Facial Allograft Donation: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the Experiences of Family Members.

Facial allograft transplantation can be regarded as a particular and complex type of donation because of its perceptibility and the importance of the face as an identity characteristic. As research on this topic is currently lacking, the objective of this study is to explore the experiences of the family members of the donor in facial allograft donation. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted separately with the donor's family members and analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Six themes were identified: (1) Contrasting facial donation to that of more commonly donated organs; (2) Consenting to facial donation; (3) Expectations towards the recipient of the facial graft; (4) Expectations and consequences of restoration of the donor's face; (5) Relationship with the medical team during the process; and (6) Media attention. The findings of our study help to better support donor families through the facial donation process and to improve facial transplantation procedures.

Positioning in the therapist's inner conversation: a dialogical model based on a grounded theory analysis of therapist reflections.

In recent years, a dialogical perspective has emerged in the family therapy field in which the therapist's inner conversation is conceptualized as a dialogical self. In this study, we analyze the data of a grounded theory study of therapist reflections and we portray the therapist's self as a dynamic multiplicity of inner positions embodied as voices, having dialogical relationships in terms of questions and answers or agreement and disagreement. We propose a descriptive model of the therapist's inner conversation with four positions. In this model, each of the four positions represents a concern of the therapist: attending to the client's process, processing the client's story, focusing on the therapist's own experience, and managing the therapeutic process. Detailed analyses of vignettes of therapist reflections illustrate the model, and implications of this model for training and supervision are considered.

What's on the therapist's mind? A grounded theory analysis of family therapist reflections during individual therapy sessions.

The authors used a videotape-assisted recall procedure to study the content of family therapists' inner conversations during individual sessions with a standardized client. Grounded theory was used to analyze therapists' reflections, resulting in a taxonomy of 282 different codes in a hierarchical tree structure of six levels, organized into four general domains: attending to client process; processing the client's story; focusing on therapists' own experience; and managing the therapeutic process. In addition to providing a descriptive model of therapists' inner conversation, this research led to an appreciation of the wealth of therapists' inner conversation. In particular, the authors found that therapists work hard to create an intersubjective space within which to talk by trying to be in tune with their clients and by using clients as a guide.

Empathic accuracy in adults with a pervasive developmental disorder during an unstructured conversation with a typically developing stranger.

The present paper consists of two parts. In the first part, eleven high-functioning adults with pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) participated and were videotaped with a concealed camera while having an initial conversation with a typically developing stranger. Analyses revealed some significant differences with regard to the dyad members' overt behaviours. Contrary to our main hypothesis, analyses of the covert behaviour revealed that the participants with PDD did not differ from the typically developing participants in the ability to infer the thoughts and feelings of their interaction partner. The second part indicated that the inference ability of both groups was independent of the dyad members' behavioural characteristics and the content of the dyad members' thoughts and feelings. Issues addressed in this paper include the relation of scriptal knowledge to social functioning, and the advantage participants with PDD take from more structured interactions compared with less structured interactions.

STIVID: A VBSCRIPT-based program for adding visual and auditory stimuli on videotapes.

Some psychological experiments require placement of visual and auditory stimuli on predefined frames in a videotape. We introduce STIVID (STImuli on VIDeo) as a method of performing this task STIVID can add images, words, simple shapes, and audio tones to specific frames of existing video files created in AVI format. STIVID is written in Visual Basic and uses VBScripts to modify the AVI files. Three applications of this program are discussed: adding stimuli for reaction time experiments with couples watching a relational conflict, use of distractors in ADHD experiments, and placing eye masks on actors in existing videotapes to manipulate perceptibility of the target's facial expression during the mind-reading process.