Dialogical Meetings in Social Networks


Book Description

This book describes and analyses two dialogic network practices: 'Open Dialogues' - developed for use in psychiatric crisis situations - and 'Anticipation Dialogues' - used in less acute situations such as multi-agency muddles where the helper systems are stuck. The book is both theoretical and detailed enough for practitioners who wish to apply the approaches to their work. It is meant for professionals in the fields of psycho-social work - including therapists to day care personnel, social workers to school teachers, - researchers, and academics. As the book touches upon dialogues with and within private networks, the book reaches out to clients, too.




Collaborative Innovation Networks


Book Description

This unique book reveals how Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs) can be used to achieve resilience to change and external shocks. COINs, which consist of 'cyberteams' of motivated individuals, are self-organizing emergent social systems for coping with external change. The book describes how COINs enable resilience in healthcare, e.g. through teams of patients, family members, doctors and researchers to support patients with chronic diseases, or by reducing infant mortality by forming groups of mothers, social workers, doctors, and policymakers. It also examines COINs within large corporations and how they build resilience by forming, spontaneously and without intervention on the part of the management, to creatively respond to new risks and external threats. The expert contributions also discuss how COINs can benefit startups, offering new self-organizing forms of leadership in which all stakeholders collaborate to develop new products.




Group Dynamics: Spatiality, Technology and Positive Disintegration


Book Description

This book attempts to draw together a theory of the unconscious dynamics of groups and how these interact in powerful ways with geography, technology and psychological development. The argument is made that powerful forces operating outside of awareness shape and are shaped by geographical factors (spatiality). Further, the idea is forwarded that technology, which is unevenly distributed spatially and has potent unconscious meanings, is a largely unrecognized and potent vector in shaping human interactional dynamics at both overt and covert levels. Finally these complex interactions are yoked to Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration, which again offers another useful explanatory perspective. Process notes on a psychodynamically-oriented large group with persons carrying diagnoses of severe mental illness are appended and there are notes on the Discourse of the Clown and Derrida’s “differance”.




Collaborative-Dialogic Practice


Book Description

Collaborative-Dialogic Practice provides professionals a humanizing approach in facilitating transformative dialogues with their clients, making a difference, and creating surprising possibilities in our fast-changing, diverse, and ever-shrinking world. Written alongside a collection of international experts, Harlene Anderson and Diane Gehart introduce collaborative-dialogic practice as a way to encourage relationships and conversations that create generative space and promote meaningful changes in clients, even in the most difficult situations. Split into theory and practice, Part 1 introduces collaborative-dialogue and locates it within traditional and contemporary challenges and practices, providing an overview of its conceptual framework. Chapters in Part 2 then detail the practice in a variety of contexts, cultures, and diverse populations, illustrating how readers can translate the concepts to their distinctive practice settings, and their clients’ unique situations. Accessible and applicable, this book will be an essential resource and guide for professionals in diverse contexts, cultures, and disciplines, including counselors, psychotherapists, consultants, leaders, mentors, educators, and trainers.




Gangs in the Era of Internet and Social Media


Book Description

The ubiquity of the internet and social media has influenced the lives of people across the globe, including young people involved in street gangs and troublesome youth groups. This development raises important questions about the causes, features, and consequences of online gang behavior, as well as the consequences of this new phenomenon for gang prevention and intervention. In this edited volume, members of an international network of gang researchers, the Eurogang Program of Research, present findings and insights from recent academic gang studies focused on the use of internet and social media. It focuses on online features of gangs and the consequences of social media for the study of these groups. The second section of the book focuses on the meaning of online media for the prevention, monitoring and intervention of gangs, and for gang disengagement processes. This is the first volume focused on the role of internet and social media in the study of gangs. Providing much needed insights into online gang processes, it will appeal to students and researchers interested in gangs and juvenile delinquency, and to professionals, practitioners, and policy-makers working on preventing or reducing gang involvement and delinquent behavior.




Creative Positions in Adult Mental Health


Book Description

This book presents cutting edge developments in Adult Mental Health through the presentation of creative and innovative applications of systemic theory to practice. The first section deconstructs the medical model with some of the current beliefs and practices shaping services whilst placing adult mental health in a wider social and political context. The second half of the book showcases good practice from the field. At either end of the volume "bookends" invite current clients and staff to write about their experiences with the aim of bringing a powerful personal context into the work. We intend to create a shift from third person objectivity to a first person experience as a political act which flows through the book.




