussion of how our inclination toward metaphors translates into an important meaning-making resource in therapy and other domains of professional practice, such as education. Nevertheless, more reciprocal effort is needed to (a) show practitioners the relevance of nuanced aspects of metaphor theory and linguistic analysis that may evade their attention, and (b) sensitize linguists toward practice-driven factors in their analyses. This article attempts the first of these tasks by identifying and exemplifying four such aspects: (a) source domains at different experiential levels, (b) variable source-target relationships in discourse, (c) metaphorical processes at higher levels of analysis, and (d) discursive and communicative grounding of metaphor. I suggest how they might provide pertinent insights and future directions for interpreting, analyzing, and working with metaphors in psychotherapy.
Communications and collaborations between mental health care users and user activists, family carers and friends, and mental health professionals and policy makers outside and beyond traditional clinical and pedagogic encounters are needed to strengthen a rights-based approach in the field of mental health and further civil society involvement. The Trialogue experience – an exercise in communication between service users, families and friends and mental health workers on equal footing – is indicative of our capacity for surviving and gaining from serious discussions of adverse issues as well as the great possibilities of cooperative efforts and coordinated action.
Link to original article in the book “The Stigma of Mental Illness – End of the Story?”
Abstract
Functional analytic psychotherapy (FAP) promotes client growth by shaping clients’ daily life problems that also show up in session with their therapists. FAP therapists create evocative contexts within therapy that afford clients the opportunity to practice, refine, and be reinforced for new, more adaptive behaviors which then can be generalized into their outside lives. In FAP, the termination process will vary from client to client depending on the nature of the client’s problems and targets. For many clients, the process can be a rich, multifaceted, final opportunity to evoke, reinforce, and promote generalization of clients’ in-session improvements, particularly improvements related to vulnerable self-expression in the service of intimate and close relationships. By making explicit agreements at the outset of therapy to participate in an intentional termination process, and by later providing an evocative structure for ending therapy with vulnerable emotional expression, clients have the opportunity to develop more adaptive behaviors in the context of relationship endings which can be a painful part of the human experience. Equipped with the skills of open-hearted communication developed from an authentic relationship with their therapist, clients can leave therapy on a trajectory of further growth in interpersonal connection and living more boldly.
Abstract
The field of psycholinguistics has long documented how communicating in a second language (L2) can be more challenging than communicating in a first language (L1) because of factors such as low L2 proficiency, accent, and L1 versus L2 differences in the appreciation of semantic or pragmatic nuance (e.g., the emotional connotations or words). Moreover, given that language performance is a primary medium through which people both express their personality and evaluate the personality characteristics of others, these differences in bilingual language processing have important consequences for real-world social interaction. Accordingly, when bilinguals interact with others in their L2, they stand the chance of being misunderstood or misjudged partly because of L1 versus L2 communicative challenges, which can have high-stakes consequences depending on the particular social setting in question. In this article, we selectively review the psycholinguistic literature pertaining to L2 proficiency, emotion, and personality, and apply this knowledge to how communicative effectiveness may be reduced in real-world medical and legal settings. We conclude that increased awareness of these phenomena, and the reasons behind them, can help professionals in the health and legal systems more effectively interact with nonnative speakers. We hope that such increased awareness will lead to the provision of higher quality services to bilingual people.
In this article, we contribute to understanding the interactional aspects of making clinical diagnosis in mental health care. We observe that therapists, during the “problem presentation” sequence in clinical encounters, often use a specific form of diagnostic formulations to elicit more diagnostically relevant information. By doing so, they often substitute one type of verb with another, following a diagnostic hypothesis. Specifically, in interviews that arrive at a diagnosis of neurosis, therapists formulate with behavioral verbal processes; in interviews that arrive at a diagnosis of psychosis, they do so with material ones. Such formulations often prove useful to define clinical diagnoses. They can, however, also be dangerous in that they may favor the therapist’s agenda over the patient’s. Our analysis helps therapists not only better understand the diagnostic process but also reflect upon their own use of diagnostic formulations and become aware of the clinical effects of their interactional performance.
