{"title":"From negation to negationism: the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil","authors":"Paulo Beer","doi":"10.1332/147867321x16285243650694","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/147867321x16285243650694","url":null,"abstract":"Even beyond the dramatic social and health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, one can affirm that the manner in which the pandemic was and is being handled in Brazil involves more than mere questions of public health. This article focuses on the negationist discourse that emerged in Brazil, and proposes that its roots are to be found in a previous process of dismantling established knowledge and identifications. This process is observed in the government’s handling of the pandemic. To support this idea, we refer to two main clinical and theoretical frameworks, the first of which involves a psychoanalytic understanding of the place of truth in discursivity and in identification processes; this will be employed to shed light on a particular functioning of negationist discourses. Second, the idea of historical ontology is introduced from the philosophy of science to gain a further understanding of the effects of this process on identification.","PeriodicalId":29710,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Psychosocial Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75648420","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bodies on the line: how telepsychology brought about new relationalities between therapists and their clients during the COVID-19 pandemic","authors":"Leanne Downing","doi":"10.1332/147867321x16291280809438","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/147867321x16291280809438","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores a series of psychosocial and embodied relationalities that emerged between registered solo-practice psychologists and their clients during the COVID-19 social lockdowns that took place in Australia between June and August 2020. Drawing on findings from a larger qualitative research project into Australian psychologists’ experiences of maintaining therapeutic relationships via teleconferencing technologies during the pandemic, I explore the ways in which the relational and embodied experiences of taking therapy online resulted in new ways of working with clients over digital media interfaces such as Zoom, Skype and Facetime. Central to this discussion is an exploration of the ways in which embodied attunement, fears of risk and contagion, and concerns around trust and privacy were negotiated to create new, ‘more-than-human’ relationships between therapists, clients and the spaces and technologies that brought them together.","PeriodicalId":29710,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Psychosocial Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80223680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Haptic touches in COVID-19 times: reaching and relating in the archives","authors":"Lemonia Gianniri","doi":"10.1332/147867321x16291285770724","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/147867321x16291285770724","url":null,"abstract":"The COVID-19 pandemic has touched upon every aspect of human experience. This article examines the shifted relationalities between research objects and fieldwork as a consequence of the pandemic. Following a psychosocial research project on the archives on queer and feminist mobilisations in Greece between 1978 and 1993, which employs ‘the haptic’ as a methodological tool, the article outlines haptic occurrences in COVID-19 times. Taking into account archival intricacies, the reflective practices of the psychosocial as well as fieldwork notes prior to and during the pandemic, the article illustrates how new ethics of touch are ascribed in current psychosocial research practices. Ultimately, the article shows how haptic archival connections – even through the restricted physical presence of sensoria – allow textual, physical and affective movements to resist and still resurface.","PeriodicalId":29710,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Psychosocial Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90276527","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Couldn’t care less? A psychosocial analysis of contemporary cancer care policy as a case of borderline welfare","authors":"B. H. Gripsrud, Ellen Ramvi, Bjørn Ribers","doi":"10.1332/147867320X15985348674895","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/147867320X15985348674895","url":null,"abstract":"This article engages with recent shifts in public healthcare policy in Norway through a psychosocial analysis of contemporary cancer care, which evokes the hope of cure and reparation in the psychosocial imaginary. With increasing incidence and prevalence, cancer is a persistent challenge for public health services. Policy makers therefore emphasise that resources must be prioritised while ensuring good-quality care for vulnerable citizens. In 2015, Norway implemented integrated patient pathways as national guidelines to standardise clinical assessment and medical treatment for patients with a suspected cancer diagnosis. In a text analysis of ‘the integrated breast cancer pathway’ as a framework for practice, we found the concept and practice of care absent. There were sparse descriptions of the relational responsibilities of health professionals, beyond informing and communicating. From a psychosocial care understanding, we problematise how the emphasis on information delivery presupposes a universally autonomous, competent, resilient and rational patient, rather than a particular human being with complex thoughts, feelings, needs and vulnerabilities in the face of a life-threatening illness. We refer to wider issues effected by neoliberal governance, which may profoundly impact on the relationship between professionals and patients. We raise the concern that integrated cancer care is a case of borderline welfare, characterised by a fear of feelings associated with mutual vulnerabilities and dependencies. We identify values and ethical pressures at stake in an emerging careless policy in Norwegian welfare, in light of the government’s stated ambition to become an international role model for good patient trajectories.","PeriodicalId":29710,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Psychosocial Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77669358","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
W. Hollway, J. Kofoed, G. Ruch, Louise Sims, R. Thomson, Lois Tonkin
