Multiscalar Temporality in Human Behaviour: A Case Study of Constraint Interdependence in Psychotherapy

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Juan M. Loaiza¹  Sarah B. Trasmundi²  Sune V. Steffensen² 

[1] United Kingdom;Centre for Human Interactivity, Department of Language and Communication, University of Southern Denmark;Danish Institute for Advanced Study;Center for Ecolinguistics, South China Agricultural University;College of International Studies, Southwest University

关键词: time scale;    temporality;    constraint closure;    psychotherapy;    enactive approach;    ecological psychology;    distributed language;    cognitive ethnography;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01685

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Ecological psychology (EP) and the enactive approach (EA) may benefit from a more focused view of lived temporality and the underlying temporal multiscalar nature of human living. We propose multiscalar temporality (MT) as a framework that complements EP and EA, and moves beyond their current conceptualisation of timescales and inter-scale relationships in organism-environment dynamical systems. MT brings into focus the wide ranging and meshwork-like interdependencies at play in human living and the questions concerning how agents are intimately entangled in such meshworks, utilising them as resources for skilful living. We develop a conceptual toolkit that highlights temporality: Firstly, we address lived temporality. We use a case study from psychotherapy to show how a person’s skilful engagement with the world is best described as adaptive harnessing of interdependencies of constraints residing across a wide range of timescales. We call this skill time-ranging. Secondly, the case study provides a proof of concept of the integration of an idiographic approach to human conversing and a more general theory of emergent organisation rooted in theoretical biology. We introduce the existing concept of constraint closure from theoretical biology and scale it up to human interactivity. The detailed conceptualisation of constraint interdependencies constitutes the backbone of the proposal. Thirdly, we present a heuristic mapping of what we call organising frames. The mapping guides the conceptualisation of the emergence of inter-scale relationships and serves as an epistemic tool that brings together nomothetic and idiographic approaches. Finally, we combine new ideas with re-interpretations of existing EP and EA concepts and elaborate on the need of a fresh new look at the implicit and sometimes missing conceptualisations of temporality in the EP and EA literature.

【 授权许可】

CC BY