Abstract
To foster engagement in treatment and improve therapeutic outcomes for immigrant clients, it is important for therapists to integrate cultural values and to recognize the psychological stressors faced as immigrants learn to adapt and assimilate changes associated with moving to a new country. This case study describes the integration of cultural values when working with immigrant Latino clients who are at an increased risk of experiencing acculturative stress as a result of moving to the United States and having limited English knowledge. The integration of cultural values of familismo and personalismo are also discussed as it related to case conceptualization and treatment process. Finally, the current case provides information about conducting therapy in two languages and transitioning from Spanish to English as part of acculturation process while also addressing multifaceted aspects involved when working with Latino clients.
Abstract
This study investigates bi- and multilingual clients’ self-reported language practices in counselling and psychotherapy. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through an international web survey inviting adults who had experienced one-to-one therapy to describe their experiences. Analysis of responses by 109 multilingual clients revealed that clients did not always have an opportunity to discuss their multilingualism with therapists, and for some this inhibited their language switching. Others were assertive in their language choices, or benefited from working with a therapist who was either bilingual or skilled at creating an inclusive linguistic environment. Very few reported two main therapy languages, while nearly two thirds of participants reported short code-switches. These happened occasionally within sessions and were typically linked to difficulties in translation, expressing emotion, accessing memories or quotation. Over a third of respondents used a second or additional language as their main therapy language, nearly half of whom reported never switching to their first language in sessions, despite some using it daily for inner speech. The implications for therapy and further research are discussed, including the role of the therapist in inviting the client’s multiple languages into the therapeutic frame.
Abstract
This study investigates the relationship between a client’s rate of speech (ROS) and emotional-cognitive regulation during a psychotherapysession. The ROS was measured in words per second on the timed transcript of a single session of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Emotional-cognitive regulation was assessed using the therapeutic cycles model on emotional tone (ET), abstraction (AB), and their combination in emotio-abstraction patterns (EAPs). The results were mostly consistent with our hypotheses and showed that: i) the ROS negatively correlated with the conjoined ET and AB; and ii) the ROS in the connecting EAP (high ET and high AB) was significantly lower than in other EAPs. The results support the hypothesis that a significant reduction in the client’s ROS may be a reliable marker of in-session change processes. Clinical implications and future developments are discussed.
Living in an increasingly globalised world where people move between countries 
and cultures influences the psychotherapeutic process in many ways. In a recent article for “The Society of Advancement of Psychotherapy”, Daria Diakonova-Curtis explores the implications of being a bilingual psychotherapist, encounters with bilingual clients and current research within this field. To read more about bilingualism in psychotherapy, follow the link to the original article…
We are very pleased to inform you that Volume 6 Issue 1 of the open access journal “Language and Psychoanalysis” has gone online.
http://www.language-and-psychoanalysis.com/
This issue includes the following articles:
Robert D. Stolorow, Ph.D. & George E. Atwood, Ph.D. The Phenomenology of Language and the Metaphysicalizing of the Real
Fernanda Carrá-Salsberg, Ph.D. A Psychoanalytic Look into The Effects of Childhood and Adolescent Migration in Eva Hoffman’s Lost in Translation
David Hafner, Ph.D. An Introduction to the Transference Unconscious
Rina Stahl Freedman, Ph.D. Cross-Cultural Treatment Issues in Psychoanalysis
Giuseppe Iurato, Ph.D. Book Review. Reading Italian Psychoanalysis
Anonymous Author, M. A. Book Review. Language Disorders in Children and Adolescents
The journal “Language and Psychoanalysis” is also currently accepting manuscripts for the next issue in Autumn-Winter 2017.
Manuscript submission due date: 30th September 2017
Our guest editors Prof. Michael. B. Buchholz and Prof. Horst Kächele have put together a special issue on “Conversational Analysis in Psychotherapy Process Research”. The special issue has excellent contributions that were originally part of the panel at the 47th SPR International Annual Meeting in Jerusalem, Israel. The panel was extremely successful and produced fruitful discussions on positioning conversational analysis in the field of psychotherapy research.
