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In responding to Craig Thompson's commentary, we argue that assemblage, contrary to how it has often been theorised in consumer research, is subject oriented. Drawing on Deleuze, we explore how desire is thus not abstract but is part of a context of life that is organised by the subject. In neutralising the subject's attachments, consumer researchers are prevented from seeing how desires left unfulfilled can represent deeper social marginalisations and how the market incentivises unsustainable and uncaring behaviours. We argue that Craig's commentary raises the need to recognise that an affective architecture of feelings is always at work. We call for a more 'care-full' approach which does not ignore the desiring body, deny the power differentials that exist and apoliticises our attachments within these networks of relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this duet of two voices honoring Jeremy Safran's legacy, the authors celebrate some points of resonance between Sándor Ferenczi's groundbreaking relational interventions and Safran's approach to the therapeutic relationship as the heart of healing. Karen Starr first highlights Ferenczi's now well-known creative experimentation with technique and his emphasis on and care for the relational dimension of psychoanalytic treatment. Jill Bresler then links Safran's career-long dedication to the therapeutic alliance to Starr's introductory remarks, honoring Safran and Ferenczi's shared dedication to expanding options in clinical practice through focus on the relationship. Recalling Safran's naming Ferenczi as a key figure in psychotherapy integration's origin story, Bresler reflects on her own learning from Safran's groundbreaking transtheoretical research into the mutative aspects of psychotherapy and his translating a psychoanalytic focus on the therapeutic relationship to CBT researchers and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When Greece was hit by the global financial crisis in 2009, families with children paid the heaviest toll. In this article, we draw on individual interviews and focus groups with 17 sixth graders, six teachers and six parents at a primary school in the Magnesia region. We use a relational approach to unpacking everyday austerity as it is lived, felt and experienced by Greek children. The empirical material shows how children's well‐being is conditioned by the well‐being of their families, where emotional stress spills over through witnessing parents' worries. Relational agency enables children to contribute to adversity relief, which seems to enhance not only their well‐being but also their resilience, as it is embedded in relations of mutual empowerment and development. Lastly, the study documents how macro policies of austerity measures trickle into the fabric of children's everyday lives and shape familial and intergenerational practices of care and responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this reply, I respond to Joshua C. Gellers’ commentary on my article “Not Relational Enough? Towards an Eco-Relational Approach in Robot Ethics” (Puzio, 2024a), in which I present a deeply relational, “eco-relational approach”. This approach asserts that it is necessary to consider the relationality with non-human entities such as animals and technology on a deeper level than has been done in robot ethics so far. This disrupts traditional ethical concepts. In his commentary “Not Ecological Enough: A Commentary on an Eco-Relational Approach in Robot Ethics” (2024), Gellers raises criticisms of my method and the consequences of the eco-relational approach. In this reply, I address these criticisms and focus especially on the ecological responsibility of the eco-relational approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contemporary ‘plant turn’, driven by modern scientific researches into plant potentialities and a renewed philosophical appreciation of botanical lives within Critical Plant Studies, has spurred discussions about the attribution of personhood to plants. However, anxieties subtend the notion of plant personhood, for it being predominantly anchored in an anthropocentric paradigm of autonomous and embodied ‘extrinsic’ and ‘intrinsic’ properties of plant ontology. Drawing from Indigenous Naga animist vegetal ethos and building upon the arguments of Matthew Hall and Michael Marder, the article attempts to transcend this impasse by conceptualising a neological framework of co-constitutive and reciprocal syntropic capacities as the defining elements of a non-anthropocentric vegetal personhood. Subsequently, the study employs this syntropic model of plant personhood to analyse the ethno-literary representations of vegetal agency and communication as syntropic plant capacities within the context of Indigenous Naga animist culture in two short stories from Temsula Ao’s anthology The Tombstone in My Garden (2022). On the whole, the article explores how the syntropic capacities of plants can function as a connective complement between the Western discourses of Critical Plant Studies and the Indigenous Naga animist arboreal worldviews to facilitate re-membering of an ecocentric plant personhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a paucity of literature demonstrating the efficacy of psychoanalytic psychotherapy for patients with Alzheimer's or other dementias. This paper examines the challenges and richness of this kind of treatment for both patients and analyst through the use of a narrative case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a new leadership coaching model that was delivered as part of Manchester city region's delivery of the Department for Education's Early Outcomes Fund. The coaching model explicitly paralleled the relational practices that are increasingly shaping early intervention policy and practice. Goodwin's theory of professional vision (1994) and Shotter's theorisation of with-ness (2011) provided the conceptual lens for this paper. The coaching facilitation aimed to afford the emergence of a new way of seeing leadership by scrutinising events of relational practice between participants in the coaching sessions (using video recording and review) and creating discursive practices using strengths-based analysis. We exemplify the coaching model using notes from a collaborative ethnographic evaluation of the six half-day group coaching sessions, surfacing how a new way of seeing silence may have seeded a new 'object of knowledge' in the group's emerging professional vision of leadership in the early years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I explore how the contested notion of children's agency is represented in international children's rights law and in four novels by francophone African authors. