In Disturbed Consciousness, philosophers and other scholars examine various psychopathologies in light of specific philosophical theories of consciousness. The contributing authors—some of them discussing or defending their own theoretical work—consider not only how a theory of consciousness can account for a specific psychopathological condition but also how the characteristics of a psychopathology might challenge such a theory. Thus one essay defends the higher-order thought (HOT) theory of consciousness against the charge that it cannot account for somatoparaphrenia (a delusion in which (...) one denies ownership of a limb). Another essay argues that various attempts to explain away such anomalies within subjective theories of consciousness fail. -/- Other essays consider such topics as the application of a model of unified consciousness to cases of brain bisection and dissociative identity disorder; prefrontal and parietal underconnectivity in autism and other psychopathologies; self-deception and the self-model theory of subjectivity; schizophrenia and the vehicle theory of consciousness; and a shift in emphasis away from an internal (or brainbound) approach to psychopathology to an interactive one. Each essay offers a distinctive perspective from the intersection of philosophy, consciousness research, and psychiatry. -/- Contributors Alexandre Billon, Andrew Brook, Paula Droege, Rocco J. Gennaro, Philip Gerrans, William Hirstein, Jakob Hohwy, Uriah Kriegel, Timothy Lane, Thomas Metzinger, Erik Myin, Inez Myin-Germeys, Myrto Mylopoulos, Gerard O’Brien, Jon Opie, J. Kevin O’Regan, Iuliia Pliushch, Robert Van Gulick . (shrink)

In Disturbed Consciousness, philosophers and other scholars examine various psychopathologies in light of specific philosophical theories of consciousness. The contributing authors—some of them discussing or defending their own theoretical work—consider not only how a theory of consciousness can account for a specific psychopathological condition but also how the characteristics of a psychopathology might challenge such a theory. Thus one essay defends the higher-order thought (HOT) theory of consciousness against the charge that it cannot account for somatoparaphrenia (a delusion in which (...) one denies ownership of a limb). Another essay argues that various attempts to explain away such anomalies within subjective theories of consciousness fail. Other essays consider such topics as the application of a model of unified consciousness to cases of brain bisection and dissociative identity disorder; prefrontal and parietal underconnectivity in autism and other psychopathologies; self-deception and the self-model theory of subjectivity; schizophrenia and the vehicle theory of consciousness; and a shift in emphasis away from an internal (or brainbound) approach to psychopathology to an interactive one. Each essay offers a distinctive perspective from the intersection of philosophy, consciousness research, and psychiatry. (shrink)

This Derridean reading of Freud asks the question of how we should read Freud with respect to sexual difference and what Derrida considers a radicalized concept of trace, a "scene of writing" of differance ---that is, how we should read Freud with respect to phallogocentrism. Throughout I consider the possible relationships between the "mainstyles" of various psychoanalyses, deconstructions, and feminisms. By analyzing what is most original for Freud---the cause of hysteria, the navel of the dream, the perceptual identity, the (...) primal phantasies, for example---I find that Freud consistently seeks a single origin, a "caput Nili," on which to base a grand narrative. At first this narrative is an etiology of hysteria, but it evolves into a masterplot of sexual development and later into one of humanity. The establishment of an oedipal origin and telos, and the masterplot based on them, moves psychoanalysis toward a totalizing theory, and therefore its openness to chance and something beyond what that theory can master is greatly reduced. ;I approach these topics in terms of a question of the ethics of psychoanalysis. This appropriative or reductive process of Freud's masterplotting is based on what Derrida calls "castration-truth" in his reading of Lacan, "Le facteur de la verite." In contrast to some theorists who appeal to the radical spirit of Freudian theory as a basis for their radicalization of psychoanalysis---specifically Barnaby B. Barratt's Psychoanalysis and the Postmodern Impulse---I argue that Lacan's phallogocentric "return to Freud" is actually a more faithful one since I find both "mainstyles" of these psychoanalyses based on a logic of lack or "castration-truth." I argue throughout that the radical spirit of Freud is at times overemphasized or exaggerated by Derridean theorists---and even Derrida himself, though rarely---and that the dominant specter of Freud is an "establishment" or appropriative one, rather than one which is radical or "other-wise." I connect this trend of Derridean thinkers claiming too much debt to psychoanalysis to these thinkers not taking seriously Freud's commitment and interest in an idealized phylogenetics: "phylo-'genetics.'" Since my establishment of this establishment specter of Freud as the "mainstyle" of Freudian theory itself risks reproducing exactly the kind of appropriative discourse I hope to problematize, I attempt to avoid such a reproduction by considering what remains of the radical spirit of Freudian theory in what might be called a deconstructive "technology of iterability;" a "cyborg-analysis;" or what I call "post-psychoanalysis.". (shrink)

Identity disturbances are common in clinical conditions and personality measures need to extend to assessment of coherence in underlying levels of self-coherence. The problem has been difficult to solve because self-organization is a complex unconscious set of mind/brain processes embedded in social roles and values. Theory helps us address this problem and suggests methods and limitations of interpretation that involve self-reports of subjects, observers who rate subjects, and narrative analyses of verbal communications from subjects.

