Paula Reavey

Women's collective constructions of embodied practices through memory work: Cartesian dualism in memories of sweating and pain

The research presented in this paper uses memory work as a method to explore six womens collective constructions of two embodied practices, sweating and pain. The paper identifies limitations in the ways in which social constructionist research has theorized the relationship between discourse and materiality, and it proposes an approach to the study of embodiment which enjoins, rather than bridges, the discursive and the non-discursive. The paper presents an analysis of 25 memories of sweating and pain which suggests that Cartesian dualism is central to the womens accounts of their experiences. However, such dualism does not operate as a stable organizing principle. Rather, it offers two strategies for the performance of a split between mind and body. The paper traces the ways in which dualism can be both functional and restrictive, and explores the tensions between these two forms. The paper concludes by identifiying opportunities and limitations associated with memory work as a method for studying embodiment.

Painting pictures of embodied experience: the use of nonverbal data production for the study of embodiment

This paper is based upon the work of an ongoing, collective research project that is concerned with embodiment. The co-researchers have used a variety of methods, including memory work and the analysis of discourse, in order to trace the ways in which meanings are constructed and lived, with and through the body. These methods have relied solely on transcripts of text as data. Growing awareness of the limitations this imposed on the research, particularly for topics that focus on bodily experience, led the group to experiment with nonlinguistic forms of data production. Here, the group produced paintings in response to the trigger ‘ageing’. These, together with tape-recorded discussions of one anothers paintings, constitute our data. The analysis generated a number of themes, focused within the concepts of boundaries, time and transformation. These are discussed in terms of methodological, epistemological and theoretical issues that inform our understanding of subjectivity and embodiment.

Researching "experience": Embodiment, methodology, process

In this paper, we explore some of the tensions involved in the process of engaging with embodiment research. Although a significant volume of discursive work on “the body” and its role in social relations now exists, there is little in the way of empirical research that moves the focus away from discourse alone to concentrate on other modalities, such as embodied feelings, sensations, and engagements with the world. We begin by briefly reviewing the turn to embodiment across the social sciences and the manner in which this has been taken up in psychology. We then outline our attempts as a research collective to develop methodologies and research activities that can produce meaningful data on embodied experience. The outcomes of one of these tasks are then described in detail, along with reflections on the difficulties and limitations that emerged. Finally, we attempt to conceptualize the challenge of researching embodiment by returning to the late 19th century psychology of John Dewey, which, we argue, neatly summarizes some of the problems to be addressed by any researchers engaged in the “turn to the body.”

Transforming Past Agency and Action in the Present Time, Social Remembering and Child Sexual Abuse

A weakness of contemporary ‘forensic’ models of memory is their reliance on the belief that ‘a chain of successive memories’ creates a sense of continuity and stability in the self. This literal presentation of memory forecloses an attending to its practical use (in specific contexts and moments in time) and the subsequent ambivalences individuals experience when trying to make sense of past episodes of child sexual abuse. Drawing variously on Haaken, Campbell and Bergson, we use these approaches to call for a reworking of memory by inviting an engagement with its relational, practical and collective qualities. This paper examines these reworkings of the concept of memory and explores issues of social space, the localized contexts of remembering and the manner through which memories transform understandings of agency and action, with specific attention to how the past and present intertwine in regard to managing adult survivor identities.

The Mediating Role of Objects in Recollections of Adult Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse

Recollection of child sexual abuse involves complex issues of agency—both in the past and in the present. Adult women survivors face the further obstacle of ingrained cultural tendencies to question women’s testimony. Ambiguity and ambivalence are found in adult women’s accounts of their past abuse and present particular dilemmas. Drawing on social remembering approaches developed in memory studies, it is argued that recollections have to negotiate issues of incidence and intentionality in the past as well as the potential contribution made by non-human participants (e.g. objects, spaces, bodies). Using examples from interviews with survivors of child sexual abuse, we illustrate how objects (largely domestic objects and spaces) emerge in the memories as a way of posing and subsequently disposing ambiguity. Objects, as well as humans, ‘modify the state of affairs’ (Latour, 2005) and serve as the means to punctualize recollected episodes. An analytic approach sensitive to the role of objects in recollection, which is grounded in material-semiotics, is offered.