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child establish children as rights holding subjects within a framework of adult care, while the fictional texts position children as protagonists, deprived of adult protection amid conflict and social upheaval. In both, children are understood as acting and acted upon, forming and formed by their environment. Through the utopian vision of children's rights law and the damaged child narratives of the fictional texts, children's agency can be read as a critique of adult society. At the same time, children are recognized as active participants in history, their choices and actions, however determined, shaping their own future selves and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This reflection is by an MSW early on in my career on the ways social work has made me more afraid, and how fear can undermine and erode relationships. Ultimately, I conclude that unconditional positive regard and relationship-centered practice are the heart of social work. I hope to cultivate kinder, gentler, and friendlier social work practice throughout my career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Water insecurity, the inability to benefit from affordable, adequate, reliable and safe water, is one of the greatest contemporary threats facing humans. While ‘water insecurity’, as a concept, is globally recognized and serves an essential function in policymaking, it does not capture the multiple, relational connections between Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) and water systems. We contend that studies of water insecurity and health among IPLCs can be improved by applying a systematic approach to the concept of waterscapes. The term waterscape describes the socio‐natural relations between humans and water. To make examining waterscapes more systematic and to draw attention to the importance of health within waterscapes, we use a four‐tiered socio–ecological approach to describe the multi‐level interactions between IPLCs and local water systems in the Amazonian watershed. We then apply this four‐tiered model to the case of the Belo Monte dam in the Brazilian Amazon to identify the specific health impacts of disrupting the Xingu River waterscape. Applying the four‐tiered socio‐ecological approach to the Belo Monte case study showed that this dam led to flooding and compromised water quality that local people associated with an increased risk for chronic health conditions, such as kidney and renal diseases, and vector‐borne diseases, such as dengue. Displacement due to the dam threatened food security, economic security, community cohesion and the cultural survival of multiple IPLCs along the Xingu river. Our approach uncovers not only the direct consequences of the dam on water insecurity but also the broader implications for community well‐being and cultural integrity, addressing the diverse challenges arising from human‐water interactions. The four‐tiered approach for assessing waterscapes offers a framework that enables a comprehensive examination of the intricate relations between water and humans. While there are overlaps among the levels, this framework is applicable to other situations where mining, oil extraction and the construction of hydrovías are substantially altering local waterscapes. Tools such as this one can promote more meaningful engagement between researchers, policymakers, and IPLCs in defining the range of outcomes to be considered in social and environmental impact assessments. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Abstract Around the world, people express a variety of values of nature based on how they relate and interact with it. These values of nature, broadly classified as instrumental, intrinsic, and relational values, underlie environmental policy and decision‐making processes. In this paper, our aim was to assess the values of nature that are expressed in national environmental policy documents. We assessed the National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs), the key national policy framework for biodiversity conservation, from 11 countries, representing the five regional United Nations groups. We used qualitative content analysis to identify the value orientation of the statements in the NBSAPs and the main themes under each. Across the 11 NBSAPs, unspecified value orientation statements were the most common (40%), followed by instrumental (38%), intrinsic (14%) and relational (9%) value orientation statements. We identified the main themes in the instrumental value orientation statements as follows: (1) sustainability, (2) natural resources and (3) ecosystem services. The main themes present in the intrinsic value orientation statements were as follows: (1) recognizing intrinsic value, (2) endangered species and habitats, (3) conservation programmes and (4) threats to nature. Relational value orientation statements referenced as follows: (1) duty and responsibility to protect nature, (2) values expressed for nature, (3) national pride and heritage, (4) Indigenous peoples and local community's (IP&LCs) relationships with nature, (5) protecting nature for future generations and (6) equity in the use and access of nature. Our findings indicate that NBSAPs respond to the directive of the Convention on Biological Diversity. They are primarily based on the instrumental values of nature, only rarely considering other ways in which nature is valuable to people. This can reinforce unjust outcomes for human well‐being since environmental policies may not reflect the diverse ways in which nature and biodiversity matter to the population. In an increasingly interconnected world, environmental policies are called on to incorporate multiple values to achieve positive outcomes for both human well‐being and biodiversity conservation. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