Disturbed identity is one of the defining characteristics of Borderline Personality Disorder manifested in a broad spectrum of dysfunctions related to the self, including disturbances in meaning-generating self-narratives. Autobiographical memories are memories of personal events that provide crucial building-blocks in our construction of a life-story, self-concept, and a meaning-generating narrative identity. The cultural life script represents culturally shared expectations as to the order and timing of life events in a prototypical life course within a given culture. It is (...) used to organize one’s autobiographical memories. Here, 17 BPD-patients, 14 OCD-patients, and 23 non-clinical controls generated three important autobiographical memories and their conceptions of the cultural life script. BPD-patients reported substantially more negative memories, fewer of their memories were of prototypical life script events, their memory narratives were less coherent and more disoriented, and the overall typicality of their life scripts was lower as compared with the other two groups. (shrink)

Psychiatric labeling has been the subject of considerable ethical debate. Much of it has centered on issues associated with the application of psychiatric labels. In comparison, far less attention has been paid to issues associated with the removal of psychiatric labels. Ethical problems of this last sort tend to revolve around identity. Many sufferers are reticent to relinquish their iatrogenic identity in the face of official label change; some actively resist it. New forms of this resistance are taking (...) place in the private chat rooms and virtual communities of the Internet, a domain where consumer autonomy reigns supreme. Medical sociology, psychiatry, and bioethics have paid little attention to these developments. Yet these new consumer-driven initiatives actually pose considerable risks to consumers. They also present complex ethical challenges for researchers. Clinically, there is even sufficient evidence to wonder whether the Internet may be the nesting ground for a new kind of identity disturbance. The purpose of the present discussion is to survey these developments and identify potential issues and problems for future research. Taken as a whole, the entire episode suggests that we may have reached a turning point in the history of psychiatry where consumer autonomy and the Internet are now powerful new forces in the manufacture of madness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Disturbances and Dislocations: Understanding Teaching and Learning Experiences in Indigenous Australian Women’s Music and DanceSarah H. WattsElizabeth Mackinlay. Disturbances and Dislocations: Understanding Teaching and Learning Experiences in Indigenous Australian Women’s Music and Dance (Bern: Peter Lang, 2007).Elizabeth Mackinlay, a lecturer in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit at the University of Queensland, documents her unique pedagogical approaches and ways of thinking about the teaching and learning (...) of music and dance in her book, Disturbances and Dislocations: Understanding Teaching and Learning Experiences in Indigenous Australian Women’s Music and Dance. A university-level anthropology course dealing with the music and dance traditions of Australia’s Yanyuwa women was the setting for this “ethnographic case study” (p. 17). Through this course, Mackinlay sought to help students connect Indigenous Australian performance practices to social and political issues while fostering awareness of gender issues and learning processes within Indigenous Australian music and dance performance contexts. These objectives were met through a distinctive approach—by disposing of the strict lecture class format and bringing the field into the classroom. Disturbances and Dislocations documents the experiences of Mackinlay, her students, and several Yanyuwa women who come together as part of the course to engage in hands-on, authentic music and dance exchanges that bring the Yanyuwa women’s voices to the fore. [End Page 90]From the very beginning of the book, Mackinlay highlights her unique point of view as author of this work. She is a “white, middle class, educated woman” (p. 15) researching the experiences of and teaching university-level courses relating to Indigenous Australian and Torres Strait Islander peoples, a cultural background that is not her own. She is a political, educational, and ethnic outsider to the groups of peoples she studies. The wife of an Aboriginal man and mother to Aboriginal children, she is afforded links to the Yanyuwa people that provide her with a measure of status as a family member within the community. The dichotomy of being at once an insider and an outsider in the Yanyuwa community lends a fascinating level of complexity to Mackinlay’s exploration and analysis of the presence and impact of Yanyuwa culture-bearers in her classroom. The warmth, honesty, and openness with which she addresses her unique role in this learning exchange is engaging to the reader, and allows her personal situation to add humanity and life to the words on the page.The eight-chapter book commences with an introductory section that reflects upon her personal experiences in engaging in scholarship relating to Indigenous Australian issues. Additionally, the reader is introduced to the site of the ethnography, her classroom, in which her personal and professional lives intertwine. The next chapter further establishes the context of the ethnography by discussing a pilot project that laid foundations for the main study presented in the book. In this 1999 pilot project, a group of Mackinlay’s students, largely white women, participated in hands-on music and dance workshops under the guidance of Mackinlay and several Yanyuwa women. Student responses from this pilot project indicated that they felt awkward at times, but valued the time spent with the Yanyuwa guests and wished for more of these types of class sessions. Mackinlay determined that this cultural exchange could be even richer if more class time could be dedicated to it, an important observation for her own work, and also for others who seek to furnish cultural encounters for students.The fourth chapter delves into a theoretical discussion of the meanings of the inclusion of the study of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in contemporary classroom settings. Issues of political positioning, representation of Indigenous voices, identity, and “speaking from and of in-between spaces” (p. 64) as one with a foothold in both white and Indigenous worlds are all addressed, engaging the reader in Mackinaly’s own complex journey of coming to terms with her own teaching and scholarly pursuits. It is refreshing to the reader that Mackinlay acknowledges her unique viewpoint as facilitator of this course and this research study. While she is an authority in this realm, she highlights her own backgrounds and biases, her individual lens... (shrink)

The term body integrity identity disorder (BIID) describes the extremely rare phenomenon of persons who desire the amputation of one or more healthy limbs or who desire a paralysis. Some of these persons mutilate themselves; others ask surgeons for an amputation or for the transection of their spinal cord. Psychologists and physicians explain this phenomenon in quite different ways; but a successful psychotherapeutic or pharmaceutical therapy is not known. Lobbies of persons suffering from BIID explain the desire for amputation (...) in analogy to the desire of transsexuals for surgical sex reassignment. Medical ethicists discuss the controversy about elective amputations of healthy limbs: on the one hand the principle of autonomy is used to deduce the right for body modifications; on the other hand the autonomy of BIID patients is doubted. Neurological results suggest that BIID is a brain disorder producing a disruption of the body image, for which parallels for stroke patients are known. If BIID were a neuropsychological disturbance, which includes missing insight into the illness and a specific lack of autonomy, then amputations would be contraindicated and must be evaluated as bodily injuries of mentally disordered patients. Instead of only curing the symptom, a causal therapy should be developed to integrate the alien limb into the body image. (shrink)

