Jan Tønnesvang

The emotional content of life stories: Positivity bias and relation to personality

We examined whether past and future negative life story events, compared to past and future positive events, were less likely to be related to life story chapters and situated at a greater temporal distance from the present. We also examined relations between life stories and personality traits. Three hundred ten students and 160 middle-aged adults completed a measure of personality traits and identified chapters as well as past and future events in their life story. All life story components were rated on emotion and age. Negative future events were less likely to be a continuation of chapters and were more temporally distant than positive future events. Extraversion and Conscientiousness were related to more positive life stories, and Neuroticism was related to more negative life stories. This suggests that the life story is positively biased by minimising the negative future, and that the construction of life stories is related to personality traits.

A 3.5 year diary study: Remembering and life story importance are predicted by different event characteristics.

Forty-five participants described and rated two events each week during their first term at university. After 3.5 years, we examined whether event characteristics rated in the diary predicted remembering, reliving, and life story importance at the follow-up. In addition, we examined whether ratings of life story importance were consistent across a three year interval. Approximately 60% of events were remembered, but only 20% of these were considered above medium importance to life stories. Higher unusualness, rehearsal, and planning predicted whether an event was remembered 3.5 years later. Higher goal-relevance, importance, emotional intensity, and planning predicted life story importance 3.5 years later. There was a moderate correlation between life story importance rated three months after the diary and rated at the 3.5 year follow-up. The results suggest that autobiographical memory and life stories are governed by different mechanisms and that life story memories are characterized by some degree of stability.

Gestalt therapy and cognitive therapy--contrasts or complementarities?

The article investigates the relationship between crucial concepts and understandings in gestalt therapy and cognitive therapy aiming at discussing if and how they can be mutually enriching when considered as complementary parts in a more encompassing integrative therapeutic approach. It is argued that gestalt therapy, defined as a field-theoretical approach to the study of gestalt formation process, can complement the schema-based understanding and practice in cognitive therapy. The clinical benefits from a complementary view of the two approaches will be a wider scope of awareness toward individual and contextual aspects of therapeutic change processes, toward different levels of memory involved in these processes, and toward the relationship between basic needs, sensation and cognition in therapeutic work. Further, a dialogue between the two approaches will pave the way for addressing the connection between fundamental awareness work in gestalt therapy and the tendency within cognitive therapy toward incorporating mindfulness as a therapeutic tool. In the conclusion of the article, additional complementary points between the two approaches are outlined.

Identity, self and motivation: Steps towards an integrative approach

The article proposes a conceptual clarification of the relation between identity and self in which identity is conceived as a field of self-understanding and the self is conceived as a concept of organized motivational directedness. While the self encompasses motivational agency, identity refers to a non-agentic frame of reference for ways of recognizing and understanding oneself. Inhabited by the life-stories we tell, the memories we have and the life-scenarios we imagine, identity is a psycho-social construction. But at the same time, it is also a manifestation of prefigured procedural self-dynamics related to the motivational structures of the self. When identity becomes a life-issue in adolescence, the formational dynamics of the self will provide a more or less healthy base for the ways in which the individual can establish and develop his identity. Though identity is not as such a motivational concept, it can be very motivating for people to act in ways that sustain or confirm their identity. By focusing on the motivational dynamics of the self, this article delimits itself from giving a detailed account of other aspects of the self with relevance for the subject (e.g. the development of self-reflectivity). The content of the article, therefore, should not – in itself – be considered a full-spectrum theory, but rather as building blocks towards a more integrative approach to understanding the relation between identity, self and motivation.

Et subjekt-relationelt grundlag for supervision

Tønnesvang, J. & Kristensen, R. (2004). A subject-relational framework for doing supervision. Nordisk Psykologi, 56, (2) 128–154. The article discusses the possibility of integrating a self-selfobject theoretical understanding with systemic methods in a subject-relational framework for doing supervision. The framework is inspired by Bertelsens (2000) anthropological psychological conceptualisation of psyche and self, and is subject-relational in the sense that it implies a dialectical understanding of subjective and relational aspects of human interaction. Our primary goal is to develop a model that can serve as a theoretical eye-opener for supervisionel practice. As such the article is neither one-sided theoretical nor one-sided practical in character but concerned with the theoretical challenges that are specifically related to the supervisionel relevance of the model. After a short comment on (what we call) profession-related self-understanding as the goal of supervision, the article deals in three main sections with (1) the theoretical logic in the subject-relational model and how this logic establishes principal methodological challenges for a supervisionel practice; (2) the self-selfobject theoretical understanding and the significance of selfobjects in a subject-relational supervision; (3) the relevance of systemic considerations of domains, questioning techniques and positioning for the development of the methodological side of the model. Due to its general theoretical character the article might interest professionals in a broad array of different contexts.