While Jung's notion of archetypes has had far‐reaching universal appeal and significance, it remains less obvious how these ideas might benefit the analytic patient. In particular, the therapist and/or patient may struggle to hold the tension between the latter's personal neuroses and how transpersonal/archetypal elements inform his/her experience. While Jung strove to develop a treatment that dealt primarily with the archetypal/objective psyche, the personal psyche is arguably the medium through which the archetypes are experienced. I contend that the "discipline" of Jungian analysis evolved from a transposition of Jung's ideas around transpersonal, philosophical and religious themes (borne out of his own self‐analysis), into a two‐person psychotherapeutic process. Jung provides little description of his clinical encounters and the way in which he conducted his analyses leaving an uncertainty that has likely contributed to the divergence of approaches practised today by analytical psychologists. This article considers the implication of these divergences for contemporary Jungian practice and proposes a way of working in the Jungian spirit that maintains a connection to the symbolic realm while at the same time remaining focused on the complexities of personal and relational dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Commentary offers a critique of an eco-relational approach in robot ethics, highlighting the importance of articulating an ecologically-sensitive ethical orientation that incorporates the entire more-than-human world, including technological entities like forms of artificial intelligence. While the eco-relational approach enhances our understanding of the complex way in which morally significant properties operate on a phenomenological level, it is not without its flaws. In particular, this perspective focuses on ethical concepts when it needs to be rooted in ethical systems, misrepresents the extant literature on relational approaches to moral status, and is insufficiently ecological in a way that would bring machines into the moral universe by way of their location in and importance to the larger environment. At a time when the legal status of robots is being decided before moral questions are settled, it remains important to get the contours of relevant debates right so that the robot ethics discourse brings us closer to developing practical solutions for ethical dilemmas emerging in our increasingly technological age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With robots increasingly integrated into various areas of life, the question of relationships with them is gaining prominence. Are friendship and partnership with robots possible? While there is already extensive research on relationships with robots, this article critically examines whether the relationship with non-human entities is sufficiently explored on a deeper level, especially in terms of ethical concepts such as autonomy, agency, and responsibility. In robot ethics, ethical concepts and considerations often presuppose properties such as consciousness, sentience, and intelligence, which are exclusively aligned with humans. I will challenge the understanding of these properties by anchoring them in contexts, bodies, and actions. This approach allows to consider the specific ways of being of various human and non-human entities and to identify these properties in non-human entities as well. My “eco-relational” approach posits that it is crucial to consider the relationality with non-human entities such as animals and technology in central ethical concepts from the beginning. This approach reflects the “eco”, the entire house in which we live including animals and robots. To support this, I examine two dominant approaches in robot ethics within the contemporary Western tradition: the “properties approach” and modestly relational approaches. I will develop an eco-relational approach as an alternative. Employing a phenomenological method, I will demonstrate through various examples that our properties and actions are inherently connected with non-human entities. I will show that robots play a central role in our properties and actions, leading to concepts such as hybrid actions and non-human agency. It becomes clear that technology and our relationships with it disrupt traditional ethical concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This heuristic study explores the client's experience of seeking to repair early relational deficits through their sexual practices, preferences, desires and relationships. Aims: The aim of this study was to explore the hypothesis that a client's sexual practices, preferences, desires, relationships and needs can offer a direct opportunity to understand their early relational deficits. Methodology: This study uses heuristic enquiry, seeking to capture the essence of participants' experiences. In‐person, semistructured interviews were conducted with four participants, and transcripts were analysed according to Moustakis' heuristic method. Findings: The four research participants did seek repair in ways that aligned with the literature in terms of seeking a lost unity, searching for intimacy, to repair damage and resolve splits through the powerful contact of sex. The study demonstrates the irresistible power of the unconscious desire to address unmet needs and the destructive nature of the urgent search for intimacy—and suggests that although a repair through the erotic is sought, it is rarely found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of People & Nature is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of People & Nature is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Problematic alcohol use (PAU) has been a marginalised subject within the systemic field. The present article brings PAU into focus and discusses the conceptualisation of PAU. Reflected in the dominance of individually orientated treatment approaches, PAU is widely seen as an individual condition with aetiology and maintenance attributed to individual