Becoming a transdisciplinary practitioner: Paradigms and potlatches
Item
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Title
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Becoming a transdisciplinary practitioner: Paradigms and potlatches
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:11c3655bdcda:11183
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identifier
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11565
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Creator
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Kahn, Richard,
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Contributor
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Irwin Epstein
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Date
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2012
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Social psychology | Educational psychology | Allied Health Professions | Early Intervention | Narrative | Nursing | Transdisciplinary
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Abstract
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The goal of the dissertation is to show how biomedically trained allied health professionals, nurses and a physician learned how to integrate psychological paradigms into their biomedical practice paradigms to become transdisciplinary practitioners. Semi-structured recorded interviews were held with 14 graduates of the Infant-Parent Study Center of the Jewish Board of Family and Children Services (IPSC). The interviews were conducted using a constructivist approach. The responses were organized into a narrative. A new definition of transdisciplinarity had to be created in order to describe the learning process. Prior to enrolling in the IPSC, the respondents had conscious and unconscious drives to practice clinical psychology which led to professional isolation, some training in psychology, mentors and peak experiences about integrating mind and body. Respondents first felt alienated by the specialized psychological knowledge and discourse of the teachers and the majority of students. They kept silent until they discovered that they possessed specialized knowledge needed by the mental health workers. Peak experiences related to training occurred. After graduating, the respondents felt part of a practice community. They acquired the ability to think in two epistemological, physical and psychological, to understand and treat complex clinical problems. Graduates also became organizational change agents in line practice, universities and social service systems. Peak experiences appear to have ceased upon realization of psychologized practice. The learning process entails creating a dual paradigm mindset that concurrently accommodates biomedical and psychological epistemologies rather than a single transdisciplinary viewpoint as anticipated by the IPSC. The learning process at the IPSC can be compared to a First Nation Haida potlatch exchange ritual. Biomedical practitioners being trained in clinical psychology need support in crossing the epistemological divide that separates biomedical from psychological practice. The transition will be faster if; 1: trainers encourage biomedically trained to students to value their own professional experience before taking on the new information thought process; and, 2) tell students from biomedical professions that mental health professionals use a contrasting practice paradigm.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Social Welfare