“Identity disorders” constitute a large class of psychiatric disturbances that, due to deviant forms of self-modeling, result in dramatic changes in the patients’ phenomenal experience of their own personal identity. The phenomenal experience of selfhood and transtemporal identity can vary along an extremely large number of dimensions: There are simple losses of content. There are also various typologies of phenomenal disintegration as in schizophrenia, in depersonalization disorders and in_ Dissociative Identity Disorder_, sometimes accompanied by multiplications of (...) the phenomenal self within one and the same physical system. It is important to not only analyze these state-classes in terms of functional deficits or phenomenology alone, but as _self-representational _content as well. For instance, in the second type of cases just mentioned, we confront major redistributions of the phenomenal property of "mineness” in representational space, of what is sometimes also called the “sense of ownership”. Finally, there are at least four different delusions of misidentification. Being a philosopher, I will discuss two particular types of identity disorder _ 2 _ in this contribution - disorders, which are of direct philosophical relevance: A specific form of DM, and the Cotard delusion. Why should philosophers do this? And why should psychiatrists care? (shrink)

This essay examines the symbolic significance of blood in the twentieth century and its role in determining the composition of a national community along racial lines. By drawing parallels between Nazi notions of blood and racial purity and historically contemporaneous U.S. policies regarding blood and blood products, Polsky reveals a disturbing proximity in discourse and policy. While the Nazis attempted to locate Jewish racial essence and inferiority in blood and instituted eugenic measures and laws forbidding racial admixture, similar policies existed (...) in the U.S. based on the so-called one drop rule that systematically discriminated against African Americans. (shrink)

Body identity integrity disorder is experienced by a small percentage of the population, whose idea of how they should look does not match their actual physical form. The most common manifestation of BIID is the desire to have a specific limb amputated. In a small number of cases, the desire is not for the removal of a limb, but to be blind or paralyzed. There has been a lot of discussion regarding the possible physiological, neurological, or psychological etiologies of (...) BIID. This paper examines the ethical implications of the different approaches to help those with BIID. These approaches and the dilemma that doctors face in cases of BIID are the subject of the final section, which offers some tentative ethical conclusions regarding this disturbing disorder. (shrink)

The term body integrity identity disorder (BIID) describes the extremely rare phenomenon of persons who desire the amputation of one or more healthy limbs or who desire a paralysis. Some of these persons mutilate themselves; others ask surgeons for an amputation or for the transection of their spinal cord. Psychologists and physicians explain this phenomenon in quite different ways; but a successful psychotherapeutic or pharmaceutical therapy is not known. Lobbies of persons suffering from BIID explain the desire for amputation (...) in analogy to the desire of transsexuals for surgical sex reassignment. Medical ethicists discuss the controversy about elective amputations of healthy limbs: on the one hand the principle of autonomy is used to deduce the right for body modifications; on the other hand the autonomy of BIID patients is doubted. Neurological results suggest that BIID is a brain disorder producing a disruption of the body image, for which parallels for stroke patients are known. If BIID were a neuropsychological disturbance, which includes missing insight into the illness and a specific lack of autonomy, then amputations would be contraindicated and must be evaluated as bodily injuries of mentally disordered patients. Instead of only curing the symptom, a causal therapy should be developed to integrate the alien limb into the body image. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.2 (2003) 185-187 [Access article in PDF] Measuring Moral Identities:Psychopaths and Responsibility Gwen Adshead Doctor Ciocchetti examines the responsibility of psychopaths as a function of psychological capacities operating within relationships. He then argues against the punishment of psychopaths. I have some sympathy with both views, but perhaps argued in different ways, and from different standpoints, based on my clinical experience.Doctor Ciocchetti's offers an unusual account (...) of responsibility as a concept that involves at least two people, and perhaps many more than two; and this I would entirely support. In this sense, responsibility is a transitive and dynamic process that involves not only the personal sense of ownership of an action or thought, but also the attribution of responsibility by others. Moral, when applied to intentions, seems to me to suggest that they are intentions that involve another person and that they are held by an active agent who can make choices about those intentions. Responsibility implies not only causal responsibility, but also that the actor owns his own intentions about his behaviors toward others.Responsibility, either as experienced by the actor or attributed by others, is a type of moral judgment; an exercise in moral reasoning. Following Gilligan (1987), I am persuaded that moral reasoning, or the discourse of ought-and-should is relational in nature and must be seen in the context of relationships. I think much of the early work on moral reasoning in offenders is flawed because it assumes that moral reasoning was a capacity like serum bilirubin: normally distributed out there in the population, and able to be measured by an objective observer, in a process independent of the findings. Unsurprisingly, these studies found either that offenders had immature moral reasoning capacities (which we might have guessed already), or they had normal moral reasoning capacity, which was disturbing and puzzling.What we want to understand is how people come to let themselves do horrible things to others. Cioccchetti argues that psychopaths can do these things because they lack the affective capacities needed to respond to others' distress. Ordinary people care about harm to others (including the physical self/body and sentient animals) and demand explanations for the deliberate infliction of suffering on others. It is not only the lack of participant attitudes in the psychopath that bother us; it is our own responses, expressive of our participant attitudes, that tell us something about what this person is, and what is wrong. In my view, this is what punishment is all about for us, the larger social group [End Page 185] forced to respond to the distressing and disturbing actions of others.As Ciocchetti suggests, it is the perceived guilt of the offender that justifies the punishment; it is also the experienced distress of those affected that drives the need for punishment. The distress is part of the relationship between the victim and the offender; the victim is often just as active as the offender.The issue becomes most clear in relation to capital punishment and its supporters, especially those who wish not only to view executions, but also to broadcast them. In considering this, there are two useful sources of information: first, studies of the reactions of those who witness executions, and second, studies of the impact of murder on those related to the murder victim, so-called secondary victims. In those states that have capital punishment in the United States, it is often the secondary victims who witness the execution. They often have testified to the appalling impact of the offender's crime on them; most states give them a right to be present at the execution, even if they do not exercise it. It is hard not to think that it is the enormity of the feelings caused by the offender's wrongdoing that the death sentence is designed to address; the death of the offender changes the relationship between victim and offender, as much as the death of the original victim changes the relationship with their relatives. One might then wonder about the impact of his or her execution on the relatives... (shrink)