pathology and behaviour. Pathologising and stigmatising dominant discourses surrounding PAU also appear to perpetuate this individual conceptualisation, the implications of which are discussed in this article. The present article maintains PAU is a relational illness, with relational aetiology and maintenance, thus with relational implications for treatment. Implications for the systemic field, including clinical practice, are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social relations are embedded in material, cultural, and institutional settings that affect network dynamics and the resulting topologies. For example, romantic entanglements are subject to social and cultural norms, interfirm alliances are constrained by country-specific legislation, and adolescent friendships are conditioned by classroom settings and neighborhood effects. In short, social contexts shape social relations and the networks they give rise to. However, how and when they do so remain to be established. This paper presents network ecology as a general framework for identifying how the proximal environment shapes social networks by focusing interactions and social relations, and how these interactions and relations in turn shape the environment in which social networks form. Tie fitness is introduced as a metric that quantifies how well particular dyadic social relations would align with the setting. Using longitudinal networks collected on two cohorts each in 18 North American schools, i.e., 36 settings, we develop five generalizable observations about the time-varying fitness of adolescent friendship. Across all 252 analyzed networks, tie fitness predicted new tie formation, tie longevity, and tie survival. Dormant fit ties cluster in relational niches, thereby establishing a resource base for social identities competing for increased representation in the relational system. • We present an ecological framework for studying relational dynamics in defined social settings. • Selection pressures operating at different timescales constrain relational activities and shape attainable outcomes. • Tie fitness quantifies a tie's alignment with a setting. Fitness predicts new relation formation, survival, and longevity. • Clusters of fit ties establish relational niches in which social identities can compete for increased representation in the relational system. • Network ecology draws attention to the processes that drive tie selection and the strictness of ecological constraint, the coevolution of relational norms with the proximal environment, and the evolving salience of social identities over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research on clientelism has focused on the varieties of clientelism. They suggest that clientelistic exchanges differ in terms of the expected length of iterations, whereby politicians deliver benefits to voters in exchange for political support. Using newly collected V-Party data (1,844 political parties from 165 countries, 1970–2019), we identify two prominent types of clientelism that recent studies have suggested: relational clientelism and single-shot clientelism. By demonstrating that our measures of clientelism outperform existing cross-national indices, we suggest that it is important to unpack clientelistic linkages at the party level to grasp the fine-grained differences in clientelism across parties within states. We then apply our measures to the analysis of the relationship between economic development and clientelism, one of the major topics in the clientelism study. Our analysis finds that relational clientelism persists even in relatively developed countries, whereas the effect of economic development on single-shot clientelism has a curvilinear relationship. Our applications of the new measures of clientelism also show that the gap in clientelistic practices between ruling and opposition parties varies depending on the types of clientelism, tenure lengths of incumbents, and the degree of political centralization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Older adults are more frequently wanting to age in place. Governments are seeking cost-effective and efficient methods of supporting aging populations. Older adults who want to stay in their homes for as long as possible encounter multiple barriers, including struggling to maintain their homes, inadequate levels of social and healthcare support, and the lack of financial capacity to pay for home support services. The Mobile Seniors’ Wellness Network (MSWN), a multi-disciplinary and person-centered mobile health and social support intervention study was designed to investigate and support aging in place for older adults living in rural New Brunswick, Canada. Secondary analysis of case notes and exit interviews using content analysis revealed concerns with the lack of affordable and mobile care services for vulnerable rural older adults. Older adults revealed that their needs include “the little things” rather than grand gestures or sweeping policies to age in place such as assistance with grounds and home maintenance, in addition to relational and person-centered health and social care in the home. Reliance on private service delivery and volunteer organizations can increase the likelihood that older adults will experience a breakdown of social support networks tied together loosely by friends, family, and their communities. When services are unattainable aging in place becomes an unreachable goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Talk by members of executive hospital boards influences the organizational positioning of nurses. Talk is a relational leadership practice. Using a qualitative‐interpretive design we organized focus group meetings wherein members of executive hospital boards (7), nurses (14), physicians (7), and managers (6), from 15 Dutch hospitals, discussed the organizational positioning of nursing during COVID crisis. We found that members of executive hospital boards consider the positioning of nursing in crisis a task of nurses themselves and not as a collective, interdependent, and/or specific board responsibility. Furthermore, members of executive hospital boards talk about the nursing profession as (1) more practical than strategic, (2) ambiguous