Clifford van Ommen

The Development and Utilisation of a Suicide Risk Assessment Interview Schedule

Suicide is increasingly widespread in South Africa and is considered to constitute a serious public health problem. It is not only the most common emergency encountered by mental health care professionals but also has the distinction of being one of the few potentially fatal psychological conditions. The accurate determination of suicide risk in clinical practice is difficult. Despite vast amounts of research, no one assessment tool or method, when applied to individual clients, has been demonstrated to be ultimately superior in helping clinicians to accurately estimate risk. A clinicians failure to adequately assess suicide risk may result in morbidity or mortality, and has the added complication of leaving the clinician to face negative emotional, personal, professional, and legal consequences. This article illustrates how research findings and empirical studies have been utilised to formulate a Suicide Risk Assessment Interview Schedule (SRAIS) designed to assist the clinician to make a thorough assessment of suicide risk by avoiding errors of omission. Two case vignettes are included to illustrate how the SRAIS has been used to guide the process of risk assessment and management.

Putting the PC in IQ: Images in the Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale – Third Edition (WAIS III)

Images, as a form of discourse, have an ideological dimension. The third edition of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale contains images revised so as to make them more ecologically valid and relevant for contemporary test takers. It is argued that the revisionists have to deal with various ideological issues so as to not make these scenes provocative. However, is it possible to produce images that are ideologically sensitive without undermining relevance and ecological validity? This question is addressed by analysing the images using the concept of ‘positionings’ and the social categories of race, gender and class. Strategies are thus articulated that introduce political correctness but may undermine the explicit goals of the revisionists. In response, the notion of ‘narrative validity’ is suggested, which refers to the comprehension of contemporary rhetorical strategies used to sidestep ideological tensions. Given this, test-wiseness takes on an ideological nuance in that test takers require a degree of familiarity with these strategies so as to effectively engage with these sub-tests. The use of the WAIS III in South Africa is consequently discussed.

Of monstrous transformations: Neurologisation and its consequences

Gustave Dore’s mesmerising image of Arachne turned into a spider for affronting Athena comprises the cover of The Metamorphoses of the Brain and is an indication of the series of dramatic scuffles that lie ahead in Jan De Vos’s latest book. An intense and thoughtdemanding engagement involving elements of tragedy and horror, De Vos systematically enacts a number of critical transformations: celebrations are shown to be Armageddonesque, emancipatory projects as deluded, and allegedly radical breaks as haunted by the past. And in the wake of his conversions it becomes difficult for us to weave our claims about neuroscience as before. Primarily, what De Vos asks is what being reduced to a brain has transformed us into and whether this neurological turn constitutes an irreparable transition; one that ultimately leaves humanity mute. De Vos argues that the fundamentality of the “neuro” break is undermined by a lineage which haunts its edifices: psychology is neuroscience’s necessary supplement. Understanding ourselves, others, and the world through neuro-discourses (neurologisation) inescapably requires its predecessor, psychologisation. Neuroscience can only show us “mute images, mere chemistry and pure electricity” (p. 33) and therefore is reliant on, as De Vos puts it, “psychological fillings,” which then troubles any claims that it is radically material. Claims to neuroscience’s neutrality, objectivity, and unmediated nature reflect more than the hubris of science since the irony of this claim is that it obfuscates what it actually is to be human or, even more, it conceals that we no longer know what it means to be human. Neuroscience does not provide the unmediated truth of the matter and thus cannot serve as an unproblematic foundation, nor is it without theory since, as indicated, it is far from having left psychology behind. For instance, psycho-education provides the expertise for neuro-education, where we are implored not only to utilise neuroscience’s knowledge but—a core claim by De Vos—to assume the position of the scientist and turn this gaze upon ourselves. Being fascinated and amazed by the brain images neuroscience shows us—“this is who you are”—is an indication of the success of neuroscience in hailing us not only as neurological subjects (the secondary identification) but as surplus subjects, specifically proto-neuroscientists (the primary identification). Ironically then, it is the virtual, the proliferation of digital data sets presented as images, which typifies the materialism of neuroscience. Here De Vos draws on 682632 TAP0010.1177/0959354316682632Theory & PsychologyReview research-article2016

Negotiating neuroscience: LeDoux’s “dramatic ensemble”:

Some argue we now live in a “brain society” in which our subjectivity is increasingly mediated through neurological discourses. Unless we are to surrender neuroscience to neoliberal colonisation, we need to articulate effective forms of engagement with this discipline. One route is to read mainstream neuroscience texts for resistances they offer to the homo economicus. Instead of a terrain that inevitably leads to neoliberal conclusions, we find a materiality in excess of dubious ideological circumscriptions. In this article we engage with Joseph LeDoux’s notion of the self as a “dramatic ensemble,” where the self is a vulnerable, constantly reiterated achievement marked by the partial and passing play of dominances. Simultaneously, however, LeDoux undermines this account by evoking a traditional notion of the self. This play of tensions is articulated and an argument is made to privilege a subjectivity which both resists LeDoux’s flight from his own implications and neoliberal assumptions of subjectivity.Some argue we now live in a “brain society” in which our subjectivity is increasingly mediated through neurological discourses. Unless we are to surrender neuroscience to neoliberal colonisation, we need to articulate effective forms of engagement with this discipline. One route is to read mainstream neuroscience texts for resistances they offer to the homo economicus. Instead of a terrain that inevitably leads to neoliberal conclusions, we find a materiality in excess of dubious ideological circumscriptions. In this article we engage with Joseph LeDoux’s notion of the self as a “dramatic ensemble,” where the self is a vulnerable, constantly reiterated achievement marked by the partial and passing play of dominances. Simultaneously, however, LeDoux undermines this account by evoking a traditional notion of the self. This play of tensions is articulated and an argument is made to privilege a subjectivity which both resists LeDoux’s flight from his own implications and neoliberal assumptions of subjectivity.