Human cognition and action are intentional and goal-directed, and explaining how they are controlled is one of the most important tasks of the cognitive sciences. After half a century of benign neglect this task is enjoying increased attention. Unfortunately, however, current theorizing about control in general, and the role of consciousness for/in control in particular, suffers from major conceptual flaws that lead to confusion regarding the following distinctions: automatic and unintentional processes, exogenous control and disturbance of endogenous control, conscious (...) control and conscious access to control, and personal and systems levels of analysis and explanation. Only if these flaws are overcome will a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between consciousness and control emerge. (shrink)

Individuals develop a narrative identity through constructing and internalizing an evolving life story composed of significant autobiographical memories. The ability to narrate these memories in a coherent manner has been related to well-being, identity functioning, and personality pathology. Previous studies have particularly focused on coherence of life story narratives, overlooking coherence of single event memories that make up the life story. The present study addressed this gap by examining associations between narrative coherence of single turning point memories and (...) psychological well-being, identity functioning, and personality disorder (PD) symptoms among 333 Belgian emerging adults (72.1% female;Mage= 22.56,SD= 3.13, age range = 18–30). In addition, the present study tested whether narrative coherence could predict unique variance in PD symptoms above and beyond identity and interpersonal functioning, both considered key components of personality pathology. The findings showed that narrative coherence was not significantly related to psychological well-being, but yielded significant negative associations with disturbed identity functioning and antisocial PD symptoms. Furthermore, narrative coherence predicted unique variance in antisocial PD symptoms above and beyond identity functioning, but did not predict unique variance in borderline and antisocial PD symptoms above and beyond both identity and interpersonal functioning. Collectively, these findings suggest that narrative incoherence within single event memories might be characteristic for disturbed identity functioning and antisocial personality pathology. (shrink)

This paper explores the cultural value of desiring nature through reading the travel narratives of Val Plumwood and Alphonso Lingis with the writings of Deleuze and Guattari. As Game suggests this textual practice produces different ways of writing the social that undoes the nature/culture opposition informing popular discourses and much cultural theory. Rethinking the value of nature/culture relations has tended to be the domain of environmental philosophy. Yet a cultural analysis also has much to contribute to current debates around value (...) and identity, embodiment and representations of desire. Such a shift requires rethinking the sensory relation between self and nature through the mediation of language. Two quite distinctive experiences of awe provide texts for this analysis. In the desire to know non‐human nature as other, Lingis and Plumwood are moved by a wish to become nearer, to move beyond the bounds of an identity premised on a cultural relation of mastery over nature. These are compelling narratives, for they do not simply indulge the reader in a romantic appreciation of nature's wildness, as if nature was simply an object of aesthetic contemplation and background to the unfolding drama of human identity. These journeys involve disturbing transformations of self; Plumwood travels into the dangerous waters of the crocodile's territory in Kakadu National Park, Australia, while Lingis encounters the uninhabitable terrain of the Antarctic. The reverberating effects of awe produce a movement of becoming ‐ becoming‐animal, becoming‐nature, which contests the Hegelian desire for mastery of nature and the teleological structure of desire itself aimed at unity. Awe as a profoundly disturbing relation, threatens to undo the dominant fantasy of human identity as pure culture, separate from the realm of nature, body and materiality. (shrink)

In recent times, African states have experienced multiple challenges. The most disturbing one is the inability to evolve a sustainable culture of dialogue that is suitable for the mitigation of ethnic conflicts in contemporary Africa. It is this failure that has generated many other problems in other spheres. These problems, in concert, have made the socio-political space largely that of frustration, despair and disappointment. This accounts for the social design of unhealthy alliances and the basis for the affirmation of parochial (...) primordial frivolities at the detriment of a trans-national identity. But why have the affirmation of these primordial alliances and its attendant conflicts remain daunting, intricate and resilient, in spite of the several attempts by scholars to mitigate it? This paper argues that extant discourse of the above concern fails because it ignores the value of the conditions for the practical realisation of agreement in situations of conflict. The attempt here is to explore indigenous mediation strategies especially from the traditional Igbo speaking people in South-Eastern Nigeria in arriving at trans-national identity in Africa, which will be inclusive other than the divisive structure that has exclusive character in extant discourse. This paper, therefore, will employ the analytic-descriptive method to interrogate the above in a manner many scholars are wont to ignore. Hence, it is expected that this paper will initiate a perspective that will challenge extant interpretation of the conditions of dialogue and consequently human solidarity in African States. (shrink)

This article draws upon the Deleuzian/Guattarian idea of territorializing movements to trouble the notion of the identity of the learning pre‐school child, produced by developmental psychology, as an individual, natural and developing child as well as the more recent image of the child characterised by autonomy and flexible behaviour. Accordingly, a child's apprenticeship of walking is associated here with the movements of a surfer. This association disturbs the orthodox thought of recognition and representation that makes us define, include and (...) exclude children who do not fit into pre‐established schemes of development and learning. What is created with the image of the walking child as surfer is a line of flight out of a territory marked by resemblance and error. This line of flight challenges the assumption of a theorist of good will, who with the best intentions knows what is best for children. (shrink)

This article draws upon the Deleuzian/guattarian idea of territorializing movements to trouble the notion of the identity of the learning pre‐school child, produced by developmental psychology, as an individual, natural and developing child as well as the more recent image of the child characterised by autonomy and flexible behaviour. Accordingly, a child's apprenticeship of walking is associated here with the movements of a surfer. This association disturbs the orthodox thought of recognition and representation that makes us define, include and (...) exclude children who do not fit into pre‐established schemes of development and learning. What is created with the image of the walking child as surfer is a line of flight out of a territory marked by resemblance and error. This line of flight challenges the assumption of a theorist of good will, who with the best intentions knows what is best for children. (shrink)