in positioning, and (3) distinctive from the medical profession. Such talk seemingly contrasts with the notion of interdependence that highlights how actors depend on each other in interaction. Interdependence is central to collaboration in hospital crises. In this paper, therefore, we depart from the members of executive hospital boards as leader and "positioner," and focus on talk—as a discursive leadership practice—to illuminate leadership and governance in hospitals in crisis, as social, interdependent processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An urban natural history museum and university partnered with rural conservation organizations to support a climate learning network in southwestern Pennsylvania, a region with a fossil fuels heritage. Network members recognized the urgent need to address climate change at the system scale and wanted to talk about climate action, but they had doubts about what climate actions to take, how much their actions matter (efficacy), and whether it was necessary to talk about climate change directly. Future visioning showed promise as a tool for identifying compelling actions and expanding participants' climate narratives to embrace systemic climate action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The objective of this paper is to verify whether the ISO 9001 standard has an impact on the three components of intellectual capital, namely: human, structural, and relational capital. Design/methodology: Drawing on the absorptive capacity theory, the knowledge creation theory, and the socio-technical systems theory, we developed a conceptual model that was tested on a sample of 100 Moroccan companies certified under ISO 9001. Findings: The results indicate a direct impact of the ISO 9001 standard on human capital, an indirect impact on structural capital through human capital, and finally, the ISO 9001 standard influences relational capital through a serial mediation of human and then structural capital. Originality/value: This paper is a response to the current international debate on the importance of intellectual capital for value creation. Indeed, for intellectual capital to create value, it must be developed, and ISO 9001 standard precisely enables this development, as demonstrated by the results. Considering that more than a million organizations hold ISO 9001 certification worldwide, this aligns with the international scope of the debate on intellectual capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to theoretically explore the concept of leadership in a Total Quality Management (TQM) context by developing a new theoretical framework of understanding Total Quality Leadership (TQL) as well as by opening the dialogue in researching further key elements of TQL. Design/methodology/approach: The approach that the paper adopts is conceptual. Based on exploration of the wider management and leadership literature of empirical and theoretical studies, this paper develops a framework of TQL. Findings: The suggested TQL framework is composed by three main pillars, namely the proactive, adaptive and the relational. The former consists of elements like anticipation of current business environment complexities and filtering of information that enhances practice decision making. The second pillar refers to adaptation, autonomy and feedback while the last one emphasises on the importance of aspects like social interactions, engagement and empathy. The paper explains why the specific pillars with the additional elements are critical for TQM success. Originality/value: Given the tremendous challenges that organisations face due to increased complexity and demanding competition of the business environments globally, the role of leadership as the major "soft" aspect of TQM approach, seems to be vital more than ever. But the type of TQL appropriate to enhance total quality success nowadays, is still (and should be) under continuous exploration. This conceptual study attempts to provide new theoretical insights of TQL as well as to open the dialogue around the main elements consisting of TQL and how the future research agenda is formulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By bridging critical pedagogy and environmental praxis, the contributions in this forum build on Freire's legacy while stretching his work. As the authors attend to more-than-human life, they theorize and enact relational ways of knowing. Through participatory and multisensory pedagogies, they counter dichotomies between nonhuman and human nature, student and teacher. In this response, I consider how this (re)centering of more-than-human relations expands-and counters-Freire's thinking, including how he articulates humanization as a primary, liberatory aim of teaching and (un)learning. Along with insights from Black geographies and Black feminist ecologies, bell hooks guides my response. hooks critiqued and engaged with Freire's work with radical care, with space for complexity and accountability. This way of reading feels particularly suited to this forum, as the authors reimagine Freire's contributions to critical (environmental) pedagogy for the twenty-first century and beyond.

In the theological retrieval of neo-Calvinism, Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) is the golden child, but does he ere? This article explores a misnomer in Bavinck’s theology, that of adoption within the ordo salutis (order of salvation). Bavinck’s doctrine of adoption seems to be misplaced because he writes of adoption as juridical (RD IV, 219, 226-227), a term that belongs properly to justification. Yet he draws upon adoption to illustrate sanctification. The two doctrines, justification and sanctification, are of course intimately linked in his system, but Bavinck either misdeploys or mis-categorizes adoption. In light of Bavinck, placing it in the juridical category, but drawing upon it to illustrate sanctification it remains unclear why it remains juridical. First, the article explores the main contours of Bavinck’s ordo salutis establishing the main categories and ordering, this will lay hold to the problematic placement of adoption. From there, a constructive alternative is set forth, that of the category of relational.