The contributions of the special issue are:
http://www.language-and-psychoanalysis.com/issue/current
“Communication and Psychotherapy” is a new regular special issue featured by the journal “Language and Psychoanalysis”. The special issue welcomes original contributions to further understand of communication and language in psychotherapeutic processes. It focusses on a wide range of approaches to counselling and psychotherapy, including person-centred, CBT, integrative and holistic therapies.
Any relevant manuscripts with an emphasis on communication and language in counselling and psychotherapy will be considered. The journal also publishes short research reports, book reviews, interviews, obituaries, and readers’ comments.
ISSN: 2399-5041
Affiliation: Open University
Associate Lecturer with the Open University. Research interests are primarily in the area of critical theory and psychoanalytical approaches to textuality and culture with a particular interest in positions of rhetoric inhabited in relation to analysis. Published work has ranged from readings of the early work of Freud, identity and bodily habitation, linguistic negotiation in rap and hip-hop, and the role of phantasy in children’s literature.
Email: d.cox@open.ac.uk
Affiliation: Birkbeck College
Laura Thompson is a Chartered Psychologist and Lecturer in Social Psychology at Birkbeck College. Her research is applied and ‘real-world’, focusing broadly on health, communication and socio-psychological approaches to occupational psychology. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, Laura draws across a range of methods, in particular conversation analysis, to help solve problems within the health sector, psychiatry and private or public companies. Her research aims to form the foundations for psychological treatments and interventions for individuals with health conditions, including schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis.
We will be hosting a series of seminars relevant to the topic of language in psychotherapy and patient-centred communication. The aims of the seminars are to transfer knowledge that complements the development of professionals (e.g., academics, practitioners and post-graduate students) working in the field of counselling, psychotherapy, clinical psychology, nursing, psychology, education and other disciplines with an interest in the use of language in therapy and patient-centred communication. The seminars will be also reaching out to NHS staff and therapists working across all three sectors: voluntary, statutory and private.
The seminars will encourage collaborative work and the development of skills for language-based psychotherapy research, and also to develop greater awareness of person-centred communicative processes within the psychotherapeutic context.
ALL ARE WELCOME but spaces are limited. Please contact laura.cariola@ed.ac.uk to reserve your place for the KE seminars. All seminars will take place at the University of Edinburgh, School of Health in Social Science, Teviot Place, Old Medical School, Doorway 6, Edinburgh EH8 9AG.
10th November 3-5pm, Room 4.01 “Second-language use in psychotherapy” by Dr. Lorena Georgiadou
19th December 3-5pm, Room 4.01 “Subjectivity in psychotherapy from a perspective of enlightenment and critical rationalism” by Prof. Matthias Schwannauer
24th January 2-4pm, Room 4.01 “Power and narratives in psychotherapy” by Mr. Seamus Prior
16th February 4.30-5.45pm, Room 4.01 “Autoethnography: a ‘close up’ research approach” Dr. Jonathan Wyatt
9th March 3-5pm, Room 4.01 “Phenomenology and minority experiences” by Dr. Billy Lee
6th April, 3-5pm Room 4.01 “Metaphors in psychotherapy” by Dr. Laura A. Cariola
See you at the seminars!
Funded by the Researcher-Led Initiative Fund
A recent article in “Psychology Today” explores the topic of anxiety in foreign language learning. It mentions the work by Prof. Jean-Marc Dewaele, University of London, who identified that girls tend to experience higher levels of anxiety than boys when learning a foreign language. Individuals scoring highly on perfectionism and introversion are also highly affected by foreign language fright to the extent that perfectionist feel overwhelmed by high performance standards and introverts feel inhibited to speak in a foreign language.
To read more, here is the link to the original article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-bilingual/201608/foreign-language-learning-is-dating-it-spurs-anxiety
Abstract
This article offers a discussion concerning the future of collaborative writing as a method of inquiry. Taking the form of a dialogic exchange, we take up Isabelle Stengers’ notion of “wonder” as a creative and political lens through which to consider the disruptive, radical, and productive methodological capacity that collaborative writing as a research method potentially offers. Working particularly with Deleuze and Guattari, we argue that language in collaborative writing practices is deeply entangled with complex materialist practice, and through engagements with these “matterings” we make sense of collaborative writing as immanent event. We discuss—and experience—the challenges that collaborative writing has for research and this article pushes at established categories, works against the fixities of conventional theory construction, contests the humanist and phenomenological proclivities that arguably limit the process and effectiveness of collaborative writing as method of inquiry, and wonders at the immensities that are possible.
