Atrapos.eu » Literature

Reading Papadopoulos (2003) – the concept of ‘home’

atrapos — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:32:58 +0000

It has been so fortunate that our University library had a copy of an excellent book: Papadopoulos, R. K. (ed) (2003) Therapeutic Care for Refugees: No Place like Home. London: Karnac

this volume has contributions by various authors around trauma and therapy with refugees and asylum seekers (forced migration) which is not my area in the PhD. However, i have found some very interesting ideas and discourse around the concept of ‘home’ and recorded some quotes that can go into my thesis. Papadopoulos offers an excellent account, drawing from ‘Home and Homer’ which connected me to my own Greek background and the symbols and stories of departure and homecoming in my nation, i have been thinking about the links between the individual and the collective level and all the transgenerational heritage we carry at a psychological level. This is an area of experience that comes into my PhD topic but it is quite subtle and i have been feeling it at a gut level without having the words to clearly articulate it. Today’s read has given me food for thought in all the ‘cooking’ an currently doing in my relationship with my data, myself as researcher and my writings.

Reading Hertz (1997) & reflecting on ‘my story’ chapter

atrapos — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 22:46:12 +0000

It is a few weeks now that i have been trying to write a chapter that i will place before the methodology one in my Thesis, where i present ‘my own story’ in relation to how it links to the PhD topic, given that i am very much ‘data’ of what i am researching and my lived experience of the inquiry is inevitably influencing all the stages of the research process, from chosing the topic itself to my interaction and meaning-making of the data and the writing style. I find this a difficult section to write, i start and stop and find myself facing numerous decisions around who am i writing what for, how far do i go with self-disclosure and what are the motives around that, what is relevant and what is not and so on. (more…)

Liamputtong (2008) on cross-cultural research

atrapos — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:19:45 +0000

I discovered this very interesting book which is available for me to read online via my library access:

Liamputtong, P. (ed.) (2008) Doing Cross-cultural research: Ethical and Methodological Perspectives. Springer Netherlands: Social Indicators Research Series (vol.34)

some featured chapters for me to read are:

Language and Communication in Cross-Cultural Qualitative Research by Monique M. Hennink

The Researcher as Insider Versus the Researcher as Outsider: Enhancing Rigour Through Language and Cultural Sensitivity by Fiona Irvine, Gwerfyl Roberts and Caroline Bradbury-Jones

Decolonised Methodologies in Cross-Cultural Research by April Vannini and Coreen Gladue

Refining the Occupation of Research Across Cultures

about use of terminology

atrapos — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 18:26:22 +0000

I read this article below from March 2004 Issue of Therapy today Journal by the BACP, in relation to the use of terms ‘counselling’ and ‘pscyhotherapy’ (also available on http://www.therapytoday.net/archive/mar2004/cover_feature2.htm )

Counselling and Psychotherapy: is there a difference?

Are counselling and psychotherapy the same or are they different? And how much does it matter? This question lies at the heart of a debate, heated up by the prospect of professional regulation. By Clare Pointon

Rachel, 39: ‘I went into psychotherapy in my 20s. The trigger for seeking help was the end of a relationship; at the time I felt that I couldn’t cope with life at all. I had an initial assessment with a woman who spoke to me at length about why I was interested in having psychotherapy and what the issues were I wanted to deal with. At the end of the assessment she said that she thought I would be a suitable candidate for psychotherapy. She said that it would be a longterm commitment – perhaps several years. She also took quite a bit of trouble matching me up with the right person, paying particular attention to whether I wanted to see a man or a woman; it felt like a lot of thought went into that whole process. There was a male therapist she thought would suit me and I waited for several months until a vacancy with him came up. I then saw him for five years.

(more…)

about regulation in 17 European countries

atrapos — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 16:43:11 +0000

Psychology and psychotherapy in health care: A review of legal regulations in 17 European countries. by Van Broeck, Nady; Lietaer, Germain – European Psychologist. Vol 13(1), 2008, 53-63.