Abstract Background Few studies have examined the spiritual environment of parents of children receiving palliative care in Southern European countries, which are mostly characterized by secularization (or the abandonment of traditional religiosity) and an increase of cultural and religious diversities resulting in a much broader spectrum of spiritual and religious beliefs. This study aimed to explore the parents’ own spirituality, religiosity, and philosophy of life in coping with the care of their child with palliative needs. Methods Qualitative interviews of 14 parents of children included in a palliative care program in a pediatric hospital in Barcelona, Spain. Inclusion criteria were parents of children who have been cared for the palliative care program for a minimum of 3 months and who displayed a willingness to talk about their personal experiences and gave written consent. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed by an independent service, and analyzed on a case-by-case basis using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Results The three domains identified were life philosophy, relational, and transcendent. Life philosophy included principles that guided parents’ decision-making, and how the onset of their child’s serious illness had promoted a change in their values. Relational was focused on how they perceived themselves (e.g. motherhood), others (e.g. one’s own child exceptionality), and the way they believed others perceived and supported them (e.g. relatives, friends, and healthcare providers). The transcendent domain involved God-related concepts, divinity and divine intervention (e.g. a miracle as an interpretive framework for that which cannot be explained within scientific knowledge limitations). Conclusions Inflexible categories identifying parents as having a particular religious faith tradition are not sufficient to capture the interrelation of knowledges (ethical, religious, scientific) that each parent generates when faced with their child receiving palliative care. Clinicians should explore parents’ spirituality in an individualized way that responds to the uniqueness of their experiential process.

RationaleA general feeling of disconnection has been associated with mental and emotional suffering. Improvements to a sense of connectedness to self, others and the wider world have been reported by participants in clinical trials of psychedelic therapy. Such accounts have led us to a definition of the psychological construct of 'connectedness' as 'a state of feeling connected to self, others and the wider world'. Existing tools for measuring connectedness have focused on particular aspects of connectedness, such as 'social connectedness' or 'nature connectedness', which we hypothesise to be different expressions of a common factor of connectedness. Here, we sought to develop a new scale to measure connectedness as a construct with these multiple domains. We hypothesised that (1) our scale would measure three separable subscale factors pertaining to a felt connection to 'self', 'others' and 'world' and (2) improvements in total and subscale WCS scores would correlate with improved mental health outcomes post psychedelic use.ObjectivesTo validate and test the 'Watts Connectedness Scale' (WCS).MethodsPsychometric validation of the WCS was carried out using data from three independent studies. Firstly, we pooled data from two prospective observational online survey studies. The WCS was completed before and after a planned psychedelic experience. The total sample of completers from the online surveys was N = 1226. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were performed, and construct and criterion validity were tested. A third dataset was derived from a double-blind randomised controlled trial (RCT) comparing psilocybin-assisted therapy (n = 27) with 6 weeks of daily escitalopram (n = 25) for major depressive disorder (MDD), where the WCS was completed at baseline and at a 6-week primary endpoint.ResultsAs hypothesised, factor analysis of all WCS items revealed three main factors with good internal consistency. WCS showed good construct validity. Significant post-psychedelic increases were observed for total connectedness scores (η2 = 0.339, p

This article investigates the role of an academic development programme associated with the implementation of newly designed assessment criteria in the UK-based Arts University. The introduction of new assessment criteria was accompanied by a pan-university academic staff development intervention. In a small-scale qualitative study, we researched staff's experience of meaning-making and present three interconnected themes: the relationships between attendees; their relationship with the criteria; and relational understandings within the context of expectations of academic development. We deploy Honneth's theory of recognition and make recommendations for policy makers and academic developers to support the design of socially just academic development opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to understand why some social workers seem to connect and engage openly with opportunities for continuing professional development (CPD) while others seem to have a more conflicted relationship with their learning. Using psychoanalytically informed free association narrative interviews with eight social workers, the study explores the participant's emotional experience of CPD. The data is analysed using an 'Evolved approach' (Cooper, 2014) in which it is examined for new ideas and organised into themes. The findings suggest a clear relational dimension to learning for social workers and the researcher offers The Learning Response model as a product of the study. This is a biographical narrative model of the pedagogy of CPD which offers a way of understanding how social worker's approach to CPD is influenced by the experience of learning facilitation in early life. The model suggests that for some social workers, the script for future engagement with learning is set at this stage and they will repeat their early responses in their adult learning. But the study also identifies apparent compensatory factors and experiences and these seem to enable social workers to rescript their approach to CPD. For all however, the inner emotional voice created from initial experiences remains the same and it is this which replays and shapes social worker's emotional experience of CPD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of the ATTUNE project, this article critically appraises the strengths of community