Original article: Qualitative Inquiry, 2016, pp. 1-10. Link
Abstract
This paper considers how ideas developed within relevance theory can be applied in accounting for language change. It briefly surveys previous relevance-theoretic work on language change and suggests that studies of procedural meaning, lexical pragmatics and metarepresentation can each play an important role in accounting for semantic change. It identifies a number of areas for further research which could help to develop understanding of both relevance theory and language change and suggests that one important line of further research would be to explore connections between work in relevance theory and approaches which adopt terms and ideas from the theory without adopting the relevance-theoretic framework overall.
Billy Clark (2016). Relevance theory and language change. Lingua, 175-176, pp. 139-153. Link
Affiliation: Middlesex University
I am a linguist with research and teaching interests covering a wide range of topics in linguistics and linguistic theory, with a particular focus on various aspects of meaning (semantics and pragmatics). This has included work on lexical and syntactic meaning, semantic change, phatic communication, prosodic meaning, multimodality and stylistics.
Recent publications include a book, Relevance Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2013) and a collection edited with Siobhan Chapman, Pragmatic Literary Stylistics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
I have also worked with a number of groups interested in connections between work at school and at university. I am a member of the UK Linguistics Olympiad committee and, with Marcello Giovanelli and Andrea Macrae, I coordinate the Integrating English project (http://integratingenglish.org)
Abstract
This brief self-narrative juxtaposes philosophical and psychoanalytic theories of language and trauma with descriptions of the author’s experiences as: a child and adolescent migrant, a fragmentary language learner, and a postsecondary language educator. It studies the short and long-term effects of having one’s language of identification undervalued by political tensions, and examines what it means for the ego to (re)construct its identity following a language-related emotional crisis. The author defines her libidinal attachments to her introjected tongues and discusses how her present state of being within uneven languages were carved by the memory of her experiences as a child and an adolescent migrant. Similar to Jacques Derrida’s (1996) description of “disorders of identity”, Carrá-Salsberg blends theory with her recollections of lived occurrences to conceptualize the way in which the inscription of early traumatic occurrences within languages ground subjects’ life-long responses and attitude towards their acquired tongues.
Original published: Language and Psychoanalysis, Volume 5, Issue 1, pp. 4-13 Link
How technology could help predict terrorist attacks
The internet has become a weapon for terrorists, who use social media and other technologies to organise, recruit and spread propaganda. So is it possible to turn technology around and use it to not only catch terrorists but predict and potentially stop terror attacks before they happen?
One thing we can do is use technology to search for patterns in the activity and language of terrorists and their supporters online. If we can spot trends that typically occur in the run up to an attack, it may be possible to automatically identify when future acts of violence are being planned. In a new study, researchers from Harvard University attempted to do just this. They used computer simulations to show how unofficial groups of online Islamic State (IS) supporters spread and grow through social networking sites and how this relates to the timing of violent attacks.
This follows research into how messages on Twitter can be classified to predict whether someone will support or oppose IS. Other researchers have used data-mining techniques on social media data to try to work out when supporters “begin to adopt pro-IS behaviour”.
“Language Lessons on the NHS?” 11th August 2016 at 3pm (Standard in the Square, Venue 372)
Dr Thomas H Bak is doing a language-related show at the Edinburgh Fringe (Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas).
Description
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/language-lessons-on-the-nhs
Affiliation: University of Edinburgh
Born and raised in Cracow, Poland, Dr Thomas H Bak studied medicine in Germany and Switzerland, obtaining his medical doctorate with a thesis on acute aphasias (language disorders caused by brain diseases) at the University of Freiburg (Germany). He worked clinically in psychiatry, neurology and neurosurgery in Basel, Bern, Berlin and Cambridge.
