Academic literature on the topic 'Discourse psychology'

This thesis critiques and describes the prevalent discourses regarding notions of 'difference' in counselling psychologist's talk. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight participants and were tape-recorded, transcribed and analysed. Participants were asked to speak about notions of 'difference' in their counselling psychology practice. Transcripts were then coded and analysed using a critical discursive psychological approach which looked for prevalent interpretive repertoires, ideological dilemmas and subject positions. This critical discursive psychology approach seeks to employ a twin focus of discourse analysis, attending to both the micro and macro levels of interactions and constructions. The prevalent discourses were described and critiqued by the researcher. Analysis of transcripts provided a rich range of possible constructions of 'difference' and were then grouped into headings and subheadings and presented to the reader. These notions of 'difference' are explored in relation to counselling psychology practice and the impact that they may have on therapeutic relationships. Interpretive repertoires included constructions of where 'differences' originate, how dimensions of 'difference' were constructed, positive and negative constructions of 'difference', 'difference' in relation to notions of power and prejudice and finally professional discourses on 'difference'. This thesis addresses how important it is for counselling psychologist's to analyse the discourses and constructions available to them so that their clients' are facilitated in the therapeutic encounter and so that practitioners' constructions of 'difference' do not hinder therapy. This study contributes to highlighting the need for counselling psychology's continued commitment to anti-oppressive and anti-discriminatory practices.

Bibliography: leaves 54-58.<br>This study focuses on the discourses of exile identity and the subjectivity of an individual born in exile. The study also focuses on the methodology used whereby, unlike traditional research where the researcher interviews subjects; in this case the subjects interview the researcher. 6 individuals from different backgrounds, who will be referred to as participants, were chosen, 2 male and 4 females, to interview the subject (1, the researcher). The participants interviewed the subject, exploring her exile identity. The resulting taped discussions were analyzed. A discourse analysis methodology is used to analyze the conversations. Four main discourses are outlined, which have sub-discourses within them. The main discourses are the political, territorial, patriarchy and language. These discourses were identified by their repeated occurrence in the research material. These four discourses appear to be pervasive and are indicative of exile identity as it emerges in the subjectivity of the subject. These discourses can not be generalized to exiles in general. Although discourses were similar across the texts, there were contradictory discourses that emerged. These seem to be as a result of the inter-subjective field, and the differences between the individuals that were conducting the interviews. Due to the fact that it was a different interviewer each time, this created differences, as different issues were highlighted in the stories that were told by the subject, due to a different interaction with the participant.

This work draws on the discipline of Discursive Psychology for a theory of language, shown to be all but absent in the organizational knowledge management literature, and a methodology for the study of discourse. Organizational knowledge sharing is selected as the topic of primary research for its accessibility to analysis, and because it is considered to be an underpinning action to new knowledge creation. The research approaches discourse as action-orientated and locally situated, as constructed and constructive, with function and consequence for speakers. Indicative research questions are concerned with the discursively accomplished phenomena of trust, risk, identity and context, how these are accomplished in rhetorical interaction and with what effect on organizationally situated knowledge sharing. Recordings of organizations’ everyday knowledge sharing meetings, as well as an online discussion forum, are analysed focusing on these four themes. Findings show them to be accomplished as speakers’ live concerns in knowledge sharing talk. It is claimed that trust, risk and identity, as contexts displayed and oriented to by speakers themselves, are tacitly and collaboratively accomplished actions, shown to be co-relational and influential to knowledge sharing scope and directions. A further claim is that the analysis of discourse for what contexts in general speakers invoke displays speakers’ orienting to trust, risk and identity. Limitations of the present study are discussed, along with speculated implications for knowledge management and future directions for research. This work aims to contribute to the field of knowledge management in three ways. First, in extending the directions that some scholars and practitioners are already indicating through focusing the interest of study on organizational discourse. Secondly, the study seeks to understand how tacit knowing, as a phenomenon invoked by speakers themselves, is accomplished and how it influences the scope and directions of knowledge sharing actions, and with what effect. Finally, it is claimed that the research provides some support for those theorists in the knowledge management field who promote the knowing how-knowing that formulation, and those who are critical of conventional knowledge management’s heavy reliance on technology to deliver its objectives.