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by severe disturbances in a subject’s sense of identity. Persons with BPD suffer from recurrent feelings of emptiness, a lack of self-feeling, and painful incoherence, especially regarding their own desires, how they see and feel about others, their life goals, or the roles to which they commit themselves. Over the past decade or so, clinical psychologists, psychotherapists, and psychiatrists have turned to philosophical conceptions of selfhood to better understand the borderline-specific ruptures in the (...) sense of identity, which are frequently associated with severe affective instability and turbulence in interpersonal relationships. Fuchs (2007) has suggested that these disturbances in self-experience can best be described and explained by using notions—widely discussed in philosophy and psychology—ofnarrativityandnarrative identity. On such a narrative view, key features of BPD present significant modifications of proto-narrative structures and inhibit the development of a narrative identity, resulting in a disturbed sense of identity. Although the role of narrativity in BPD has been acknowledged by many researchers, some have voiced dissatisfaction with what they take to be limitations of a narrativistic understanding of the disorders of identity characterizing BPD, and have proposed alternative, allegedly non-narrativistic, accounts. In this paper, we critically examine an example of the latter, viz. Gold and Kyratsous’ (2017) account ofthe person as an intrapersonal team reasoner. We defend a narrativistic understanding of BPD identity disorder against their objections. To this end, we propose a broader, and more finely-differentiated, concept of narrativity. On this account, four aspects of narrativity are distinguished, the disordering of which can affect those with BPD. As it turns out, our account implies that even Gold and Kyratsous—in order to ground their approach—must either make use of these aspects or propose an as-yet unarticulated alternative. This casts doubt upon whether their approach is non-narrativistic after all. (shrink)

In the renewed Russian Fundamental Law, in addition to a number of provisions introducing changes to the political system, there are also statements of programmatic importance, as well as several provisions with symbolic and identity function. In this article these provisions are subject to functional and semiotic-cultural analysis. Particular emphasis has been placed on legally irrelevant content transmitted by the new regulations, on their semantic connections with the content of the preamble and on their cultural context. The research procedure (...) carried out allows us to state that, compared with the 1993 text, the Russian Constitution in its current version participates to a much greater extent in the complex system of transmission of symbolic content, as well as the narratives that contribute to social memory, cultural and historical identity. In doing so, it goes beyond its genre limitations, opening the basic text to the functions assigned to the preamble. In the fragments I have analysed in the paper there are undoubtedly functional and genre disturbances, and with them changes the mode of semiosis of the legal text, both in its normative and programmatic form. Renewed Constitution is the case in which a legal text, by its very nature designing the possible future world, does so through ideas about the past. (shrink)

In this article, we develop a conceptual framework to understand how a company’s CSR identity becomes defined as a political activity destabilizing the strong identity–image relations. We draw on theories of political CSR and organizational identity–image relations to study how CSR emerges as a corporate political activity in a context where the corporate CSR work is first appreciated and later critiqued by the public in the wake of socio-political events. We analyse the micro-organizational processes in the context (...) of macro-political level changes, and we refer to this as the ‘identity–image dynamics of political CSR’. Concretely, we describe in two vignettes how IKEA’s declared ‘apolitical and neutral’ CSR identity becomes entangled with national and international socio-political events that critically challenge the corporate engagement prior national understandings of citizenship rights. In this process, IKEA’s CSR identity becomes defined as a political and non-neutral activity. Our article contributes by bringing attention to the organizational level dynamics of political CSR by offering a conceptualization of how global and local socio-political events may disturb the alignment between CSR identity and image and challenge the corporate CSR work beyond managerial control. (shrink)

What causes genocide? Why do some stand by, doing nothing, while others risk their lives to help the persecuted? Ethics in an Age of Terror and Genocide analyzes riveting interviews with bystanders, Nazi supporters, and rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust to lay bare critical psychological forces operating during genocide. Monroe's insightful examination of these moving--and disturbing--interviews underscores the significance of identity for moral choice. Monroe finds that self-image and identity--especially the sense of self in relation to others--determine (...) and delineate our choice options, not just morally but cognitively. She introduces the concept of moral salience to explain how we establish a critical psychological relationship with others, classifying individuals in need as "people just like us" or reducing them to strangers perceived as different, threatening, or even beyond the boundaries of our concern. Monroe explicates the psychological dehumanization that is a prerequisite for genocide and uses her knowledge of human behavior during the Holocaust to develop a broader theory of moral choice, one applicable to other forms of ethnic, religious, racial, and sectarian prejudice, aggression, and violence. Her book fills a long-standing void in ethics and suggests that identity is more fundamental than reasoning in our treatment of others. (shrink)

Confronting different contemporary sources from philosophy and poetry, this article provides a trace of the emerging reflections on the question of political identity as person/face/mask that can be recognized. The article is focused on authors from Eastern Europe, the post-communist one, where, in recent years, a psychoanalytic perspective on politics has put in place the topic of void, lack, absence as an ineludible tool for facing identity. In the case of the mask, one can see the face and (...) both the holes of the eyes, from which a person can see the world. If the face of the mask is immediately visible, what is behind the holes of the eyes is not. In a political perspective, this double of the mask is very disturbing, since it is the mark of a hidden presence, and not of the absence of the look. With this metaphor I would introduce the issue of absence which is strongly felt and claimed, by many contemporary authors, about the political intentionality. The absence is often the first level of the interpretation of phenomena, as in the case of the mask’s holes and may represent a danger for the legitimation and justification of masses manipulation. Also, the recurrent spatial metaphors linked to the lack/absence, with particular reference to the lack of a political subjectivity, may let possible a reflection on the possibility to react to neoliberal policies and other related forms of oppression rooted into the belief of passivity of subjects (holes apparently without a look). (shrink)

