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Gavin Miller

Bio: Gavin Miller is an academic researcher from University of Glasgow. The author has contributed to research in topics: Psychoanalytic theory & Narrative. The author has an hindex of 10, co-authored 55 publications receiving 266 citations. Previous affiliations of Gavin Miller include Manchester Metropolitan University & University of Edinburgh.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The ambition to rationally preserve a Christian religious inheritance distinctively informs Scottish psychoanalytic ideas, and is exported to New Zealand, where it is promoted by the New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists.
Abstract: The ambition to rationally preserve a Christian religious inheritance distinctively informs Scottish psychoanalytic ideas. Scottish psychoanalysis presents the human personality as born into communion with others. The aim of therapy is to restore, preserve, and promote genuinely interpersonal relations. The Scottish psychoanalysis apparent in the work of W. R. D. Fairbairn, Ian Suttie, Hugh Crichton-Miller, and in the philosophy of John Macmurray, is exported to New Zealand, where it is promoted by the New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists. Scottish psychoanalytic ideas also remain effective in post-war Britain: the idea of communion appears in dialogue with other theories in the work of Harry Guntrip, John Macquarrie, R. D. Laing, and Aaron Esterson.

31 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A theological recontextualization of The Divided Self illuminates continuities in Laing's own work, and also indicates his relationship to a wider British context, such as the work of the `clinical theologian' Frank Lake.
Abstract: The radical psychiatrist R D Laing's first book, The Divided Self (1960), is informed by the work of Christian thinkers on scriptural interpretation — an intellectual genealogy apparent in Laing's comparison of Karl Jaspers's symptomatology with the theological tradition of `form criticism' Rudolf Bultmann's theology, which was being enthusiastically promoted in 1950s Scotland, is particularly influential upon Laing It furnishes him with the notion that schizophrenic speech expresses existential truths as if they were statements about the physical and organic world It also provides him with a model of the schizoid position as a form of modern-day Stoicism Such theological recontextualization of The Divided Self illuminates continuities in Laing's own work, and also indicates his relationship to a wider British context, such as the work of the `clinical theologian' Frank Lake

20 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Research on science fiction within the medical humanities should articulate interpretative frameworks that do justice to medical themes within the genre, which means challenging modes of reading that encourage unduly narrow accounts of science fiction.
Abstract: Research on science fiction within the medical humanities should articulate interpretative frameworks that do justice to medical themes within the genre. This means challenging modes of reading that encourage unduly narrow accounts of science fiction. Admittedly, science studies has moved away from reading science fiction as a variety of scientific popularisation and instead understands science fiction as an intervention in the technoscientific imaginary that calls for investment in particular scientific enterprises, including various biomedical technologies. However, this mode of reading neglects science fiction's critical relationship to the construction of 'the future' in the present: the ways in which science fiction proposes concrete alternatives to hegemonic narratives of medical progress and fosters critical self-awareness of the contingent activity which gives 'the future' substance in the here-and-now. Moreover, the future orientation of science fiction should not distract from the function of medical science fiction as 'cognitive estrangement': the technological innovations that dominate science-fiction narratives are less concrete predictions and more generic devices that explain in historical time the origins of a marvellous world bearing provocative correspondences to our own, everyday reality. The editorial concludes with a series of introductions to the articles comprising the special issue, covering the print edition and a special online-only section.

19 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Contrasting elements in R.D. Laing’s psychiatry can be traced to two kinds of Christian theology: mystical theology and corporate theology.
Abstract: Contrasting elements in R.D. Laing’s psychiatry can be traced to two kinds of Christian theology: mystical theology and corporate theology. On one hand, Laing’s mystical theology combined with psychoanalytic theory, to provide a New Age psychotherapeutic account of the recovery of authentic selfhood via metanoia. On the other, his incarnational, corporate theology promoted social inclusion of the mentally ill, particularly via therapeutic communities. For Laing, as for other post-war British Christians, a turn inwards, to mysticism and the sacralization of the self, and a turn outwards, to social and political activism, were ways of negotiating with the decline of traditional Christianity.

