title: Extended identities: The reducibility of non-categorical properties and their bearers

authors: Hubble, Paul

subjects: Extended Mind

abstract: When we take apart big or complicated things—whether events, processes, systems, objects or states—we find smaller or simpler things. Still, some who purport that everything is physical also want to deny that complicated things are sets of simpler things, their relations, and interactions. But that view leads to some confounding puzzles. By contrast, I defend the view that complicated things are nothing over and above simpler things, their relations, and interactions. The latter are all physical and located in space and time, and so are complicated things, like minds and people, and other things defined by what they could or would do. That includes corkscrews and water soluble things. However, the complicated properties of these complicated things show that, very often, these things are either not quite what we think they are, or they are not wholly where we think they are.

Sometimes things aren't what we thought. There is no lumniferous aether or phlogiston. But often, complicated things elude identification with their sets of simpler things, relations and interactions, not because they don't belong in predictively successful models of our world, but because they aren't wholly *where* we tend to look. Their boundaries are wider and untidy. As it happens, our minds are like that, and so are we. Finally, the fact that the extended identity of things like us comes as a surprise means our self-engineering could be more self-aware, and should be more self-reflective.

text: Extended identities: The reducibility of non-categorical properties and their bearers When we take apart big or complicated things—whether events, processes, systems, objects or states—we find smaller or simpler things. Still, some who purport that everything is physical also want to deny that complicated things are sets of simpler things, their relations, and interactions. But that view leads to some confounding puzzles. By contrast, I defend the view that complicated things are nothing over and above simpler things, their relations, and interactions. The latter are all physical and located in space and time, and so are complicated things, like minds and people, and other things defined by what they could or would do. That includes corkscrews and water soluble things. However, the complicated properties of these complicated things show that, very often, these things are either not quite what we think they are, or they are not wholly where we think they are.

Sometimes things aren't what we thought. There is no lumniferous aether or phlogiston. But often, complicated things elude identification with their sets of simpler things, relations and interactions, not because they don't belong in predictively successful models of our world, but because they aren't wholly *where* we tend to look. Their boundaries are wider and untidy. As it happens, our minds are like that, and so are we. Finally, the fact that the extended identity of things like us comes as a surprise means our self-engineering could be more self-aware, and should be more self-reflective.

year: 2020

title: Living with uncertainty: A grounded theory of psychiatric stigma when seeking or maintaining employment

authors: Mackenzie, Hamish Cameron

abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate stigma for people who have experienced psychiatric disorder. Psychiatric stigma can exclude people both from economic roles and from participation in daily community life. Social and psychological reaction models of stigma adequately explain parts of this process but do not provide an integrated account that addresses the unique illness experience of psychiatric disorder. Nor do they provide an experiential account of psychiatric stigma that reflects its unique difference in a valued life situation - employment. 

The 31 Participants had all used psychiatric services and comprised 20 men and 11 women ranging in age from 20-59 years. There were 11 Maori, 18 Pakeha and 2 Pacific Islanders. At the time of this study they were all seeking or maintaining employment. Participants completed multiple open-ended interviews over a two year period. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using Glaser’s method of grounded theory. Constant comparison within and between stigmatising events found most of the variance in Participants’ accounts was captured in the core category of uncertainty (See Table 1).

Uncertainty ruptured possibilities for health, identity, relationships and positive life trajectories. Consequently, Participants faced the task of managing a stigmatised identity by striving to resolve uncertainty. Yet the process of resolving uncertainty and negotiating a stigmatised identity had the ironic effect of creating uncertainty. This was theorised as a mutually interacting and self-generating process of creating-resolving uncertainty (see Table 2).

Utilising a psychiatric service entailed changing from a person to a patient and this was accompanied by a change in social role and personal expectations. Staff monitored their patients for illness. This implicitly trained patients to self-monitor for signs of illness and embedded a medical language to achieve it. Any behaviour or expression was perceived as indicative of their mental health status. When patients tried to become everyday people again, self-monitoring and monitoring by other people suffused any actions with concerns about their mental health.

The impact of this and living an illness-mediated life required the continuous constructing of identity. The need to monitor for illness signs ensured that Participants’ lives became marked by and marked out by their disorder, so everyday performance became a performance of mental health. This entailed a vulnerability and caution in every day life where the haunting prospect of their disorder occurring again intruded into both self-concept and self processes. Life became uncertain and this required a vigil to prospect for ‘mad’ signs and sort everyday perceptions for unreality, inappropriateness and illness related events. This was crucial within the workplace where Participants may or may not have disclosed their psychiatric history to their colleagues. Disclosure was fraught with the uncertainty of whether to display or not to display; to tell or not tell; to let on or not let on; to lie or not lie; and, in each case, to whom, how, what, when and where.

This study developed an innovative theory of psychiatric stigma that integrates the effects of illness experience on self-concept, the experiential demands of participating in employment and the interpersonal and intra-psychic processes Participants employed to resolve psychiatric stigma. Resolving and creating uncertainty explained the task of negotiating a uniquely stigmatised identity and increased understanding of the stigmatisation that could accompany other illnesses or disorders.

