Biomedical subjects

D E Polkinghorne

Publications and source records attributed to D E Polkinghorne.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1999

Traditional research and psychotherapy practice.

Practitioners of psychotherapy hold different assumptions about the predictability and constancy of human actions than those required by the inferential logic employed in traditional research. Psychotherapy requires the use of judgment by therapists that goes beyond the direct application of generalized knowledge. Judgment is sensitive to the particular, contextual, and changing situation characteristic of therapy practice. Therapists decisions about what to do and say are informed by, but go beyond, that which is available in their knowledge bases. Therapists' knowledge bases include their own, as well as vicarious, experiences. Therapists can parse traditional research into descriptive and inferential components, and by treating the descriptive component as vicarious experiences, they can incorporate it into their knowledge base.

Humans↗

PubMed1996

Transformative narratives: from victimic to agentic life plots.

Basic to occupational engagement is a person's personal power to author choices. Impairment in functioning moves some clients from an agentic identity of self to a victimic identity. The change in identity causes previously self-directed clients to adopt a passive and acquiescent stance toward their lives. The recovery of occupational functioning includes the restoration of the person's sense of agency. Recent developments in self theory emphasize the self as a process rather than a substance or thing. Narrative is the discourse mode most able to express identity as a process. Victimic identity is manifest in a self-story in which protagonists have lost power to affect change in their lives; agentic identity is manifest in self-stories of active agency. A study of clients' rehabilitation by Cochran and Laub found that clients' change from victimic to agentic identity moves through four phases: incompleteness, positioning, actualizing, and completion.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed1992

Redefining the science-practice relationship and professional training.

A revised conception of the relationship between psychological science and professional practice is proposed in the light of postmodern changes in perspectives on knowledge. Positivistic science, which has dominated the traditional interpretation of scientist-practitioner training, is considered from a constructivist point of view to be only one possible foundation of psychological knowledge. It is argued that the knowledge base of the profession should be derived with diverse methods and from multiple sources, including the knowledge of practice. The mutuality of science and practice is emphasized. An evolving framework for understanding the epistemology of practice, based on cognitive psychology, is presented. Emphasis on broadened choices of research methods, the development of reflective skills, and better linkage between teaching in the domains of research and practice are urged. Suggestions for research related to scientific training and the knowledge processes of practice are offered.

Forecasting↗