Abstract: During the last 20 years, psychological interventions and psychotherapy have acquired a modest but significant place in health care. The lack of a uniform legal definition of these professional activities in the domain of health care hampers quality control of training programs and delivered services and complicates coordination of care. Training requirements are not always made explicit, and often there are no mechanisms for quality control or for monitoring compliance with ethical codes of conduct. In this review, the legal regulation of the professional activity of psychologists in health care and of psychotherapists in 17 European countries is examined. Eleven of these have adopted a legal regulation the title and the professional activities of psychologists in health care. Seven have an additional law regulating the title and the professional activities of psychotherapists. In five countries, professionals other than psychologists and medical doctors can obtain a legally protected title and license to practice as a psychotherapist. Conclusions are drawn concerning the available models of regulation of psychotherapy and their respective consequences

more on cultural competence

atrapos — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:52:12 +0000

Challenges and Promises of Becoming a Culturally Competent Counselor in a Sociopolitical Era of Change and Empowerment

Patricia Arredondo, Zoila G Tovar-Blank, Thomas A Parham. Journal of Counseling and Development : JCD. Alexandria: Summer 2008. Vol. 86, Iss. 3; pg. 261, 8 pgs

Abstract (Summary)

This article explores the historical and sociopolitical contexts of the multicultural competency movement and the challenges and promise of becoming a culturally competent counselor. Specific attention is directed to the promise and opportunity for those who commit to a culturally competent personal and professional way of life

individualism-collectivism in counselling

atrapos — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:48:05 +0000

The worldview dimensions of individualism and collectivism: Implications for counseling

Bryant Williams. Journal of Counseling and Development : JCD. Alexandria: Summer 2003. Vol. 81, Iss. 3; pg. 370

Abstract (Summary)

A recent article, “Rethinking Individualism and Collectivism: Evaluation of Theoretical Assumptions and Meta-Analyses” (D. Oyserman, H. M. Coon, & M. Kemmelmeier, 2002), revealed that 170 studies have been conducted on the worldview dimensions of individualism and collectivism. The authors’ analyses of the studies provided empirical support for the theoretical notion posited by numerous multicultural counseling scholars, which outlines the importance of understanding worldview for competent practice. This article reviews the results of the authors’ analyses and discusses the implications for counseling

Professionalisation & collective identity of counsellors

atrapos — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:44:27 +0000

Professionalism’s challenges to professional counselor’s collective identity

Arden Unbrit Gale, B Diane Austin. Journal of Counseling and Development : JCD. Alexandria: Winter 2003. Vol. 81, Iss. 1; pg. 3, 8 pgs

Abstract (Summary)

The authors discuss how attaining various standards of professionalism has inadvertently resulted in challenges to professional counselors’ collective identity. The authors reviewed interviews with senior contributors to the profession published in the Journal of Counseling & Development, identifying themes in their comments to suggest potential solutions to helping profes-sional counselors find unity in diversity.

Therapist as Internationalist?

atrapos — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:04:52 +0000

I found this paper online about demands on current European psychiatry to move towards having cross-cultural awareness:

Cox, J.L. (2007) European Psychiatry: moving towards integration and harmony. World Psychiatry, February, 6(1), p. 54-56. World Psychiatric Association, available on:http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1805728

It appears hopeful that psychiatry is moving towards such a stance, what i am wondering is that he paper does not suggest how this may happen, although it highlights the need for it! So, to what extend are psychiatrists aware of their own cultural influences and then how those interact with those of their patients in that respect is something i would like to hear more about. This is a debatable quote i note from the article::

“The boundaries between primary and secondary, neuroscience and social science, psychiatrist and psychologist, traditional healer, religious counsellor and psychotherapist, hospital and community all have to be traversed in both directions all the time. These migrations are being driven by at least two social forces. The first is the demand of the users for greater autonomy and more personalized healthcare. The second is the scientific advances of psychiatry, demonstrating, for example, the mechanism of the link between gene expression, early development and adult personality”