In 1876, Brazilian physical anthropologists De Lacerda and Peixoto published findings of detailed anatomical and osteometric investigation of the new human skull collection of Rio de Janeiro’s Museu Nacional. They argued not only that the Indigenous ‘Botocudo’ in Brazil might be autochthonous to the New World, but also that they shared analogic proximity to other geographically very distant human groups – the New Caledonians and Australians – equally attributed limited cranial capacity and resultant inferior intellect. Described by Blumenbach and Morton, (...) ‘Botocudo’ skulls were highly valued scientific specimens in 19th-century physical anthropology. A recent genomic study has again related ‘the Botocudo’ to Indigenous populations from the other side of the world by identifying ‘Polynesian ancestry’ in two of 14 Botocudo skulls held at the Museu Nacional. This article places the production of scientific knowledge in multidisciplinary, multiregional historical perspectives. We contextualize modern narratives in the biological sciences relating ‘Botocudo’ skulls and other cranial material from lowland South America to Polynesia, Melanesia, and Australia. With disturbing irony, such studies often unthinkingly reinscribe essentialized historic racial categories such as ‘the Botocudos’, ‘the Polynesians’, and ‘the Australo-Melanesians’. We conclude that the fertile alliance of intersecting sciences that is revolutionizing understandings of deep human pasts must be informed by sensitivity to the deep histories of terms, classification schemes, and the disciplines themselves. (shrink)

Borderline Personality disorder is a severe personality dysfunction characterized by behavioural features such as impulsivity, identity disturbance, suicidal behaviour, emptiness, and intense and unstable relationships. Approximately 2% of the population are thought to meet the criteria for BPD. The authors of this volume - Anthony Bateman and Peter Fonagy - have developed a psychoanalytically oriented treatment to BPD known as mentalization treatment. With randomised controlled trials having shown this method to be effective, this book presents the first account (...) of mentalization treatment for BPD. The first section gives an overview of BPD, including discussion of nosology, epidemiology, natural history, and psychosocial aetiology. It additionally summarises the present state of our research knowledge about effective psychotherapeutic treatments and use of medication. The second section outlines the authors' theoretical approach and contrasts it with other well known methods, including DBT, CAT, and CBT. In the extensive final section, the authors outline their clinical approach starting with how treatment is organised. A detailed account of the transferable features of the model is provided along with the main strategies and techniques of treatment. Numerous clinical examples are given to illustrate the core techniques and detailed information provided about how to apply aspects of the mentalization based treatment approach in everyday practice. Aimed at mental health professionals, along with counsellors, psychotherapists, and psychoanalysts, the book will be a valuable tool, providing an effective means of treating those suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Clinical CommentaryRathi Mahendran, Associate ProfessorThe doctor-patient relationship has an important role in medical practice and in medical ethics.1 In modern times, the word “boundary” is used to frame the relationship. In the context of therapy, Gutheil and Simon have described it as “the edge of appropriate or professional behaviour, transgression of which involves the therapist stepping out of the clinical role”.2 Boundaries establish for medical professionals the distinctions between (...) professional and personal identity.3 In a therapeutic setting, boundaries distinguish acceptable and appropriate interactions and the parameters of professional conduct.4 Implicit in the concept of boundaries are the basic ethical principles of beneficence (doing good, acting in another person’s best interests), non-maleficence (doing no harm) and justice with respect for the individual’s needs and autonomy.The doctor-patient relationship is particularly important in psychological therapies where trust, integrity, confidentiality, a safe environment and empathy are fundamental to the therapeutic process. A person with BPD manifests emotional dysregulation with instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, affect and impulsivity.5 This, together with identity disturbances, makes them a particularly vulnerable group with heightened reliance on their therapist.6Psychotherapy has been described as an interaction which serves to alleviate distress, change behaviour and alter the patient’s perspective of issues. This description however does not reflect the magnitude and significant power differentials in the relationship. Trust and a close bond are needed to allow issues to be addressed.7 In the process, patients’ fantasies and unmet emotional needs [End Page 191] might lead them to knowingly or unknowingly view their therapist differently and to seek a relationship. Similarly, multiple factors in the therapist (situational factors, intrapsychic and interpersonal factors) can undermine the therapeutic process.8Boundary TransgressionsThere is really no universal definition for a “therapeutic boundary” possibly because, as Simon explains, it is “a function of the nature of the patient, the treatment and the status of the therapeutic alliance”.9 Minor violations are referred to as boundary crossings which may arise because the therapist exhibits poor judgement.10 Such actions are non-exploitative and pose little risk to patients.11 Duckworth et al. describe how boundary crossings begin as “exaggerations of desirable attitudes”. Special arrangements and sessions for the patient and extending therapy sessions may be construed as desirable and arguably as effective for the therapeutic alliance.12 Yet, if not examined objectively, they become “subtle breaks in the therapeutic frame”.13Psychotherapists trained in analytic therapy hold very rigid views of doctor-patient interactions in psychological therapy. Some would argue that providing a personal telephone number for a patient in crisis situations is a permissible boundary crossing.14 Similarly, self-disclosure for modelling and on-site behaviour therapy interventions may be viewed as necessary for the therapeutic encounter.15The most commonly recognised boundary crossing, however, is self-disclosure.16 It occurs when the therapist relates a personal experience or information to the patient which is how the incident began in this case.17 It gradually progressed to an informal, friendly style of interaction, accepting a hug, thanking her for being a good friend, all of which are dissonant with the psychotherapeutic process.18In the first place, should the therapist have even offered to drive her home, notwithstanding the heavy downpour? While that offer could be viewed as helpful, the disclosure of marital problems was inappropriate and created confusion. We can only speculate upon the therapist’s behaviour. Was he trying to establish for his patient that they were both experiencing problems to gain her trust? Was he exhibiting some form of identification or did he have some unmet need for affirmation and for care and nurturance? It is difficult to rationalise the apparently thoughtless and impulsive behaviour.19The therapist was, at that point, vulnerable with marital problems and facing separation.20 Procci has highlighted that therapists who breach boundaries, “usually have serious personal problems and may have a psychiatric diagnoses”.21 Even though the relationship was non-sexual, it [End Page 192] moved beyond a boundary crossing and should be viewed as a boundary violation. While the most serious form of boundary violation is the sexual encounter... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.1 (2003) 33-35 [Access article in PDF] In the Spirit of Giving Uptake Nancy Nyquist Potter IT IS BOTH WONDERFUL and daunting to now be in the middle of a dialogical exchange on the messy and difficult topic of self-injury and how ethically to interact with patients who self-injure. It is wonderful that authors such as Carolyn Sargent have contributed very helpful examples from the (...) discipline of anthropology that expand the ideas I have been grappling with. And it is daunting to begin to sharpen and correct my thoughts along the lines that the commentators suggest. In the spirit of giving uptake both to the praise and the criticism I have received, I first situate the "Commodity/Body/Sign" article in the context of my larger project and then focus on one problem area: my claim that giving uptake is necessary to ethical healing practices. Giving Too Much Uptake to the Dsm Rob Woolfolk is right that borderline is diagnostically imprecise. But what initially caught my interest in this personality disorder was its pejorative connotations. I will mention my favorite example, which comes from a past chairman of the psychiatry department at New York University that "borderliners are the patients you think of as PIAs—pains in the ass," (Medical World News 1983). Why are the patients who exhibit the behaviors associated with borderline personality disorder (BPD) so disliked, I wondered? Who are these patients, and what are they doing that brings upon themselves such rejection? My investigation, in other words, has been focused on behaviors and their meanings, using a philosophical lens to examine underlying assumptions. I completely agree with Woolfolk and Carolyn Sargent that much more analysis needs to be done on BPD, and I am eager to do it. It is true that I do not take up larger questions about the gendered nature of this diagnosis in general (Sargent, Woolfolk), nor do I challenge the validity of the diagnosis in this article (Woolfolk). In my view, that larger project must be held in abeyance until more philosophical probing on a number of other issues is done. Hopefully, my book-length project will benefit from continuing guidance from these authors.I focus first on self-injury for two reasons. First, it is the most common symptom for which people with BPD come to clinical attention (Gunderson 2001, 22). Second, of all the behaviors associated with BPD, self-injurious behavior is the kind that people most tend to dig in their heels about when its status as pathological is questioned. Gunderson cautions that "because the diagnosis of BPD underscores a serious, long-standing mental health problem, the diagnosis should not be offered too readily to anyone who cuts or otherwise self-mutilates" (2001, 23). I add to that caution that we ought not too readily assume that self-injury is pathological: Lynne Cox (2003) swam to the Antarctic Peninsula in water temperatures of 32° Fahrenheit and with 25 foot waves; she suffered nerve damage and numbness in her extremities. Self-injurious behavior? [End Page 33] Pathological? Cox trained for two years to accomplish this feat. In problematizing self-injury, I raise questions about some associations and assumptions we make. Calling into question the whole taxonomy requires looking at symptoms, behaviors, and criteria as a whole, and that cannot be done until systematic analysis of concepts such as self-injury, impulsivity, identity disturbance, and manipulativity are undertaken. To put things in terms of Woolfolk's reasonable criticism that he wishes I would "give less uptake to the framers of the DSM-IV," I appreciate that point. But I do think that those of us who are not ourselves clinicians must do our research carefully and proceed conservatively rather than attempting to tear a house down that may not need to be condemned. Methods and Morals Woolfolk says that the concept of uptake is "familiar and central" to therapy; Katherine Morris says it is "simple and uncontroversial"; Sargent says it is "unexceptionable"; and Christa Krüger says it may be "very difficult if not more or less doomed... (shrink)

