| 1. |
- Hoffart, Asle, 1952-, et al.
(author)
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Do general therapy change principles represent causal relationships?
- 2014
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In: Journal of psychotherapy integration. - : American Psychological Association (APA). - 1053-0479 .- 1573-3696. ; 24:4, s. 280-283
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In his reply to our critique of the idea to integrate psychotherapies on the basis of general therapy change principles (TCPs), Goldfried (2014) maintains that these principles represent causal connections. In this comment, we argue that attributing a causal status to the TCPs involves seeing them as latent constructs, which is associated with a number of conceptual problems. A causal network analysis of observable symptoms, targets of change, and procedures, explained within a causal schema, appears to be a viable alternative. We further argue that the TCPs seem to represent something we know about humans by being human. Denial of these principles makes no sense. Thus, they lack the hallmark of empirical propositions that their denial is logically possible. Consequently, the TCPs cannot be refuted by experience.
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| 2. |
- Hoffart, Asle, 1952-, et al.
(author)
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Psychotherapy integration through general therapy change principles : Missing the core of psychotherapy?
- 2014
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In: Journal of psychotherapy integration. - : American Psychological Association (APA). - 1053-0479 .- 1573-3696. ; 24:4, s. 263-274
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- It has been proposed to integrate psychotherapies on the basis of general therapy change principles (TCPs). In this theoretical study, the authors analyzed the concept of psychotherapy and evaluated the TCPs' integrative approach from the position of this concept. The authors found that the TCPs' conceptualization is largely inconsistent with the concept of psychotherapy and contains assumptions that either raise conceptual issues or do not appear to fit with clinical evidence. In contrast to what is asserted or implied in the TCPs' approach, the abstract nature of the change principles means that they do not denote causal relationships, are not empirically testable, and cannot serve as a useful guide for clinical action. Moreover, the embeddedness of therapy procedures in causal schemas makes the assumption that therapists can master a multitude of procedures from different therapies unrealistic. Also against the assumptions of the TCPs' approach, the total effect of therapy is probably not the sum of the effects of the procedures and procedures and rationales from different therapies cannot be combined. Overall, the issues of the TCPs' integrative approach seem to stem from the omission of the essential feature of psychotherapy: to operate according to causal schemas of psychological phenomena. The authors argue that a focus on differences between therapies instead of common principles may lead to important assimilative integrations.
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| 3. |
- Hoffart, Amund Rake, 1988-
(author)
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An abundance of metaphors
- 2020
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In: Does Knowledge Have a Gender?. - Örebro : Örebro University. - 9789187789366 - 9789187789373 ; , s. 310-312
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Hoffart, Amund Rake, 1988-
(author)
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Developing feminist intersectionality theory and the aim of theorising from experience : Some reflections
- 2018
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- I found in Professor Lois McNay’s keynote abstract an optimism on behalf of feminist theories and their potential to retrieve a more direct connection to the experiences of (gender) injustice that are, arguably, the basis of any kind of feminist thinking or political action. At the core of this vision is the reminder that critical theories, for them to meaningfully be called critical, must aim to “theorise from experience”: to attend to and analyse real-life negative experiences of – depending on your theoretical framework – confusion, suffering, injury, injustice, misrecognition, oppression or marginalisation. The hope for recovery presupposes, of course, an antecedent loss. It suggests a development of critical theory in a direction where the dynamics between theory and real-life practices have started to function in a problematic way. If the raison d’être of critical theories is their “rootedness in a critical unmasking of oppression”, then the move away from paying careful attention to experiences of oppression becomes an internal flaw, something that can be subjected to a form of immanent critique.Working on a PhD project on feminist intersectionality theories, I have seen how a similar problematic dynamic of theory and practice plays out in one of the dominant strands of feminist theory and activist practice today: the field of intersectionality studies. My contribution to the exploring of the potentials and challenges of McNay’s vision will therefore be to reflect on the aim of theorising from experience in light of some examples from my ongoing research on feminist intersectionality theory. What I am particularly interested in exploring here is the effects of the position that intersectionality theory has as, on the one hand, being for or on behalf of marginalised or oppressed subjects, in the sense that intersectionality theories are aiming to provide tools for understanding these subjects’ experiences of marginalisation or oppression; and, on the other hand, intersectionality’s status as, arguably, the paradigmatic approach to the analysis of both identity formation and oppressive societal structures in contemporary feminist theoretical and political discourse. What happens when a theoretical formation that has an explicit goal of theorising from marginalised subjects’ experience becomes paradigmatic?