RETHINKING AGENCY IN MEMORY: SPACE AND EMBODIMENT IN MEMORIES OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE

Contemporary ‘forensic’ models of memory emphasise the need for continuity and stability in relation to self‐hood and identity and attention can be too readily focussed upon the ‘literal’ and ‘accurate’ recollections of past events. Such concerns, however, neglect the practical uses of remembering in specific contexts and moments in time. Attending to these practical uses of memory can enable a reading of the contradictory positions and ambivalences experienced by individuals aiming to make sense of a complex set of memories of child sexual abuse. Part of the reason these memories are experienced as highly complex is related to the ways in which such memories hold survivors accountable for not only the past, but present sexual actions, where management of choices take place. Drawing on Haakens feminist transformative model of memory and Halbwachs ideas on group membership, we argue for a reworking of remembering by inviting an engagement with its relational, practical and collective qualities. Issues surrounding the organisation of social spaces in negotiating choices and agency, the localised contexts of remembering and the way in which the body is called on to manage these issues will form the basis of the analysis. Specific attention will also be given to how the past and present interrelate with regard to the management of adult survivor identities.

Spatial markings: Memory, agency and child sexual abuse:

In this article, I argue that material locations (spaces) are not simply peripheral to acts of remembering but central to how the ongoing flow of memory and agency is constituted and experienced by individuals in their practice of memorial self-interpretation. This argument, however, can only be accepted when selfhood is treated as a form, a process, as opposed to a determinate substance. Examples from autobiography, psychological research, fiction and film on the topic of child sexual abuse will be used to render visible the ways in which agency within memory is played out across a variety of material locations that leave their mark on memory in particular ways. Furthermore, it is argued that such material locations are always already deeply embedded in a variety of political systems that in turn render subjectivity and agency diverse and multiple.

“He's a good-looking chap aint he?”: Narrative and visualisations of self in body dysmorphic disorder☆

Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) is a condition marked by a distressing preoccupation with an imaginary or minor defect in a facial feature or a localised part of the body. However, the link between such excessive preoccupation and perceptions of self throughout the life course has rarely been examined. The aim of this study was to examine narrative accounts of the self across different life-time periods. Eleven participants diagnosed with BDD in England were recruited from the National Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) clinic and a BDD self-help group. In the context of a semi-structured interview participants presented photographs of themselves across a variety of time periods and drew a self-portrait to prompt memory and generate discussion. Transcribed interviews were analysed using Michele Crossleys (2000) narrative analytic approach. The findings suggest that the majority of participants perceived their past self as excessively attractive. Rather than believing that the alteration of their current appearance would rid them of BDD, participants indicated that a return to their former infantile and pure self that was devoid of blemish, defects and emotional responsibility would provide comfort. These findings indicate that the difficulties associated with appearance are less to do with beauty per se, but are more likely associated with narratives of loss, aging and decline and death.

Transformations of self and sexuality: Psychologically modified experiences in the context of forensic mental health

Forensic mental health inpatients in medium-secure settings have a limited capacity for sexual expression during their stay in hospital. This is due to a number of factors, including a lack of willingness on behalf of staff to engage with sexual issues, as a result of safety fears and ambiguity regarding the ability of the patient to consent. Furthermore, UK forensic medium-secure units do not provide conjugal suites for patients to have sexual relations, with their spouse or other patients. To date, there is no empirical research on how forensic psychiatric patients (or service users) manage their sexuality, while in hospital and when released into the community. Here, we present an analysis of semi-structured interviews with patients at a UK medium forensic unit, in order to explore these issues further. More specifically, we examine how the public exclusion of sexuality from these units results in sexuality being experienced as sectioned off or amputated, such that a new form of sexuality emerges, one that has been cultivated by the psychologically informed practices operating within the unit. This process, we argue, produces a psychologically modified experience, a new form of self-relation that continues to modify when released into the broader ecology of the community.

Common patterns of sense making: A discursive reading of quantitative and interpretative data on sexual boredom

This paper explores the notion of sexual boredom through combining the use of qualitative and quantitative methods. Drawing on ideas from discursive psychology, we provide an interpretative reading of both numerical and textual data obtained via a postal questionnaire. Within the mixed-methods strategy adopted here, the questionnaire is treated as a medium that can deliver interesting material about prevalent linguistic resources, their content and pattern of use, available to romantic partners in making sense of sexual boredom. A total of 144 women and 66 men from the general population completed a set of structured questions, including a Sexual Boredom Scale (SBS; Watt & Ewing, 1996), followed by an open-ended question prompting more elaborated views on the topic. Statistical analysis found gender to explain some of the variation across SBS scores. An interpretative analysis of respondent ratings of disagreement/agreement and the actual meaning content of the scales statements also reveals ranked and gendered regularities. Written responses to the open-ended question were subjected to a thematic analysis, revealing how specific changes to quality of sex, intensity of sexual interest and degree of romantic relatedness with a current partner are used by participants to delineate key dimensions of sexual boredom. Overall, the unfolding narratives of sexual boredom are greatly indebted to a static view of relationship satisfaction founded on wishful expectations for consistent, idealized displays of sexual excitement and interest from oneself and ones partner. The interplay between these understandings and a missing discourse of sexuo-erotic calmness is also considered.