dance as a trauma-informed practice and examines areas for development in relation to guidelines on trauma-informed care. In the context of exacerbated mental health problems amongst young people in the United Kingdom, meeting the diverse needs of people who attend community dance spaces requires robust and empathetic enquiry across sectors. This article presents a critique of regularly cited literature from the distinct disciplines of dance and psychology and focuses specifically on the merits of relational approaches within community dance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music sociology has proven a fertile arena for the study and theorization of object–subject interaction, with the work of scholars such as Tia DeNora and Antoine Hennion marking its key contribution to the 'new sociology of art'. Recent years have, however, witnessed no little debate amongst music sociologists about the broader purchase and value of such scholarship, especially considering its apparent challenge to Bourdieu's critical cultural sociology. This article seeks to contribute to debates in this area by advocating a novel approach to questions about music's relation to the social, one that seeks less to map the social distribution of taste profiles or explore how listeners make use of music's affordances than understand the variable ways in which music emerges as something to be attended to (or not) in the first place. Drawing on recent work in relational sociology, the mature philosophy of pragmatist John Dewey as well as new materialist thought, this article explores the potential of a trans-actional prospectus for music sociology. This is an approach that advocates a 'flat' social ontology in order to focus on questions about the constitution and configuration of musical events. In so doing, the article argues that if we are to gain a better understanding of music's varied relation to the social, it is necessary to transcend the residual substantialism implicit in 'new sociology' and mediation-focused accounts and adopt an approach capable of integrating concerns of object-ness, emergence and attention with questions of power and inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Having a strong connection to culture and Country is fundamental to the health and wellbeing of Australian Aboriginal children. The aim of the research was to evaluate the feasibility of study methods and programme implementation of a co-created afterschool cultural programme, and identify areas for improvement. Methods: Aboriginal Relational Research Methodology and mixed methods were applied to evaluate the feasibility of the implementation of the programme and study methods using a non-randomised single-group study design. Australian Aboriginal children and their siblings aged 5–13 years were recruited within regional New South Wales, Australia. The primary outcomes for feasibility included recruitment rates of children and Aboriginal programme mentors, compliance rates of outcome data collection and of the planned programme activities, programme attendance, retention rates and mean enjoyment scores. Follow-up yarning circles were conducted with the children, their parents/caregivers, programme mentors and teachers to explore aspects of feasibility, and areas for improvement. Results: A total of 90 caregivers consented to their children (n = 111) being part of the research. Sixteen Aboriginal mentors were recruited to deliver the programmes across the communities. Overall, 74.4% of all health outcome measures were completed across baseline (86.5%) and follow-up (55.9%). Only 61.0% of the programme activities were delivered as originally planned. The average programme attendance rate was 70.0% with a 92.0% retention rate. Eighty-nine percent of children reported a high level of enjoyment with the programmes. Follow-up yarning identified the importance of relational methodologies and flexibility within the programme design and implementation to ensure programmes were adapted to the local community, conditions and differing age groups. Considerations for future programmes included the timing of the programme and identifying health outcome assessment tools and methods that acknowledge cultural protocols and experiences. Conclusions: Engaging the communities in the development, implementation and evaluation of the programmes were key to community support of the programme and conducting the feasibility study. Future programmes and evaluations need to be built on strong partnerships and embrace flexible and culturally embedded methodologies in order to be adaptive and responsive to research approaches, communities and to Country. Trial registration: ACTRN12619001224112. Retrospectively registered on 05 September 2019. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Few studies have examined the spiritual environment of parents of children receiving palliative care in Southern European countries, which are mostly characterized by secularization (or the abandonment of traditional religiosity) and an increase of cultural and religious diversities resulting in a much broader spectrum of spiritual and religious beliefs. This study aimed to explore the parents' own spirituality, religiosity, and philosophy of life in coping with the care of their child with palliative needs. Methods: Qualitative interviews of 14 parents of children included in a palliative care program in a pediatric hospital in Barcelona, Spain. Inclusion criteria were parents of children who have been cared for the palliative care program for a minimum of 3 months and who displayed a willingness to talk about their personal experiences and gave written consent. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed by an independent service, and analyzed on a case-by-case basis using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Results: The three domains identified were life philosophy, relational, and transcendent. Life philosophy included principles that guided parents' decision-making, and how the onset of their child's serious illness had promoted a change in their values. Relational was focused on how they perceived themselves (e.g. motherhood), others (e.g. one's own child exceptionality), and the way they believed others perceived and supported them (e.g. relatives, friends, and healthcare providers). The transcendent domain involved God-related concepts, divinity and divine intervention (e.g. a miracle as an interpretive framework for that which cannot be explained within scientific knowledge limitations). Conclusions: Inflexible categories identifying parents as having a particular religious faith tradition are not sufficient to capture the interrelation of knowledges (ethical, religious, scientific) that each parent generates when faced with their child receiving palliative care. Clinicians should explore parents' spirituality in an individualized way that responds to the uniqueness of their experiential process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reference to Knowledge Exchange (KE) in UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) has become common place, reflecting the continued changing role of universities within society. Arguably, KE draws together notions of HEIs as purveyors of knowledge, with students helping to create a tripartite relationship with HEIs and the wider community as well as a civic responsibility to contribute to the wider public good. Realising the potential benefits of this inter-relationship required a problematising of the meanings of both knowledge and the notion of an exchange, drawing on the work of Dewey and Bernstein. Our paper offers an analysis of the different epistemological positions governing understandings of knowledge and how these are influenced by the performativity and neoliberal responsibilisation of modern universities. More specifically, the epistemological position encouraged by the modern university leads to a tension between measurement and evaluation of KE on the one hand and pedagogical practice on the other. Taking into account these tensions, the paper offers an alternative approach to knowledge exchange with suggested principles to underpin a future relational pedagogy for KE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What essentially is human identity? Recent scholarship has observed the centrality of the doctrine of the Trinity for Jonathan Edwards' wide range of thought. Given this premise, Trinity would lead Edwards also to isolate the idea of the 'person' as the locus of human identity simply because we bear the imago Dei. Furthermore, since he identifies the essential characteristic of the divine Persons as relationality, and specifically for the pure acts of love by members of the Trinity, the human self is to be identified essentially with the term 'person' possessing in lesser degree the same relational capacity belonging to the divine Persons. Specifically, Edwards identifies 'consent and harmony' as the characteristic manner of that relational act that occurs in the Trinity, and therefore recurring in that relation between God and the human person from the beginning to the consummation of redemptive history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We offer a dream|dance in visual, metaphoric, and haptic image by engaging creation-centered poetic inquiring as a unique rendering of embodied reflexivity through the arts. Our lyric text, a songscape, framed by the interplay of chorus and storying verse, enacts the movement and mood of a dance. Red threads and feathers, as partners, symbolize the voice and agency of entities becoming within the complex relational-ecologies with whom we live. This songscape advances creation-centered research by demonstrating Whitehead's ontology of becoming—process prioritized over substance—where bodily feelings provide the earthen richness through which images, emotions, hopes, and thoughts emerge. Working from modes of reflexivity within animate paradigms advances relational consciousness by foregrounding agential landscapes, ancestors, psychscapes, and our dependent co-arising. Here, relational consciousness reveals Nature—in all its forms—as a co-creative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: In this study we explore how the diagnostic category of mood disorders is constructed in two handbooks of Psychopathology as an example of the mainstream construction of psychopathology. Despite the increasing criticism and lack of evidence, the debunked chemical imbalance theory of the etiology of depression still dominates the professional and pop/folk understanding and interventions. Methods: We analysed the breadth of the inference field and the type of etiopathogenetic contents of the explanations of mood disorders using the "1to3" Coding System. Results: Our findings show that the dominant explanations draw almost exclusively onto monadic explanations, followed by limited dyadic ones. Intrapersonal etiopathogenetic contents prevailed, and biomedical explanations were dominant in both textbooks. Discussion: We critically discuss the underpinnings of these results and address the clinical implications of these biased representations, as well as potential alternative approaches to psychopathology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study was to explore how recovery is facilitated by examining components of the relationship between peer workers and adults impacted by substance use disorder and incarceration. Semistructured, in-person interviews were conducted with two groups: 8 persons active in a substance use program and 4 peer workers. The participants were asked how the relationship impacted recovery and obtaining housing. A reflexive thematic analyses was conducted. The findings from the study indicate that long-term recovery may be supported with a relationship-based approach that connects individuals with a criminal justice background experiencing SUD to peer workers with lived experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the importance of consultation in early intervention of mental health difficulties, there has been little consideration of the specific competencies needed nor a model underpinning this intervention. Eleven schools- and children's centre-based child and adolescent mental health services clinicians were interviewed with semi-structured interviews before and after a systemic consultation training. Four main themes emerged; participants gained: (1) a better understanding of organisational and multi-agency contexts, (2) a clear theoretical basis for practice, consistent with a destigmatising understanding of mental wellbeing, (3) clarity on the role, remit, and process of consultation, and (4) confidence and skills to carry out the role. The skills gained were in line with systems-level competencies. These findings suggest that the systemic consultation training increased the confidence of clinicians to work with complex networked systems in schools and communities. Future research can further understand the impact of this approach on other stakeholders, such as schools and families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]