The psychological investigation of special education provision has traditionally followed one of two dominant approaches. The assessment oriented approach has been concerned with developing improved tools for evaluating educational attainment, such as intelligence testing. The child-centred approach has focussed on discovering educational needs in order to tailor educational provision to suit the specific child. The aim of this study is to challenge some of the assumptions behind both the assessment and the child-centred approaches. It argues that rather than focusing attention purely on the child, it is important to see the educational categories in case conferences as a product of historically produced social and psychological relationships. The first and second sections of the thesis offer a historical review of educational decision-making and a discussion of some of the different approaches to discourse analysis. The third section of the thesis traces the progressive development of the analysis of case conferences using a variety of theoretical frameworks. The first of these frameworks explores action-research. It involves an attempt to generate critical reflection in a case conference. The second framework is a group analytic one. This involves examining the way in which discursive categories such as 'caring', 'needy' and 'inadequate' are employed defensively and projected onto others by participants in the meeting. The third approach examines the way discursive categories employed in the case conferences produce various and changing conceptualizations of the child. The research does not attempt to analyse case conferences in general, but rather, explores some specific processes which have been identified in the meetings. An attempt is made to connect discursive and psychological processes in the group to the activity of doing research. The study does not offer secure guide-lines on 'how to improve case conferences' or on 'how to conduct a discourse analytic study of groups'. Rather, it speculates on some of the ways social groups and research of those groups becomes constituted. The notion that people in case conferences are propelled by purely individual motives, or are simply adopting roles or applying labels (although this may well be the subjective experience of participants) is contested. Rather, participants appear to be governed by a set of latent rules about what may be said, by whom and when. These rules shape the very subjectivity of participants and naturalize case conference debate, so that the 'solutions' suggested in the meeting appear as unavoidable and obvious outcomes of the discussion rather than being socially produced. From a Foucaultian perspective, procedures governing case conferences can be seen as 'conditions of possibility'. From a group analytic perspective underlying rules may be seen as 'basic assumptions'. The focus of the thesis is thus on understanding a series of 'unconscious' rules which constitute participants in education case conferences in relation to each other, shape research objectives and produce commentaries on the child.

Includes bibliographical references.<br>Anorexia has the longest duration (5-7 years) of any Eating Disorders (Crow, Mitchell, Roerig, & Steffen, 2009) and the highest mortality rate (&#8805;10%) among all psychological illness (Arcelus, Mitchell, Wales, & Nielsen, 2011). The person finds himself or herself unable to stop because it has become one’s identity. Recovery is seen as a process of drawing upon alternative positions to the anorexic voice and finding the “authentic” self (Weaver, Wuest, & Ciliska 2005). In recent years, pro - anorexia websites have emerged over the Internet. These websites have been criticised by health professionals for glamorising anorexia as a lifestyle choice, promoting unhealthy behaviours and normalizing, validating and reinforcing the person’s anorexic identity (Gavin, Rodham, & Poyer, 2008). Influenced by post - structuralist feminist theoretical framework, the present study employs Foucauldian discourse analysis as an analytic technique and examines the texts on the pro - anorexia website, the discursive constructions of anorexia and the (anorexic) body. The analysis revealed that there is no “authentic” self to be found. B y challenging or supporting multiple discourses, pro - anorexia users form positive subjectivities. The findings of this research also highlighted the repeated utilization of “pathologized” categories to claim and declaim the anorexic identity, to empower themselves and resist socio - cultural control. Paying attention to the socio - culturally specific discursive context in which anorexia arises and the potential benefit of pro - anorexia websites for health professionals, it allows more effective therapeutic interventions for those experiencing anorexia.