The theory can now be used to examine psychiatric stigma in distinct population groupings and to predict its effects in more diverse settings. Future research should aim to develop measures of its dimensions, so that it can be used to distinguish between the stigma experienced by people with psychiatric illness across time and place, among different groups. The effects of variables such as community attitude change and professional intervention could then be investigated. Thus the theory could be used to improve the quality of life for people who experience psychiatric disorder.

text: Living with uncertainty: A grounded theory of psychiatric stigma when seeking or maintaining employment The aim of this study was to investigate stigma for people who have experienced psychiatric disorder. Psychiatric stigma can exclude people both from economic roles and from participation in daily community life. Social and psychological reaction models of stigma adequately explain parts of this process but do not provide an integrated account that addresses the unique illness experience of psychiatric disorder. Nor do they provide an experiential account of psychiatric stigma that reflects its unique difference in a valued life situation - employment. 

The 31 Participants had all used psychiatric services and comprised 20 men and 11 women ranging in age from 20-59 years. There were 11 Maori, 18 Pakeha and 2 Pacific Islanders. At the time of this study they were all seeking or maintaining employment. Participants completed multiple open-ended interviews over a two year period. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using Glaser’s method of grounded theory. Constant comparison within and between stigmatising events found most of the variance in Participants’ accounts was captured in the core category of uncertainty (See Table 1).

Uncertainty ruptured possibilities for health, identity, relationships and positive life trajectories. Consequently, Participants faced the task of managing a stigmatised identity by striving to resolve uncertainty. Yet the process of resolving uncertainty and negotiating a stigmatised identity had the ironic effect of creating uncertainty. This was theorised as a mutually interacting and self-generating process of creating-resolving uncertainty (see Table 2).

Utilising a psychiatric service entailed changing from a person to a patient and this was accompanied by a change in social role and personal expectations. Staff monitored their patients for illness. This implicitly trained patients to self-monitor for signs of illness and embedded a medical language to achieve it. Any behaviour or expression was perceived as indicative of their mental health status. When patients tried to become everyday people again, self-monitoring and monitoring by other people suffused any actions with concerns about their mental health.

The impact of this and living an illness-mediated life required the continuous constructing of identity. The need to monitor for illness signs ensured that Participants’ lives became marked by and marked out by their disorder, so everyday performance became a performance of mental health. This entailed a vulnerability and caution in every day life where the haunting prospect of their disorder occurring again intruded into both self-concept and self processes. Life became uncertain and this required a vigil to prospect for ‘mad’ signs and sort everyday perceptions for unreality, inappropriateness and illness related events. This was crucial within the workplace where Participants may or may not have disclosed their psychiatric history to their colleagues. Disclosure was fraught with the uncertainty of whether to display or not to display; to tell or not tell; to let on or not let on; to lie or not lie; and, in each case, to whom, how, what, when and where.

This study developed an innovative theory of psychiatric stigma that integrates the effects of illness experience on self-concept, the experiential demands of participating in employment and the interpersonal and intra-psychic processes Participants employed to resolve psychiatric stigma. Resolving and creating uncertainty explained the task of negotiating a uniquely stigmatised identity and increased understanding of the stigmatisation that could accompany other illnesses or disorders.

The theory can now be used to examine psychiatric stigma in distinct population groupings and to predict its effects in more diverse settings. Future research should aim to develop measures of its dimensions, so that it can be used to distinguish between the stigma experienced by people with psychiatric illness across time and place, among different groups. The effects of variables such as community attitude change and professional intervention could then be investigated. Thus the theory could be used to improve the quality of life for people who experience psychiatric disorder.

year: 2002

title: Representations of diversity in the revised New Zealand PictureBook Collection

authors: Daly, Nicola

subjects: picturebooks

abstract: Collections of children’s literature are used for a range of reasons including preservation, record keeping, and more recently the encouragement of intercultural understanding. Both the signifi- cance of learning about other cultures and the importance of children seeing themselves reflected in the books that they read have been discussed extensively. In 2010, the New Zealand PictureBook Collection (NZPBC) was developed in order to create a resource that reflected New Zealand national identity. In 2015 the NZPBC was revised and this article presents a visual and textual analysis of the diversity present in the sixty books nomi- nated through the lens of critical multicultural analysis, using four variables. Findings indicate considerable diversity is present in the collection in terms of representations of ethnicity and family; less so for representations of disability and languages.

text: Representations of diversity in the revised New Zealand PictureBook Collection Collections of children’s literature are used for a range of reasons including preservation, record keeping, and more recently the encouragement of intercultural understanding. Both the signifi- cance of learning about other cultures and the importance of children seeing themselves reflected in the books that they read have been discussed extensively. In 2010, the New Zealand PictureBook Collection (NZPBC) was developed in order to create a resource that reflected New Zealand national identity. In 2015 the NZPBC was revised and this article presents a visual and textual analysis of the diversity present in the sixty books nomi- nated through the lens of critical multicultural analysis, using four variables. Findings indicate considerable diversity is present in the collection in terms of representations of ethnicity and family; less so for representations of disability and languages.

year: 2017