History of Psychology through Symbols


Book Description

Volume One of The History of Psychology through Symbols provides a groundbreaking approach by expanding the roots of psychology beyond the Greeks to concurrent events during the same period (800 BCE–200 BCE), defined as the Axial Age by German-Swiss psychiatrist Karl Jaspers. The Axial Age emphasized seeking the universal connection that unites all humanity, a focus not on what one believed, but how one lived. This includes the human desire to connect to something greater, the totality of being human, explained by using symbols, the universal language. This volume describes the psychological implications of the Axial Age through the developments of Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Daoism, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism, as well as Greek thought. Rooted in the Axial Age, Volume One explores how the Christian and Islamic eras influenced psychology, which resulted in the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution, which provided the historic roots of modern psychology. Rejecting the idea that science transcends historical events, this volume provides a political, socioeconomic, and cultural context for all the historic developments. The chapter on the history of mental illness provides inspiration for a new mental health system with specific recommendations for radical system reform. In the spirit of the Axial Age on the importance of how one lives, there is an emphasis on engagement with symbols and with specific exercises, called emancipatory opportunities, to apply the lessons of psychological history to daily life. This book is ideal for those seeking a dynamic and engaging way of learning about or teaching the history of psychology and would also be of interest to students, practitioners, and scholars of science, philosophy, history and systems, religious studies, art, and mental health and drug and alcohol treatment, as well as those interested in applying the lessons of history to daily life.




Advanced Practice in Mental Health Nursing


Book Description

This textbook explores issues central to the provision of recovery-orientated care based on ethical principles and human rights perspectives. Written by academics and nurse practitioners, this comprehensive text draws together theory, research and practice to map the landscape of Advanced Practice in Mental Health Nursing (APMHN) in Europe. Underpinned by a rights- and relational- based approach to care, the textbook is organized around six themes: theoretical and historical perspectives; foundations for collaborative working; therapeutic engagement in different contexts; beyond the clinical dimension of the APMHN role; advancing the evidence-based practice agenda and emerging issues and challenges. Each theme consists of a number of chapters that are designed to address different aspects of APMHN. With a focus on illuminating the collaborating aspect of their role and advancing nurses’ competencies, debates and guidance are provided in areas such as therapeutic alliance, assessment, care-planning, mental health promotion, family work, trauma, diversity and culture, spirituality, risk and uncertainty, and prescribing. In addition to addressing the leadership, education and advocacy role, specific chapters explore the APMHN role in linking evidence to practice, in the participatory generation of evidence and maintaining professional competence. With a focus on future challenges and opportunities the textbook concludes with discussion on issues, such as eMental Health and future challenges and possibilities facing APMHNs, including challenges in informing policy, democratizing services, working across service and disciplinary boundaries, collaboratively shaping the evidence agenda, as well sustaining their role into the future. Within the book theoretical debate is grounded in case studies and/or examples from across Europe. This textbook is especially relevant to Mental Health Nurses undertaking studies at the Advanced Practice level. It is also suited to all Mental Health Nurses studying at post-graduate level who wish to advance their practice irrespective of the country. Educators, researchers and policy-makers involved in the area of Mental Health and Advanced Nursing Practice along with people with lived experiences will find the text of relevance.




Child and Adolescent Mental Health


Book Description

This textbook provides an overview of child and adolescent mental health. The text covers all core aspects on the subject, from the importance of knowing why mental health in children is important, to how to assess, formulate and treat a variety of presentations seen in children and young people. Beginning with an overview of conditions and the background to emotional and behavioural problems, the book examines the different models and tools used to assess and treat children and young people and provides an outline of the practitioners working to help this population. Chapters consider the many diverse identities and groups within the population, addressing specific problems encountered in children, young people and their families from different cultural backgrounds. This revised edition addresses issues of current public debate such as gender identity and the role of social media in children's and young people’s development and behaviour. Featuring authors from a variety of clinical and research backgrounds, this fully revised third edition is an important resource for all professionals working with children, young people and their families, including student and practitioner psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, mental health nurses and social care specialists.




Rescaling Social Policies towards Multilevel Governance in Europe


Book Description

The workings of multi-level governance -- institutional choices concerning centralisation, decentralisation and subsidiarity -- are widely debated within European public policy, but few systematic studies assessing the effects of changing divisions of power for policy-making have been carried out. This volume offers an assessment of the workings of multi-level governance in terms of social welfare policy across different clusters of European states -- Nordic, Southern European, Central and East European. This book reports on a major comparative study at the European Centre for Social Welfare policy and Research, which included partners from univerisities in Finland, France, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Spain and Switzerland. It reports on three particular policy areas: social assistance and local policies against poverty; activation and labour market policies; and care for the elderly. The authors describe different starting points, strategies and solutions in European countries which are facing similar challenges and could thus learn from each other. They explore the differences between European welfare regimes in terms of territorial responsibilities, the changes that have taken place over the past few years and their effects. The book is distinctive in highlighting comparative transversal and transnational issues of multi-level governance in social welfare policies, rather than presenting country reports.