Psychological Agency

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. ContributorsJohn Fiscalini, Roger Frie, Jill Gentile, Adelbert H. Jenkins, Elliot L. Jurist, Jack Martin, Arnold Modell, Linda Pollock, Pascal Sauvayre, Jeff Sugarman

ISBN 0262562316   Pages 272 ISBN13 9780262562317 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher MIT Press Ltd   Weight (grammes) 363 Imprint MIT Press   Published in Cambridge, Mass. Format Paperback   Height (mm) 229 Publication date 18 Nov 2008   Width (mm) 152 Library of Congress 2008017556   Spine width (mm) 11 DEWEY 150   Academic level Professional / Scholarly DEWEY edition DC22

Introduction		The Situated Nature of Psychological Agency by Roger Frie		1
I		Theoretical Contexts		33
1		The Agency of the Self and the Brain's Illusions by Arnold Modell		35
2		Becoming Agents: Hegel, Nietzsche, and Psychoanalysis by Elliot L. Jurist		51
3		Understanding Persons as Relational Agents: The Philosophy of John Macmurray and Its Implications for Psychology by Jeff Sugarman		73
II		Clinical and Developmental Contexts		95
4		Perspectival Selves and Agents: Agency within Sociality by Jack Martin		97
5		Agency and Its Clinical Phenomenology by Jill Gentile		117
6		Agency as Fluid Process: Clinical and Theoretical Considerations by Pascal Sauvayre		137
7		Dimensions of Agency and the Process of Coparticipant Inquiry by John Fiscalini		155
III		Social and Cultural Contexts		175
8		Psychological Agency: A Necessarily Human Concept by Adelbert H. Jenkins		177
9		Sexual Agency in Women: Beyond Romance by Linda Pollock		201
10		Navigating Cultural Contexts: Agency and Biculturalism by Roger Frie		223
		Contributors		241
		Index		243

"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

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