16 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article evaluates one important strand of such appraisal: that in which the dissemination of Western mental health expertise is disparaged as a form of cultural imperialism.
Abstract: The contemporary agenda for global mental health has met with sustained criticism from some commentators. This article evaluates one important strand of such appraisal: that in which the dissemination of Western mental health expertise is disparaged as a form of cultural imperialism. Derek Summerfield has vigorously criticised the contemporary global mental health agenda—a manifesto exemplified by WHO's 2008 document mhGAP , an ‘action programme developed for countries especially with low and lower middle incomes for scaling up services for mental, neurological, and substance use disorders’.1 The programme proposes interventions designed to close various ‘treatment gaps’ between high income countries and low or middle income countries (LMICs). mhGAP cites, for example, a survey showing that around 80% of people with serious mental, neurological and substance abuse disorders in so-called ‘less-developed countries’ had received no treatment in the previous 12 months, set against a proportion of ‘35–50%’ for the same group in ‘developed countries’ (p. 7).1 Summerfield stringently criticises this kind of manifesto, arguing that such ‘psychiatric universalism risks being imperialistic’.2 Scaling up psychiatric services to close the presumed gap in mental health provision extinguishes local ways of expressing and dealing with distress, replacing them with particularly Western ways: ‘in globalising Western mental health, we are globalising a contemporary Western way of being a person’ (p. 5).2 In a similar vein, Ethan Watters objects to the spread of Western psychiatric models: Americans have been industriously exporting their ideas about mental illness. … they've failed to foresee the full impact of these efforts. It turns out that how a people in a culture think about mental illnesses—how they categorize and prioritize the symptoms, attempt to heal them, and set expectations for their course and outcome—influences the diseases themselves. In teaching the rest of the world to think, they have been, …

14 citations


Cited by
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01 Jan 1964
TL;DR: In this paper, the notion of a collective unconscious was introduced as a theory of remembering in social psychology, and a study of remembering as a study in Social Psychology was carried out.
Abstract: Part I. Experimental Studies: 2. Experiment in psychology 3. Experiments on perceiving III Experiments on imaging 4-8. Experiments on remembering: (a) The method of description (b) The method of repeated reproduction (c) The method of picture writing (d) The method of serial reproduction (e) The method of serial reproduction picture material 9. Perceiving, recognizing, remembering 10. A theory of remembering 11. Images and their functions 12. Meaning Part II. Remembering as a Study in Social Psychology: 13. Social psychology 14. Social psychology and the matter of recall 15. Social psychology and the manner of recall 16. Conventionalism 17. The notion of a collective unconscious 18. The basis of social recall 19. A summary and some conclusions.

5,690 citations

01 Jan 2005
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate the evidence for a spiritual revolution in the UK and USA and find that the claim is not supported by evidence from the British Church and the Church of England.
Abstract: List of Plates.Preface.Introduction.1. Distinguishing Religion and Spirituality: Findings from Kendal.2. Testing the Spiritual Revolution Claim in Kendal.3. Evidence for a Spiritual Revolution: Britain and USA.4. Bringing the Sacred to Life: Explaining Secularization and Sacralization.5. Looking to the Future.Appendices.References.Index.

714 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Bruno Bettelheim perceives an underlying continuity in his work, maintaining that the familiar fairy tale is, in fact, an art form, delineating the ultimate goal of child and man alike, a life with meaning.
Abstract: Bruno Bettelheim has spent his lifetime working on behalf of children and their secure upbringing. Having survived two concentration camps, he came to the United States and created a new therapeutic environment to help psychotic children survive their illnesses. He has frequently written about that experience; now he turns to a seemingly different subject, the fairy tale. He perceives an underlying continuity in his work, maintaining that the familiar fairy tale is, in fact, an art form, delineating the ultimate goal of child and man alike, a life with meaning. He indicates why other children's stories fail to attain this goal, and at the same time, why fairy tales themselves have fallen into disuse. In discussing their virtues, the author employs his extensive clinical experience, his engaging style, and, of course, the fairy tales themselves. Psychoanalytic assumptions constitute the organizing principle of his book, its consistency, and its occasional shortcomings;

492 citations