For more than forty years Jacques Derrida has attempted to unsettle and disturb the presumptions underlying many of our most fundamental philosophical, political, and ethical conventions. In The Philosophy of Derrida, Mark Dooley examines Derrida's large body of work to provide an overview of his core philosophical ideas and a balanced appraisal of their lasting impact. One of the author's primary aims is to make accessible Derrida's writings by discussing them in a vernacular that renders them less opaque and nebulous. (...) Derrida's unusual writing style, which mixes literary and philosophical vocabularies, is shown to have hindered their interpretation and translation. Dooley situates Derrida squarely in the tradition of historicist, hermeneutic and linguistic thought, and Derrida's objectives and those of "deconstruction" are rendered considerably more convincing. While Derrida's works are ostensibly diverse, Dooley reveals an underlying cohesion to his writings. From his early work on Husserl, Hegel and de Saussure, to his most recent writings on justice, hospitality and cosmopolitanism, Derrida is shown to have been grappling with the vexed question of national, cultural and personal identity and asking to what extent the notion of a "pure" identity has any real efficacy. Viewed from this perspective Derrida appears less as a wanton iconoclast, for whom deconstruction equals destruction, but as a sincere and sensitive writer who encourages us to shed light on out historical constructions so as to reveal that there is much about ourselves that we do not know. (shrink)

For more than forty years Jacques Derrida has attempted to unsettle and disturb the presumptions underlying many of our most fundamental philosophical, political, and ethical conventions. In The Philosophy of Derrida, Mark Dooley examines Derrida's large body of work to provide an overview of his core philosophical ideas and a balanced appraisal of their lasting impact. One of the author's primary aims is to make accessible Derrida's writings by discussing them in a vernacular that renders them less opaque and nebulous. (...) Derrida's unusual writing style, which mixes literary and philosophical vocabularies, is shown to have hindered their interpretation and translation. Dooley situates Derrida squarely in the tradition of historicist, hermeneutic and linguistic thought, and Derrida's objectives and those of "deconstruction" are rendered considerably more convincing. While Derrida's works are ostensibly diverse, Dooley reveals an underlying cohesion to his writings. From his early work on Husserl, Hegel and de Saussure, to his most recent writings on justice, hospitality and cosmopolitanism, Derrida is shown to have been grappling with the vexed question of national, cultural and personal identity and asking to what extent the notion of a "pure" identity has any real efficacy. Viewed from this perspective Derrida appears less as a wanton iconoclast, for whom deconstruction equals destruction, but as a sincere and sensitive writer who encourages us to shed light on out historical constructions so as to reveal that there is much about ourselves that we do not know. (shrink)