During his time in Cambridge (1995-2006), he established the Clinic for Disorders of Movement and Cognition (DMC). His research addressed in particular the relationship between language, cognition and movement in neurodegenerative diseases and embodied cognition, with a focus on specific deficits in processing verbs/actions and nouns/objects. In this context he developed the Kissing & Dancing Test (KDT) to examine action knowledge. He was also part of the team which developed Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination (ACE).
In 2006, he moved to Edinburgh where he continues to work, based at the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic (ARRNC) at the Royal Infirmary (RIE), on the interaction between motor and cognitive functions in patients with dementia. Together with his colleague Sharon Abrahams he developed the Edinburgh Cognitive Assessment (ECAS) for patients in whom dementia is further complicated by motor problems (e.g. weakness, parkinsonism etc). Currently, he is working on Edinburgh Motor Assessment (EMAS), a brief motor screening tool designed specifically for patients with dementia and/or progressive aphasia.
In addition, over the last years he has been focusing increasingly on different aspects of the interaction between bilingualism, language learning and cognition, across the lifespan, in healthy ageing and in brain diseases such as dementia and stroke. He has been working with different populations, in Scotland (Edinburgh, Inner and Outer Hebrides) and across the world (India, Singapore, Malta). From 1 July 2016 he is the strand-leader on Cognition, Health and Well-being on an interdisciplinary, collaborative AHRC grant “Multilingualism: empowering individuals, transforming societies”.
Since 2010, he is the president of the World Federation of Neurology Research Group on Aphasia, Dementia and Cognitive Disorders (WFN RG ADCD). He has teaching experience in seven languages and organised WFN-sponsored teaching courses in cognitive neurology in Europe, Asia and South America (as part of the programme “Cognitive clinics world-wide”).
Main research interests:
Dear Colleague,
As you may well know, the BSA Annual Conference, 2017 will be held at the University of Manchester, on 4-6 April on the theme ‘Recovering the Social: Personal Troubles and Public Issues’. Conference details are here.
Following its successful 2016 conference, the Sociology, Psychoanalysis and the Psychosocial Study Group very much hopes you will be submitting a paper to the 2017 event. The abstract submission deadline is: Friday, 14 October 2016. The submission system is not yet in operation but we will send details of how to submit an abstract to the Study Group’s sub-stream once the system is up and running.
With our very best wishes for an enjoyable summer,
Peter and Julie
Peter Redman and Julie Walsh
Sociology, Psychoanalysis and the Psychosocial Study Group conveners
Abstract
This qualitative study seeks to present the discursive effects of SADUPA, a new poetry-based technique centered on haiku, in the context of psycho-oncological treatment. The technique is used with a terminal cancer patient, Mr A. The psychological processes involved with and the poetic writings arising from the technique are discussed. In particular, the discursive variations in Mr A’s narrative of his illness are described as they occurred before and after his poetry writing. The authors suggest that writing workshops based on the brief poetic structures of the haiku can enable patients to produce a larger and more singular narrative about their end-of-life experiences.
Santarpia, A., Dudoit, E., & Paul, M. (2015). The Discursive Effects of the Haiku-based SADUPA Poetry Technique in Palliative Care. The Journal of Poetry Therapy, 28(3), 179-194. Profile
Affiliation: Washington Center for Psychoanalysis
I am a semi-retired psychoanalyst with an interest in the ongoing development of psychoanalytic theory. Currently I am exploring overlaps between psychoanalysis and Cognitive Semiotics, a branch of linguistics that is bringing about a “relational turn” in its own field.
Email: cerskine@mindspring.com
Affiliation: Universidade Nova de Lisboa
As a researcher, I’m responsible for the Multimodal Communication/Linguistics section of the BlackBox project, investigating performing arts from cognitive and ethnographic perspectives.