{"title":"Carbon-lite collaboration: a virtual visual matrix","authors":"W. Hollway, J. Kofoed, G. Ruch, Louise Sims, R. Thomson, Lois Tonkin","doi":"10.1332/147867320x15903844214182","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/147867320x15903844214182","url":null,"abstract":"In this article we present an example of psychosocial practice ‐ a visual matrix ‐ which attempted to address and embody carbon-lite research methods in the face of global heating. Combining virtual and face-to-face modes of presence and interaction generated insights\u0000 as well as posing challenges. In the article we explore two ideas through a discussion of ‘interference’ and ‘inclusion/exclusion’. The article extends our understanding of the method to include an awareness of what comes before and after the matrix. By attuning ourselves\u0000 to its materialities and the practices of care involved in staging a matrix and then digesting its affects and effects, we are alerted to the front and back stage of the method. Following this insight we discuss how a feminist engagement with psychosocial method can be used to connect ‘matters\u0000 of concern’ such as global heating with situated practices of care that themselves may constitute a carbon-lite methodology. The article is polyvocal, generated by participants through virtual communication in the month following the matrix. It documents an intense, rich and finite period\u0000 of communication and collaboration. It is an example of ‘writing which offers to us a space where we are able to confront reality in such a way that we live more fully’ (Back, 2007: 160). Questions of mortality and finitude are a motif for the matrix, expressed in a range of ways.","PeriodicalId":29710,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Psychosocial Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72469373","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The psychosocial significance of social character, habitus and structures of feeling in research on neoliberal post-industrial work","authors":"L. Jiménez","doi":"10.1332/204378919x15674407132232","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/204378919x15674407132232","url":null,"abstract":"This article highlights the psychosocial relevance of Erich Fromm’s concepts of ‘social character’ and ‘social change’ to broaden our understanding of the intergenerational traumatic legacy of neoliberalism. As part of this, it also reflects on the psychosocial\u0000 significance of other related concepts ‐ namely Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘habitus’ and Raymond Williams’ ‘structures of feeling’ ‐ as ways to also acknowledge their significance when related to each other in emerging research on the neoliberal effects\u0000 of changes in work and identities. This includes secondary analysis of my own earlier research on the psychosocial ramifications of the loss of stable work, changing worker-gendered identities, disrupted affect, community engagement and historical memory within a global context of insecure\u0000 labour. This is all understood within a theoretical frame that stresses the emerging neoliberal forms of social character in the aftermath of the massive redundancies and unemployment experienced recently in post-industrial working-class communities in the UK.","PeriodicalId":29710,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Psychosocial Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74777972","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The psychodynamics of casino culture and politics","authors":"Candida Yates","doi":"10.1332/204378919X15674406902661","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/204378919X15674406902661","url":null,"abstract":"The metaphor of the casino, with its associations of risk, uncertainty and illusion resonate at different levels of the contemporary cultural and political imagination where notions of chance and luck‐together with the arbitrariness of being either a ‘winner’ or a\u0000 ‘loser’ are pervading themes. This article discusses the notion of casino culture as a psycho-cultural formation and its relationship to the emergence of what I call ‘casino politics’. The article deploys a psycho-cultural approach that combines cultural and political\u0000 analyses with object relations psychoanalysis in order to examine the cultural and unconscious investments that underpin the ideology of casino culture and its politics ‐ particularly in the contemporary context of Brexit politics in the UK and Donald Trump’s Presidency in the\u0000 US, where manic fantasies associated with gambling are mobilised as a defence against loss and uncertainty.","PeriodicalId":29710,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Psychosocial Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88151474","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The three-mother problem","authors":"Bülent Somay","doi":"10.1332/204378919x15674406635271","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/204378919x15674406635271","url":null,"abstract":"‘Motherhood’, as opposed to ‘fatherhood’, has always been deemed to be something undisputable and certain, and as such, it is considered the main pillar of the institution of the family. There are texts throughout history, however, from the most ‘sacred’\u0000 (The Old Testament) to the most profane (contemporary television dramas), that dispute this certainty, thereby opening up the ‘self-evidentary’ nature of the family to critical scrutiny. ‘Motherhood’ is three different things at the same time (genetic, birth\u0000 and nurturing), and as social and cultural structures get more and more complex, and new biotechnologies develop, these three will grow apart from each other. As things stand, the biological/genetic roots of motherhood (and hence the family) are becoming more and more questionable and insignificant.\u0000 Furthermore, the cultural/nurturing function of the family is almost ripe to be assumed by networks of chosen human relationships in the near future, in which motherhood becomes a function to be fulfilled by any human being willing to do it, regardless of genetics and gender.","PeriodicalId":29710,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Psychosocial Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81913825","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Uneasy bedfellows? Fusing participatory and psychosocial principles in research with youth workers and young people","authors":"P. Harris","doi":"10.1332/204378919x15674407381128","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/204378919x15674407381128","url":null,"abstract":"This article charts an attempt to fuse two arguably incompatible formulations of social research; one rooted in a commitment to democratic, participatory practice and the other rooted in a psychosocial epistemological frame. After setting out the broad precepts of the two methodological\u0000 approaches, the article explores some theoretical and practical tensions that surfaced during a doctoral criminological study examining the desistance-promoting potential of relationships between male youth workers and young men involved in violence. I show how the professional context in\u0000 which the study was conducted (youth work) afforded the opportunity to work with participants while also retaining a psychosocial epistemological and analytic frame. The article concludes that while the two approaches are likely to remain ‘uneasy bedfellows’, more researchers\u0000 in the youth work field might consider adopting a psychosocial standpoint as a means of keeping in sight both the psychic and the social forces imbricated in young people’s lives and within their relationships with youth professionals.","PeriodicalId":29710,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Psychosocial Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89874747","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Spoken poetry at the border of trauma","authors":"Wanda Canton","doi":"10.1332/204378919x15674407835304","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/204378919x15674407835304","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29710,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Psychosocial Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82210768","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}