Living between two cultures narratives

atrapos — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 12:47:37 +0000

I found this link which includes narratives of people that live between two cultures. I know that in my research i shall remain focused on therapists experiences of that exclusively but reading those articles helps me find the discourse in my own narrative:

http://www.helium.com/items/767839-living-between-two-cultures

Article: Working Accross Cultures (Williamson, 2007)

atrapos — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 12:36:07 +0000

Williamson, V. (2007) Working accross cultures, Library Management, Volume 28, Numbers 4-5, pp. 197-206(10)

Abstarct: The purpose of this research is to show a mix of career reflections and personal observations about the decision-making process of changing employers and countries. The paper covers some initial impressions of moving, living and working in another country, context and culture. It explores selected issues (some personal and some professional) and addresses the broader question of what factors impact such a move, such as environmental factors that are likely to make an overseas appointment an attractive and challenging career alternative. Working in an international context might not be for everyone but those interested in working in another country can take some practical steps to help ensure a smooth transition to a new employer and a new country. Provides a discussion on some important matters which need consideration when changing employers and moving countries. It is based on the personal experiences and observations of the author, who moved from Australia to Canada in 2006.

definitions in the ‘therapy culture/world’

atrapos — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:15:33 +0000

Following a discussion i had with the PhD group thsi morning about definitions and boundaries of roles within the professions in the so-called ‘talking therapies’ ( i am not even sure what words/terms to use here as i write now to encompass it all….it is not possible cause there is not a worldwide mutual agreement around the matter!), i have spend a good few hours this evening searching the literature around that…and i did get quite lost! there is a lot of confusion around how the terms ‘counsellor’, ‘psychoterapist’, the different branches of psychology etc are used in the literature and the claims that are taken in relation to professionalisation, regulations and ultimately this impacts on the issue of identity of the ‘therapist’ (if it is to use that term). All this story is mangnified and becomes even more complex for the therapits that moves to work in a different country from where qualifications where received etc, according to the state of affairs in a particulat system, esulting, quite often, in losing the value of qualifications when attempting to transfer to another culture, let alone permission to practice etc. This matter is core in my topic, also huge and i cannot cover it in my thesis. I do have to make reference to it though and discuss its complexity; also come to a stance that i am adopting about how i will use words/terms in my writing in the thesis…i need to keep focused, patient and remember that i cannot change the world….it does feel daunting though that a professional field whose work is to work with self and identity and self-awareness and the like, expresses so much confusion around its own professional identity and culture…

Rogers & Multicultural Counselling (MacDougall, 2002)

atrapos — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:13:49 +0000

Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 42, No. 2, 48-65 (2002)

Rogers’s Person-Centered Approach: Consideration for Use in Multicultural Counseling
Carol MacDougall – Alberta, Canada

To provide competent counseling services to an increasingly diverse clientele, attention must be given to the applicability of the dominant theoretical orientations. Rogers’s person-centered approach is widely used, but the appropriateness of its diverse applications should not be assumed. This article considers the applicability of Rogers’s person-centered approach in multicultural counseling contexts.

encounter with self (Grabotsky, 2005)

atrapos — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:01:24 +0000

When looking at this reference, the phrase ‘the encounter with self through the process of cross-cultural transition’ is something that vividly describes the area i am exploring in my PhD, in terms of the ‘ self’ of the immigrant therapist or the therapist ‘on the move’. I keep a record of it for a search soon:

Grabosky, T. K. (2005) The encounter with self through the process of cross-cultural transition: The perspective of Japanese women who study in higher education institutions in the United States. Dissertation Abstracts International Section A: Humanities and Social Sciences. Vol 65(9-A), 2005, pp. 3288.

culture-specific vs. universal (Fischer et al, 1998)

atrapos — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:48:24 +0000

I found this useful abstract below around the idea of culture specific vs. universal approaches to therapy:

Some tension appears to exist in the literature between the emic, or culturally specific, and etic, or universal, approaches to counseling with culturally different clients. Prompted by the lack of clear theoretical models for multicultural counseling, as well as by the inability of specific factors to explain treatment effectiveness in general, we suggest that consideration of the common factors found in psychotherapy and healing across cultures provides a useful way to bridge the gap between culturally specific and universal approaches. We believe that the skeleton of universal healing factors requires the flesh of cultural knowledge, resulting in the formulation of multicultural counseling as universal healing processes taking place in a culturally sensitive context. We propose that this perspective (a) may serve as a framework for unifying the diverse body of multi-cultural counseling literature, (b) has some empirical support, and (c) may be useful in guiding future multicultural research, training, and practice. (more…)