This article addresses one of the more disturbing questions raised by the major financial failures of the recent past; namely, how it could be that professionals, highly trained both in ethics and technical disciplines, should apparently collude with management in corporate misbehaviour. The article builds on evidence suggesting that professionals in employment contexts find ways of adapting in order to minimise perceived or actual conflict between their professional and organizational obligations and that this, in turn, may affect the way in (...) which they exercise professional judgment. It uses identity theory to propose that professionals may adopt modified identities when employed and that these identities may be expressed, in part, in the way in which they resolve ethical dilemmas. The article reports on the results of a qualitative study in which corporate counsel showed evidence of adopting these identities. The findings suggest that this line of research offers insight into a far more complex world of employed professionals than that traditionally hypothesised and that the popular approach of regulators and others to monitoring corporate governance by appointing professionals as gate-keepers within the organization is perhaps problematic. (shrink)

A feminist phenomenological analysis of voice, rooted in both the feminist understanding of the role of voice in identity, agency, and the creation of meaning, and the phenomenological thematization and theorization of phenomenal, lived experience, leads to a deeper understanding of the importance of the materiality of the voices with which we speak, and their role in both subjective and intersubjective experience. Starting from an analysis of the intertwined associations and imageries of the feminine, voice, and embodiment, I discuss (...) the denaturalization and abstraction of voice in standard narratives of voice and voice metaphorization, and the corresponding forgetting of the living, bodily voice. In looking to recall a re-naturalized and immanent corporeality and retrieve the material voice through an account of embodied vocality, I consider examples of the power and immediacy of the corporeal voice in the female operatic voice, and in contrast, the compromised agency and attenuated (inter)subjectivity which attends the impaired or lost physical voice. These vocal counterpoints of presence and absence are often separated by corporeal disturbance or limitation, underscoring the importance of corporeality and the material voice as intermediary between the individual and the social world. This sets the contours of a phenomenology of embodied voice and vocality, holding implications for accounts of identity and intersubjectivity, gendered vocality and expressive agency, and an intercorporeality mediated by the living material voice. (shrink)

Challenging, with several powerful arguments, some of our deepest beliefs about rationality, morality, and personal identity, Parfit claims that we have a false view about our own nature. It is often rational to act against our own best interersts, he argues, and most of us have moral views that are self-defeating. We often act wrongly, although we know there will be no one with serious grounds for complaint, and when we consider future generations it is very hard to avoid (...) conclusions that most of us will find very disturbing. (shrink)

The term body integrity identity disorder (BIID) describes the extremely rare phenomenon of persons who desire the amputation of one or more healthy limbs or who desire a paralysis. Some of these persons mutilate themselves; others ask surgeons for an amputation or for the transection of their spinal cord. Psychologists and physicians explain this phenomenon in quite different ways; but a successful psychotherapeutic or pharmaceutical therapy is not known. Lobbies of persons suffering from BIID explain the desire for amputation (...) in analogy to the desire of transsexuals for surgical sex reassignment. Medical ethicists discuss the controversy about elective amputations of healthy limbs: on the one hand the principle of autonomy is used to deduce the right for body modifications; on the other hand the autonomy of BIID patients is doubted. Neurological results suggest that BIID is a brain disorder producing a disruption of the body image, for which parallels for stroke patients are known. If BIID were a neuropsychological disturbance, which includes missing insight into the illness and a specific lack of autonomy, then amputations would be contraindicated and must be evaluated as bodily injuries of mentally disordered patients. Instead of only curing the symptom, a causal therapy should be developed to integrate the alien limb into the body image. (shrink)

This essay explores the unique temporal experience in anxiety. Drawing on first-person accounts as well as examples from literature, I attempt to show how anxiety not only disrupts our physiological and cognitive timing but also disturbs the embodied rhythms of everyday social life. The primary goal, however, is to articulate the extent to which human existence itself is a temporally structured event and to identity the ways that anxiety disrupts this structure. Using Martin Heidegger’s account of human existence as (...) a point of departure, I show how the mood of anxiety has the power to alter our self-interpretations by closing down or constricting our experience of the future. I argue that a constricted future impedes our ability ‘to be’ because it closes off the range of projective meanings that we would ordinarily draw on to create or fashion our identities. (shrink)

This essay explores the unique temporal experience in anxiety. Drawing on first-person accounts as well as examples from literature, I attempt to show how anxiety not only disrupts our physiological and cognitive timing but also disturbs the embodied rhythms of everyday social life. The primary goal, however, is to articulate the extent to which human existence itself is a temporally structured event and to identity the ways that anxiety disrupts this structure. Using Martin Heidegger’s account of human existence as (...) a point of departure, I show how the mood of anxiety has the power to alter our self-interpretations by closing down or constricting our experience of the future. I argue that a constricted future impedes our ability ‘to be’ because it closes off the range of projective meanings that we would ordinarily draw on to create or fashion our identities. (shrink)

The inhuman in the humanities : Darwin and the ends of man -- Deleuze, Bergson, and the concept of life -- Bergson, Deleuze, and difference -- Feminism, materialism, and freedom -- The future of feminist theory : dreams for new knowledges -- Differences disturbing identity : Deleuze and feminism -- Irigaray and the ontology of sexual difference -- Darwin and the split between natural and sexual selection -- Sexual difference as sexual selection : Irigarayan reflections on Darwin -- Art (...) and the animal -- Living art and the art of life : women's painting from the western desert. (shrink)

This book offers readers a uniquely detailed engagement with the ideas of legendary French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. The Freudian Thing is one of Lacan's most important texts, wherein he explains the significance and stakes of his "return to Freud" as a passionate defence of Freud's disturbing, epoch-making discovery of the unconscious, against misrepresentations and criticisms of it. However, Lacan is characteristically cryptic in The Freudian Thing. The combination of his writing style and vast range of references renders much of his (...) thinking inaccessible to all but a narrow circle of scholarly specialists. Johnston's Irrepressible Truth opens up the universe of Lacanian psychoanalysis to much wider audiences by furnishing a sentence-by-sentence interpretive unpacking of this pivotal 1955 essay. In so doing, Johnston reveals the precision, rigor, and soundness of Lacan's teachings. (shrink)