Previously, I did post-doctoral research on cognitive semiotics, metaphors, metonymy, gestures and epistemic stance at Humtec – RWTH Aachen University (Germany) with the Natural Media – Gesture lab, teaching Master’s courses in Media Informatics on “Media, Culture and Mind” and “Semiotics and Embodied Cognition in the Digital Age” from 2009-2014. I held a one-year FIIRD fellowship granted by the Foundation for Interreligious and Intercultural Research and Dialogue for research on multimodal cognitive semiotics in relation to religious and spiritual thought at the University of Geneva (Switzerland). I was also lecturer at the University of Palermo (Italy), where my doctoral training began, which was also conducted in the USA at the University of California-Berkeley (Linguistics) as visiting researcher and at Case Western Reserve (Cognitive Science) as visiting scholar.
Broadly, my research lies in the intersection of language, culture and cognition, focusing on multimodal cognitive semiotics and symbolic systems (e.g. religions and religious discourse; performing arts and literature) and the socio-anthropological aspects of conceptual blends. One special research interest of mine is on multimodal metaphors (speech, gesture, cultural artifacts) and how these might be applied in other domains such as in psychotherapy and forensic interviews in order to better understand the epistemic stance of the speaker and how it’s represented in “natural media” (voice, gestures, posture, gaze, etc.). In this sense, I adhere to an embodied and embedded view of the human mind following contemporary cognitive science.
Within the BlackBox research framework, I’m interested in investigating what dancers and other performers might be able to inform science about the relationship between body and cognition and creative processes in general.
Using a Kleinian psychoanalytic framework, Prof. Anna Madill explores the central motif of the ‘doll’ in boys’ love mangas.
The first paragraphs of her book chapter
Boys’ Love (BL) is an umbrella term for a cluster of genres originating in early-1970s Japanese popular culture which portray male-male sexuality largely by and for women. BL incorporates, with variable and often subtle differentiation, yaoi, shonen-ai, and – possibly – female-oriented, male-male shotacon. The characteristic media in which BL appear are manga, anime, illustrated light novels, and computer games. However, BL dojinshi – non-professional, but often highly polished productions – are also sold, traded, and uploaded to the internet. Since the late-1980s BL has gained a worldwide audience and commercially translated products are available, as are fan-translated manga, fan-subbed anime, language-patches for games, and original work in different languages.
Affiliation: University of Leeds
Anna Madill is Deputy Head and Professor in the School of Psychology, University of Leeds and is the psychology contact for, and member of, the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies. Anna Madill is a Chartered Psychologist, a Chartered Scientist, Fellow of the British Psychological Society and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. She Co-Founded and Chaired (2008-11) the British Psychological Society Qualitative Methods in Psychology Section, is Associate Editor of the British Journal of Clinical Psychology and on the editorial boards of the British Journal of Social Psychology, Qualitative Psychology, and Qualitative Research in Psychology. Her interests include qualitative methods, psychoanalysis, Lacan, visual analysis, erotic manga, women’s erotic cultures, health and wellbeing.
Affiliation: Private Practice & Brooklyn College, The City University of New York
My name is Peter Schneider. I am a psychotherapist with a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from New York Univ. and a certificate in psychoanalysis from the NYU Post-doctoral program. I have been a faculty member at Brooklyn College and Empire State College (SUNY). My article on speech pragmatically and psychotherapy was published in an early number of your journal Language and Psychoanalysis. I have also had articles in Contemporary Psychoanalysis; Psychoanalytic Psychology; and Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought. My current interests center on integrating psychoanalytic, Jamesian, and phenomenological views of the self. My e-mail is pschneid@gmail.com
Affiliation: Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis
Robert D. Stolorow is a Founding Faculty Member at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles, and at the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity, New York. Absorbed for more than four decades in the project of rethinking psychoanalysis as a form of phenomenological inquiry, he is the author of World, Affectivity, Trauma: Heidegger and Post-Cartesian Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2011) and Trauma and Human Existence: Autobiographical, Psychoanalytic, and Philosophical Reflections (Routledge, 2007) and coauthor of eight other books. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Harvard in 1970 and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of California at Riverside in 2007.
