AUGUST 16, 2020: Working Narratively in Research with Maggie Slaska, Akansha Vaswani, & Navid Zamani

“As people interested in working narratively in research, we will share some of our experiences, influences from outside the world of narrative therapy that supported our work, and challenges involved in the process. Each of us has been involved in a research project for our doctoral dissertations which we will use to illustrate 1) how we negotiated ideas of power to construct research questions 2) methods we used to incorporate social constructionist understandings of relationally informed meaning-making in our work 3) how we navigated (continue to navigate) demands/expectations of our respective institutions.” Akansha, Maggie & Navid

Participants will:

Akansha – Psychiatrists’ Accounts of Helping Patients Discontinue Antidepressant Medication: A Discourse Analysis.

“While psychotropic medications can be helpful, not all people react well to them, and, in many cases, they are not needed. Prescribing psychotropic medications, including to children, adolescents, women, and older persons, not because they are indicated and needed, but because effective psychosocial and public health interventions are not available, is incompatible with the right to health” (Pūras, 2017, p. 19). This quote by Dainius Pūras, Special Rapporteur for the UN captures the problem of medicalization and the social justice issues that arise with overly aggressive pharmacological interventions. My dissertation research contributes to efforts to reduce non-evidence based or harmful medication use and identifies ways to center the a rights based approach to mental health.:

Navid -The ‘Usefulness’ of Post-structuralist Practices with Domestic Violence Offenders: Attending to Men affected by War and Immigration

“My dissertation is concerned with examining, and addressing the effects of the knowledges that inform practitioners who are working with couples that are experiencing domestic violence (DV). This inquiry is housed within post-structuralist understandings, drawing on the works of Derrida, James, Foucault, Gergen and Wittgenstein.  Utilizing a critical affective-discursive psychology methodology, guided by narrative-informed questions, Navid’s research aims to explore and understand the epistemological framework that informs couples counselors when making decisions about couples in violence. The thesis aims to offer a critique of the current Domestic Violence understandings, the anticipated trajectories of these ideas, and recommendations for practice and research. These recommendations for practice invite practitioners into embracing complexity and moving away from manualized, reductionist approaches to domestic violence. This includes deconstructive considerations of Western, colonialist assumptions about healing in relationships, the power/control wheel, and the “cycle of violence”. Ultimately, the dissertation addresses two elements. First, the presentation of a critique of the field that will deconstruct specific assumptions that constrain DV practitioners and policy-makers from delivering effective practice in the field of DV. Second, the outcome of the research offers specific practice strategies that move practitioners beyond the current practices and towards considering domestic violence within relational considerations.”

Maggie –  Trauma-Talk: Women’s Co-constructions of Agency after Relational Violence. “Trauma-talk is widely circulated both in professional circles and popular culture. My dissertation drew upon social constructionism, intersectional feminism and critical discursive psychology to analyze how a diverse group of women in Southern California discursively managed deficit and agentic identity positions associated with victimization after a violent relational event. I utilized narrative therapy-informed interviews and focus groups whereby questions aimed to explore the usage of trauma-talk,  highlight and elicit responses and actions taken after a relational violation or events of suffering. My research aims to explore women’s strategies of resistance, counter-stories to the ‘spoiled’ identity constructed by trauma-talk in order to expand the available interpretive repertoires used to make sense of relational suffering. Findings from this study suggest that women utilize commonly available psychological repertoires of ‘trauma-talk’ but they do not story themselves as damaged or broken; they discursively employed relationally-focused linguistic resources that position them as agents of change and “agency” was co-constructed collectively.”