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| 7. |
- Hoffart, Amund Rake, 1988-
(author)
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Feminist boundary-drawing : Intersectional theory and the case of additive analysis
- 2016
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In: Gränser, mobilitet och mobilisering. - Göteborg : Nationella sekretariatet för genusforskning. ; , s. 114-114
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Ever since Elizabeth V. Spelman wrote about the detrimental effects of ”additive analysis ” in Inessential Woman (1988), the term has been circulating in feminist theoretical discourse as something to be avoided. The reluctance on the part of feminist theorists to engage in additive forms of theoretical analyses seems to have some obvious explanations. First, in the literature following up on Spelman’s critique, it is typically associated with mechanisms of exclusion and false universalism. Second, additive approaches are widely considered to be unintersectional; intersectional theories are positioned in opposition to additive ways of conceptualizing the relationship between social categories. With the growing influence of intersectionality within feminist theory during the last 25 years, additive approaches are therefore viewed with an increasing degree of suspicion.This paper will analyze the objections raised against additive forms of analysis in feminist intersectional theory. First, I will focus on questions like: What counts as an additive analysis? Exactly what is considered objectionable about it, that is, on what grounds do the objections rest? Then I will go on to discuss what these objections can tell us about the more general theoretical climate for conceptual boundarydrawing in feminist theory. What assumptions about adequate and defensible ways of drawing conceptual boundaries underpin the critiques of additive analyses?
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| 8. |
- Hoffart, Amund Rake, 1988-
(author)
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Feministisk etikk og privilegerte ståsteder
- 2013
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In: Filosofisk supplement. - : Studenttidsskriftet Filosofisk supplement. - 0809-8220. ; :4, s. 12-19
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)
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| 9. |
- Hoffart, Amund Rake, 1988-
(author)
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Interpreting Intersectionality : Interpretative Politics in Metacommentaries
- 2023
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Book (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Against the backdrop of the emergence of intersectionality as a dominant paradigm in feminist scholarship and activism, this book explores the genre of metacommentaries as critical responses to the development of intersectionality as a paradigm. With attention to the dispersal of intersectionality into ever-newer contexts – and the missteps and breakdowns that occur during this process – it addresses the concern that intersectionality is transforming into something unrecognisable, drifting too far away from its foundational sources and visions and becoming diluted by its expansion. Examining the process by which metacommentaries engage in a form of corrective storytelling – seeking to rescue intersectionality from misuse by pinning it down and returning it to where it belongs – Interpreting Intersectionality presents a critique of these gestures of correction, arguing that, far from reconnecting intersectionality with its roots and enabling it to realise its potential, such metacommentaries actually bind the scholarly discourse on intersectionality to an either/or argumentative dynamic. It will therefore appeal to scholars and students with an interest in feminist theory, gender studies and/or intersectional analysis.
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| 10. |
- Hoffart, Amund Rake, 1988-
(author)
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Intersectional intersectionality? Interpretative politics in metacommentaries on intersectionality
- 2021
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The claim that intersectionality has become a dominant paradigm for feminist scholarship and activism constitutes the backdrop to this study. One central arena for making such claims is the genre of metacommentaries on intersectionality. This genre often responds critically to the development of intersectionality into a paradigm and focuses on how the dispersal of intersectionality into ever-new contexts carries with it a series of missteps and breakdowns. The paradigmatisation of intersectionality is seen as problematic: its successes lead to failures; its popularity to a loss of radical edge; its travels to uprooting. This critique instigates a form of storytelling that attempts to bring intersectionality back to where it belongs. In this study, three responses to the paradigmatisation of intersectionality are identified. All work to pin it down and shape it as a proper object: to define its meanings, connect with its roots and realise its potential. These responses are read as themselves contributing to paradigmatisation, positioning the genre of metacommentaries as both “against” and as an important part of this process.This thesis develops a critique of the gestures of correction inherent in the metacommentary responses. A central finding is that the construction of a proper form of intersectionality is contrasted against an improper other, known as “additivity”, a way of conceptualising the relationship between social categories as separate and independent, making it possible to add them to each other. More importantly, additivity serves as a conceptual placeholder for a long list of methodological no-go areas, such as essentialism, exclusion and binary thinking. Thus, in the metacommentaries, a starkly oppositional relationship is constructed: through making additivity into a pejorative, intersectionality becomes an imperative. A paradoxical effect of overstating this binary is that it reinforces the very theory/practice gap that is singled out as causing missteps and breakdowns in intersectional scholarship. Instead of struggling to resolve the problem of additivity at a metatheoretical level, it is suggested that we need to dissolve the exceptionalism that guides the corrective impulse and to acknowledge our collective implication in additive modes of thought.
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