The generational brain: Introduction:

In contemporary society, the image of the “flexible brain” and the notion of neuroplasticity are increasingly replacing that of the static mature brain. Brains and neurons are considered to be constantly generated and regenerated. Age cohort comparisons and longitudinal studies introduce a developmental perspective to the field. However, these articulations and investigations occur within a sociopolitical field marked by vested interests and the celebration of all things neural. Utilizing the notion of “the generational brain,” we propose that it is fruitful to exploit the polysemity of the word “generation,” as well as the historicity of scientific concepts and methods, to interrogate and re/formulate questions currently addressed in developmental neuroscience in particular and neuroscience in general. This special issue’s contributions provide an early impression of what a “critical friendship” with developmental neuroscience, aware of its sociocultural and epistemological implications as well as the historicity of concepts, may look like.

Nocitainment: the contemporary construction of pain as amusement

In this article, I explore the management and construction of physical pain in video-clip-based television programmes, as well as the sociopolitical context in which these are embedded, and the form of subjectivity simultaneously celebrated and evoked. The analysis focuses on the popular MTV television series, Ridiculousness, in which internet video clips are commented on by the hosts for comedic effect. Many of these clips depict physical pain, usually as a consequence of a person having an accident. Drawing on Scarry’s The Body in Pain (1985), I show how a particular set of strategies are utilised and constructions are legitimated for the experience and interpretation of pain. These techniques not only bear a striking resemblance to the structure of torture but are also conservative in their effect as they promote neoliberal processes of subjectification and reiterate a particular form of masculinity.

Goldberg’s brain and the sex/gender distinction

The sex/gender binary has proven to be a profoundly useful conceptual distinction in the furthering of the feminist project. It has also been a controversial opposition that has given rise to an ongoing and productive debate. In this article we utilise neuroscience, specifically a text by the neuropsychologist Elkhonon Goldberg, to trouble this binary in the hope of furthering the critical project. We argue that a cautious negotiation with the biological may be theoretically and politically productive. By taking seriously Goldberg’s notions of functional-morphological and corporeal-environmental intimacy in reading his claim of distinct gender-based cognitive styles it is possible to glimpse the variation of sex itself. This, we argue, demonstrates both the limits of binaries and celebrations of difference and reveals the complexity which we have to negotiate in the search for emancipatory change.The sex/gender binary has proven to be a profoundly useful conceptual distinction in the furthering of the feminist project. It has also been a controversial opposition that has given rise to an ongoing and productive debate. In this article we utilise neuroscience, specifically a text by the neuropsychologist Elkhonon Goldberg, to trouble this binary in the hope of furthering the critical project. We argue that a cautious negotiation with the biological may be theoretically and politically productive. By taking seriously Goldberg’s notions of functional-morphological and corporeal-environmental intimacy in reading his claim of distinct gender-based cognitive styles it is possible to glimpse the variation of sex itself. This, we argue, demonstrates both the limits of binaries and celebrations of difference and reveals the complexity which we have to negotiate in the search for emancipatory change.

Engagement in practice: introduction to a special issue of Qualitative Research in Psychology

“Engagement” has become something of a buzzword among qualitative researchers, reflecting broader transformations in the academy that increasingly require researchers to demonstrate social accounta...

Resisting the obfuscation of ‘race’: The importance of acknowledging the sociopolitical in normative data research

The concept of ‘race’ is, rightly, associated with a myriad of discriminatory practices, including its ontological justification through the misuse of science, including that of Psychology. Seeking to distance the discipline and profession from such a problematic history, most psychologists have abandoned the notion of ‘race’ or, as in social psychology, have turned to the study of racism. Within the context of contemporary South Africa, now almost two decades beyond the legislated presence of apartheid, the abandonment of the term ‘race’ has been especially motivated. This article asks the apparently controversial question of whether such an urgent distancing is justified. This is especially salient given that it has resulted in some researchers turning to alternate terms such as ‘culture’ and ‘ethnicity’ as though the simple exchange of these seemingly apolitical terms for ‘race’ will allow the business of traditional research to continue as usual. However, we cannot escape the effects of the past so easily; these terms are themselves not innocent but are in a complex relationship with each other and society. Furthermore, ‘race’ is more than a word, and its consequences lie well entrenched via past and present ideologically based social and material engineering. In this article, I argue that we need to return, as an ethically and conceptually sound act, to the concept of ‘race’ in normative data research. This requires that we abandon naïve notions of scientific practice and acknowledge both the sociopolitical context in which we conduct scientific research and the historically embedded and contingent nature of the concepts we utilise in our work and the data we produce.

The economy of centre within the aneconomy of neurological architecture

Neuroscience may be read as part of a historical search for an integrative and agentive centre. The prefrontal cortices, the dominant locus of the executive functions, which includes the control of cognitive processes and the regulation of self in the process of fulfilling intentions, is currently such a centre. This attribution is complexified through a deconstructive reading of texts by the neuropsychologist Elkhonon Goldberg. What emerge are dynamics that decentre attempts to determine a point from which agency may proceed. It is argued that the grounds for centric claims simultaneously undermine such ambitions.