Abstract
Notwithstanding the many methodological advances made in the field of psychotherapy research, at present a metatheoretical, school-independent framework to explain psychotherapy change processes taking into account their dynamic and complex nature is still lacking. Over the last years, several authors have suggested that a dynamic systems (DS) approach might provide such a framework. In the present paper, we review the main characteristics of a DS approach to psychotherapy. After an overview of the general principles of the DS approach, we describe the extent to which psychotherapy can be considered as a self-organizing open complex system, whose developmental change processes are described in terms of a dialectic dynamics between stability and change over time. Empirical evidence in support of this conceptualization is provided and discussed. Finally, we propose a research design strategy for the empirical investigation of psychotherapy from a DS approach, together with a research case example. We conclude that a DS approach may provide a meta-theoretical, school-independent framework allowing us to constructively rethink and enhance the way we conceptualize and empirically investigate psychotherapy.
Gelo, O. C. G., & Salvatore, S. (2016). A dynamic systems approach to psychotherapy: A meta-theoretical framework for explaining psychotherapy change processes. Journal of Counselling Psychology, 63, 379-395. Link
Abstract
This work presents a dialogic model of psychotherapy (the Two-Stage Semiotic Model, TSSM) with discourse flow analysis (DFA) and a low-inferential method of analysis based on it. TSSM claims that in good-outcome psychotherapy, the patient’s system of meanings follows a U-shaped trend: First, it decreases, and then the dialog promotes new meanings. DFA represents a session’s dialog as a “discourse network” made by the associations for temporal adjacency between contents; then it studies the network’s dynamic properties. DFA has been applied to the textual corpus obtained from the verbatim transcript of a 15-session psy- chotherapy course. Findings are consistent with the hypotheses.
Salvatore, S., Gelo, O., Gennaro, A., Manzo, S., Radaideh, A. (2010). Looking at the psychotherapy process as an intersubjective dynamic of meaning-making: A case study with discourse flow analysis. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 23, 195-230. Link
Affiliation: University of Amsterdam
Marianna is a EU Marie Curie awarded postdoc researcher at the UvA. Her research focuses on the differences between visual and verbal metaphors, and taps into the type of knowledge that comes into play when we understand a visual as opposed to a verbal metaphor. To achieve this, she uses quantitative analyses and computational modelling techniques, combined with psychological data. Her current postdoctoral project is called COGVIM (Cognitive Grounding of Visual Metaphor, https://cogvim.org/).
Affiliation: University of Edinburgh
Angus joined the School of Health in Social Sciences in 2014 as a Lecturer in Clinical Psychology. Prior to this he worked as a Clinical Psychologist with NHS Grampian, working in adult mental health, in the rural setting of Dr Gray’s Hospital, Elgin. His PhD research was completed at the University of Glasgow with Professor Andrew Gumley, investigating attachment and mentalisation in First Episode Psychosis (FEP). Subsequently, he completed his Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Glasgow. From 2012 – 2014 he was an NRS Career Research Fellow, funded by NHS Research Scotland; and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Aberdeen, working with the Psychiatry Research Group and the Centre for Rural Health. Angus continues to work with NHS Grampian as an Honorary Principal Clinical Psychologist in Adult Mental Health. He is an Associate Editor for Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice.
Angus is interested in using developmental psychopathology to inform our understanding of risk and resilience in psychiatric disorder, particularly in perinatal mental health. He has a long-standing interest in psychological frameworks, treatment models and the psychological management of psychotic disorders and other complex mental health difficulties including borderline personality disorder and Cluster C personality disorders. Finally, Angus is also interested in using data-linkage strategies for optimising use of routine data, meta-analysis, and the use of small-scale research designs to measure pathways into care and service delivery
Alongside collaborations with University of Edinburgh Angus has external collaborations with the University of Aberdeen, University of Glasgow, University of Copenhagen, University of Southern Denmark, and the Centre for Metacognitive Therapy, Rome.
Academic affiliation: University of Montreal
I essentially try to better understand the links between affect regulation and psychopathology, mainly by studying mental functioning (mentalization, alexithymia). Part of my work bears on the theoretical analysis of these themes, using a mainly psychoanalytical approach that integrates elements of theories of emotion. I also conduct empirical research using a number of methodological strategies: discourse analysis (quantitative and qualitative), creation and use of questionnaires, experimental tasks, etc. I created a grid for verbal elaboration of affect (GÉVA), a verbal measurement of affect mentalization, a central part of many research projects.