The self we live by (Holstein and Gubrium, 2000)

atrapos — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:53:45 +0000

I have been reading this very dense book by Holstein, J. A. & Gubrium, J. F. (2000) The Self we live by: Narrative Identity in a postmodern world. Oxford: Oxford University Press. It was quite tiring to read using a lot of complex language. i did find some useful quotes for the Thesis but i think it is tou much of a complex book to read any maybe it is complicating my thinking (more…)

National Histories, Natural States: Nationalism and the Politics of Place in Greece (Peckham, 2001)

atrapos — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 22:33:25 +0000

This is a book from a non-Greek about Greece, and it is available on line if somebody googles the title. A brief description i found is the following:

“Recent conflicts in southeast Europe have drawn attention to the close relationship between place and national identity. Robert Shannan Peckham here explores the conscious linkage between identity and homeland as this was articulated in 19th- and early 20th-century Greece, a period important to the understanding of the present Balkan crisis. He demonstrates how territory was appropriated through a range of social practices and institutional activities: writing fiction, identifying folklore, sponsoring archaeology, studying geography and cartography. The particularities of place, Peckham argues, were construed both as underpinning a territorial expansion and as a resistance to the homogenizing drive of a state-sponsored nationalism. This book makes an innovative theoretical contribution to the debate on nationalism and nationhood and suggests new ways of thinking about geography and cultural politics”

I have found that in my interviews with the Greek participants, such a book is very relevant as it desctibes certain dynamics that are not easily articulated and go beyond the immediate experience of the therapits but seem to operate at an unconscious level within their cultural identity

Mapping Greek Homeland (Leontis, 1995)

atrapos — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 22:19:46 +0000

Artemis Leontis – Book Review: Topographies of Hellenism: Mapping the Homeland – Journal of Modern Greek Studies 14:1 Journal of Modern Greek Studies 14.1 (1996) 188-191 Book Review Topographies of Hellenism: Mapping the Homeland Artemis Leontis, Topographies of Hellenism: Mapping the Homeland. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. 1995.

The word topos in Greek reflects the intersection of literature with geography, rhetoric, and space. The negotiation of topos has been central to Greek history and culture for the past two centuries, a number of intellectual battles having been fought over its conflicting conceptions. Greek texts offer abundant material for a genealogy of topos in Greek literary history. Leontis, through careful readings of selected texts and passages, traces the uses of topos and the changing topographies of Hellenism. Caught between logos and topos, Greeks sought incessantly to reconcile the imaginary Hellas with their modern homeland, past with present, discourse with geography, Hellenism with Neohellenism. Leontis’s book sets out to explore this attempt at reconciliation together with the symbolic significance of place. It is a wide-ranging study that takes us from the way Western travelers saw the Acropolis to Makronisos and from Virginia Woolf’s “A Dialogue upon Mount Pentelicus” to Elytis’s Axion Esti. In her introduction, Leontis investigates the Greek sense of place, arguing that literature and…

McAulifffe, G (2008)

atrapos — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:32:54 +0000

Another book i reviewed for Thresholds journal, titled “Culturaly alert Counseling – a comprehensive introduction” – it was not at all to my linking, very ‘americanised, we-have-all-answers’ kind of style that i think is actually a bit ‘dangerous’ especially when talking about issues of culture. I disagree with tha categorising of people and the emphasis of ‘we’ and ‘they’ principle when referring to the ‘other’ or ‘less familiar’ .Here it is, will be published soon too: (more…)

Jones Thomas and Schwarzbaum (2006)

atrapos — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:27:33 +0000

I reviewed a very interesting book. Here is the reference: Jones Thomas, A & Schwarzbaum, S. (2006) Culture and Identity: Life Stories for Counselors and Therapists. Sage. This book has informed by thinking a lot and it will soon be published in Thresholds Journal. Here is the review below: (more…)