Carles Roca-Cuberes

Making psychotherapy visible: a conversation analytic study of some interactional devices employed in psychiatric interviews

Abstract The objective of this study, based on eight psychiatric interviews recorded in a Spanish hospital, is to investigate how psychotherapy is made visible in psychiatric interviews. In particular, the focus is on how psychotherapy is provided in subsequent psychiatric interviews to hospitalized inpatients. Since much of what happens in psychiatric interviews is talk, psychiatrists (as professionals) are responsible for framing such talk as a distinctive type of speech exchange that differs from ordinary conversation. To fulfill their institutional mandate, psychiatrists need to design their speech as therapeutic and produce the necessary “explicative transactions” accordingly. The accomplishment of this task seems to require the employment of an array of third-turn utterance types like repair, assessments, or formulations. A particular word search is also shown to perform a similar job. Altogether, these interactional devices are initiated by the psychiatrist to (i) conduce patients to discover the beneficial effects of psychotherapy and (ii) highlight psychotherapy as a visible process. On the whole, these interactional objects enable the psychiatrist to constitute the psychiatric interview as a self-explicating phenomenon. This investigation utilizes the research tools developed in conversation analysis (CA).

Political interviews in public television and commercial broadcasters: A comparison

In this article I examine the differences between broadcast political interviews in commercial and public service broadcasters in Spain. The study focuses in particular on political interviews broadcast on ‘morning show’ type programmes. The analysis distinguishes the characteristics that make up the news interview turn-taking system in order to explore the degree to which information and entertainment come together in political interviews broadcast on morning shows. The results show, primarily, that political interviews shown on public service broadcasters’ morning shows adhere to the journalistic standards of neutralism and adversarialness. This is precisely how they strive to make the politician publicly accountable. In political interviews broadcast by commercial broadcasters, however, these rules are followed intermittently. The aim of these interviews appears to be different: to penetrate politicians’ personal sphere with the discernible purpose of entertaining. These differences reflect different interview styles which, in turn, reveal different conceptions of journalism, politics and society. This investigation utilizes the research tools developed in conversation analysis (CA).

“Wealthy gay couples buying babies produced in India by poor womb-women”: Audience interpretations of transnational surrogacy in TV news

ABSTRACT Surrogacy is beginning to generate public debate, and the way the media approach it may have negative effects on social attitudes toward gay parenting. The news media play a key role in informing society, especially about topics such as surrogacy, of which most audiences have no direct experience. The aim of our research is to explore opinion formation of surrogacy and gay parenting by analyzing the audience interpretation of a TV news story in Spain. To do this we conducted four focus groups that were analyzed using a qualitative content analysis based on the discourse produced by the participants. The results show that the framing strategies used in the news story contribute to advocating an attitude of repudiation toward surrogacy, with an adverse sentiment also extending to homosexual couples who wish to become parents. This leads us to discuss the role of media in shaping public opinion and the resulting potential consequences in the case of surrogacy and gay parenting.

When the "other" runs in front of the bull: a membership categorization analysis of a television news story

Abstract This article analyzes a television news story using a particular example. In line with the research tradition of the ethnomethodological approach of membership categorization analysis, our main analytical concerns are (i) to understand the logic of practical reasoning and intelligibility involved in the production of the news story; (ii) to examine how this intelligibility is generated and what resources – such as commonsense knowledge of the social structures – are used to make the news story communicable; and (iii) to explore how specific forms of categorization employed in the news story are used to induce certain readings or to promote certain worldviews. The news story analyzed describes the progressive increase of foreign participants at the San Fermín running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. It also highlights the still minority participation by women at this massive event. The results of the analysis show that both “foreigners” and “women” are presented as being in the wrong place. Through association with their typical predicates, both “foreigners” and “women” are construed in the news story as the “other.” A final reflection is made on the concept of identity, which is understood as a situated accomplishment.

Sexualidad, género, religión e interculturalidad en los relatos informativos civilizatorios y culturales de las televisiones españolas

Este articulo es producto del proyecto de Investigacion titulado “Analisis de los relatos audiovisuales sobre civilizaciones y culturas. Representaciones e interpretaciones de los relatos informativos de la television” referencia CSO2011-23786, financiado por el Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion de Espana.

Diagnosing as an Interactional Achievement in Psychiatric Interviews

What is involved in exploring a patient’s mental state? How is a diagnosis or a decision about a patient’s psychopathological status accomplished? How do psychiatrists make patients talk about their problems? The first encounter, in a psychiatric hospital, between a psychiatrist and the prospective patient is quite significant for the fate of the latter. In a psychiatric intake interview (PII) the psychiatrist’s official task is to determine whether a person should be hospitalised – voluntarily or involuntarily – as a patient on the basis of the person’s observable behaviour during the interview. Customarily, this implies that the psychiatrist needs to solicit the patient to talk about the problems that brought him/her to hospital and make a decision regarding the candidate patient’s mental state. In the other type of psychiatric interview, the subsequent psychiatric interview, the psychiatrist’s assignment is to monitor the behavioural progress of a psychiatric in-patient, with the view to a possible future discharge. For example, in the adult psychiatric treatment interview, psychiatrists are charged with asking questions of the patients with appropriate depth and pace (Thompson & McCabe, Chapter 20, this volume).