Synopses & Reviews
Agency is a central psychological phenomenon that must be accounted for in any explanatory framework for human action. According to the diverse group of scholars, researchers, and clinicians who have contributed chapters to this book, psychological agency is not a fixed entity that conforms to traditional definitions of free will but an affective, embodied, and relational processing of human experience. Agency is dependent on the biological, social, and cultural contexts that inform and shape who we are. Yet agency also involves the creation of meaning and the capacity for imagining new and different ways of being and acting and cannot be entirely reduced to biology or culture. This generative potential of agency is central to the process of psychotherapy and to psychological change and development. The chapters explore psychological agency in theoretical, clinical and developmental, and social and cultural contexts. Psychological agency is presented as situated within a web of intersecting biophysical and cultural contexts in an ongoing interactive and developmental process. Persons are seen as not only shaped by, but also capable of fashioning and refashioning their contexts in new and meaningful ways. The contributors have all trained in psychology or psychiatry, and many have backgrounds in philosophy; wherever possible they combinetheoretical discussion with clinical case illustration.
Contributors: John Fiscalini, Roger Frie, Jill Gentile, Adelbert H. Jenkins, Elliot L. Jurist, Jack Martin, Arnold Modell, Linda Pollock, Pascal Sauvayre, Jeff Sugarman
Review
"In this fine volume, ably edited and introduced by Roger Frie, ten psychologists and psychoanalysts consider the nature of agency and autonomy in our post -- postmodern age. Without jettisoning valuable insights, they move beyond deconstruction to a more balanced position -- one that puts the self in its place while still giving it its due. This timely book dovetails with current debates about the embodied and embedded nature of the person; it should have a major impact on current theory and practice in both psychology and psychoanalysis."--Louis Sass, author of Madness and Modernism and The Paradoxes of Delusion The MIT Press
Review
"This is a most impressive and original book: an ambitious, far-reaching enquiry into the psychodynamic conditions of human agency. These essays represent an important contribution to assessing the complex relation of agency to the culture of contemporary psychoanalysis."--Anthony Elliott, Flinders University, Australia and Visiting Research Chair, Open University, UK --Anthony Elliot
Review
"Psychological Agency is a must read. Roger Frie is to be congratulated for producing a strikingly insightful and intelligible volume."--George S. Howard, Professor of Psychology, University of Notre Dame --George Howard
Synopsis
A multidisciplinary exploration of agency as a central psychological phenomenon based on the affective, embodied, and relational processing of human experience.
Agency is a central psychological phenomenon that must be accounted for in any explanatory framework for human action. According to the diverse group of scholars, researchers, and clinicians who have contributed chapters to this book, psychological agency is not a fixed entity that conforms to traditional definitions of free will but an affective, embodied, and relational processing of human experience. Agency is dependent on the biological, social, and cultural contexts that inform and shape who we are. Yet agency also involves the creation of meaning and the capacity for imagining new and different ways of being and acting and cannot be entirely reduced to biology or culture. This generative potential of agency is central to the process of psychotherapy and to psychological change and development. The chapters explore psychological agency in theoretical, clinical and developmental, and social and cultural contexts. Psychological agency is presented as situated within a web of intersecting biophysical and cultural contexts in an ongoing interactive and developmental process. Persons are seen as not only shaped by, but also capable of fashioning and refashioning their contexts in new and meaningful ways. The contributors have all trained in psychology or psychiatry, and many have backgrounds in philosophy; wherever possible they combinetheoretical discussion with clinical case illustration.
Contributors: John Fiscalini, Roger Frie, Jill Gentile, Adelbert H. Jenkins, Elliot L. Jurist, Jack Martin, Arnold Modell, Linda Pollock, Pascal Sauvayre, Jeff Sugarman
Synopsis
Agency is a central psychological phenomenon that must be accounted for in any explanatory framework of human action. According to the diverse group of scholars, researchers, and clinicians who have contributed chapters to this book, psychological agency is not a fixed entity that conforms to traditional definitions of free will but an affective, embodied, and relational processing of human experience. Agency is dependent on the biological, social, and cultural contexts that inform and shape who we are. Yet agency also involves the creation of meaning and the capacity for imagining new and different ways of being and acting and cannot be entirely reduced to biology or culture. This generative potential of agency is central to the process of psychotherapy and to psychological change and development.
Synopsis
A multidisciplinary exploration of agency as a central psychological phenomenon based on the affective, embodied, and relational processing of human experience.
About the Author
Sundar Sarukkai, a member of the Leonardo Editorial Board, is a Fellow in the History and Philosophy of Science Unit, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. He received his Ph.D. in Theoretical Particle Physics from Purdue University. Recipient of various fellowships, including the Homi Babha Fellowship and David Ross Fellowship, Sarukkai has been a visiting scholar at MIT and Stanford University and authored the books *Translating the World: Science and Language* (University Press of America, 2002) and the forthcoming *The Philosophy of Symmetry.* Sarukkai publishes and lectures worldwide in science and philosophy journals and conferences and currently serves as a consultant to a project on the relevance of Gandhian thought to contemporary India. He presently holds a PHISPC Fellowship to write a book on Indian philosophy and the philosophy of science.