A volume in Advances in Cultural Psychology
Series Editor: Jaan Valsiner, Aalborg University
Biographical ruptures and their repairs: Cultural transitions in development represents the efforts of
bridging theoretical, methodological, and practice oriented issues revolving around the notion of
biographical ruptures and their repairs. The aim is to bring novel understandings from cultural
psychological perspectives to the debate of what it means to be a developing human being in an ever
changing world.
Contrary to mainstream psychology ruptures and repairs are here not necessarily understood as a personal
experience, which must be overcome through various coping strategies. Rather, ruptures are understood as experiences, which necessarily emerge out
of the complex interrelatedness of intra-psychological, inter-personal, and societal processes. Moving along these different levels of analysis, each of
the 13 chapters of this book contributes to the general cultural psychological understanding of ruptures from their own particular standpoint. The
notion of ruptures and their repairs are discussed from such differing standpoints such as classical developmental psychological theories and
challenges to such developmental approaches. They are discussed in relation to racial interpellations using the documentary method and social
representations theory. On the object level ruptures are pointed out within popular music videos and from a Ganzheitspsychological approach and
others.
The current book thus does not only represent a conglomerate of various theoretical, methodological, or practice oriented approaches to ruptures and
their repairs, each adding with their own expertise to a better understand of the phenomenon in its whole. It also demonstrated a lively debate between
leading specialists and practitioners from different disciplines and countries. Theoretical and
methodological issues, as well as ethical and moral ones, are each discussed from their own cultural
psychological viewpoint. This book will interest practitioners, scientists and students or anyone who is
interested in biographical rupture and their repairs from a cultural psychological, developmental, social
psychological or psychotherapeutic viewpoint.