This dissertation for the Degree of Doctor of Psychology (Health) presents three pieces of work: 1) A Re-analysis of a Systematic Review of Psychological Interventions Used to Aid Smoking Cessation; 2) Evaluation and Discourse Analysis of the EC's Health Promotion Programme; 3) A consultancy case study: Evaluation of Educational Needs Assessment Methods Used in General Practices in Barking and Havering and Redbridge and Waltham Forest. The theme that ties these three pieces of work together is evaluation. The re-analysis of the systematic review of psychological methods for smoking cessation shows how errors can be made in evaluation and how different researchers can obtain different results in what is considered to be a method that reduces bias and produces an accurate picture of `evidence' to inform health policy and practice. The evaluation of the EC's Health Promotion Programme gives insight into a case study of an evaluation to inform health promotion policy at an European level. This piece of work presents the results of an independent evaluation. It highlights unexpected difficulties of drawing conclusions from data such as the practical problems of obtaining data and also the pressures that may come from the commissioners of evaluations. The discourse analysis of the Health Promotion Programme reveals how current discourses in health promotion may compel health promotion practitioners to carry out a certain type of evaluation in which in truth they may have little understanding or commitment. As a result, the practice of evaluation becomes a formality or ritual which is a burden to carry out. A panel of health promotion expert assessors found a lack of acceptable evaluation of projects that were funded by the European Commission. This suggests that if evaluation can be avoided, it will be. The same themes of lack of understanding, commitment and time for evaluation were unveiled in the case study. The consultancy case study evaluated educational needs assessment methods used in general practices. The use of evidence-based practice requires that practitioners understand how to evaluate research and incorporate it into their practice. This needs more emphasis in the education and training of health professionals. However there has been a move away from the more didactic approach to education in primary care to one of listening to people's needs and preferred methods of learning. At the same time the ubiquitous need to evaluate to find the best method prevails. This is regardless of obvious limitations to the interpretation of findings. In this case study, it seemed as though the evaluation was an after-thought, rushed to satisfy some other group higher up the hierarchy in the health authority. Similarly, the discourse analysis pointed to a situation in which the Commission's services are constructed as superior, thus leaving no mechanism to question their knowledge or ways of working. While there may be efforts on one level to encourage a two-way flow of information and knowledge, on another level, a construction of decision-makers as being superior means that information and knowledge only flow one way, top down. All three pieces of work have shown that practical limitations restrict the interpretation of evaluations. Lack of time, incomplete data, commitment and knowledge of evaluation revealed here lead to questions about the possibility and desirability of evidence-based health promotion. For evaluation to advance, there is a need for a better understanding of its purpose and for it to have more meaning for all of the stakeholders involved. This requires a rethink concerning evaluation methods in health promotion that recognise the restraints of evaluation and start inquiry from this premise.

Discourse comprehension involves more than just connecting and interpreting the individual words on the page. We need to establish not only the connections between the words, but also how the situation described in the text relates to our general knowledge. One of the main ways to achieve integration is by the process of anaphoric reference. Sometimes, the antecedent is explicit in the text, other times it is implicit. It is the ability to refer to implicitly introduced information that is explored in this thesis. How is implicitly introduced information represented so it can support subsequent reference? The proposal that implicitly introduced information is best conceptualised in the form of variables, termed Discourse Roles, is evaluated. It is proposed that Disclosure Roles contribute to the establishment of discourse coherence by functioning as antecedent sites for reference. The availability of antecedent role information was assessed with respect to Instrument Discourse Roles. By exploring the boundary conditions on the establishment of Instrument Roles, the conflicting empirical evidence for the encoding of implicit instruments is explained. It is necessary to establish the origin of Discourse Roles. Are they derived from the text, or background knowledge? The contribution of lexical and contextual information to the establishment of Instrument Discourse Roles was evaluated in a series of eye tracking experiments and Questionnaire tasks. "General Verbs" were used because their associated Instruments are context dependent: certain instruments will be used to perform actions in specific contexts. For instance, the instruments used to perform various acts of "cutting" will vary according to the context: "to cut cake" you would generally use a "knife", but "to cut hair" you would normally use "scissors". The questionnaire data demonstrated that "General Verbs" have a preference for a particular Instrument, regardless of context. The Default Instrument for "cut" is "knife". The relative contribution of lexical and contextual information was assessed by exploiting the conflict between lexically and contextually appropriate Default Instruments. i.e., if the verb "cut" is used in the context "cut hair" then the contextual and lexical default values conflict, "scissors" rather than "knife".