"Public on the outside, private on the inside": the organizational hybridization, sense of belonging and identity strategies of the employees of a public unemployment insurance fund in Switzerland

A number of studies show that New Public Management reforms have altered the current identity benchmarks of public officials, particularly by hybridizing values or management practices. However, existing studies have largely glossed over the sense of belonging of officials when their organization straddles the concerns of public service and private enterprise, so that the boundary between public and private sector is blurred. The purpose of this article is precisely to explore this sense of belonging in the context of organizational hybridization. It does so by drawing on the results of research conducted among the employees of a public unemployment insurance fund in Switzerland. On the one hand, the analysis shows how much their markers of belonging are hybrid, multiple and constructed in negative terms (with regard to the State), while indicating that the working practices of the employees point to an identity that is nevertheless closely bound with the public sector. On the other hand, the analysis shows that the organization plays strategically with its State status, by exploiting either its private or public identity in line with the needs related to its external image. The article concludes with a discussion of the results highlighting the strategic functionality of the hybrid identity of the actors.

Effects of motive-oriented therapeutic relationship in a ten-session general psychiatric treatment of borderline personality disorder: a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Motive-oriented therapeutic relationship (MOTR) was postulated to be a particularly helpful therapeutic ingredient in the early treatment phase of patients with personality disorders, in particular with borderline personality disorder (BPD). The present randomized controlled study using an add-on design is the first study to test this assumption in a 10-session general psychiatric treatment with patients presenting with BPD on symptom reduction and therapeutic alliance. Methods: A total of 85 patients were randomized. They were either allocated to a manual-based short variant of the general psychiatric management (GPM) treatment (in 10 sessions) or to the same treatment where MOTR was deliberately added to the treatment. Treatment attrition and integrity analyses yielded satisfactory results. Results: The results of the intent-to-treat analyses suggested a global efficacy of MOTR, in the sense of an additional reduction of general problems, i.e. symptoms, interpersonal and social problems (F1, 73 = 7.25, p < 0.05). However, they also showed that MOTR did not yield an additional reduction of specific borderline symptoms. It was also shown that a stronger therapeutic alliance, as assessed by the therapist, developed in MOTR treatments compared to GPM (Z55 = 0.99, p < 0.04). Conclusions: These results suggest that adding MOTR to psychiatric and psychotherapeutic treatments of BPD is promising. Moreover, the findings shed additional light on the perspective of shortening treatments for patients presenting with BPD. © 2014 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Institutional legacies, employment and professional integration of non EU/EEA doctors in France

Internationally, policies for attracting highly-skilled migrants have become the guidelines mainly used by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Governments are implementing specific procedures to capture and facilitate their mobility. However, all professions are not equal when it comes to welcoming highly-skilled migrants. The medical profession, as a protective market, is one of these. Taking the case of non-EU/EEA doctors in France, this paper shows that the medical profession defined as the closed labour market, remains the most controversial in terms of professional integration of migrants, protectionist barriers to migrant competition and challenge of medical shortage. Based on the path-dependency approach, this paper argues that non-EU/EEA doctors' issues in France derive from a complex historical process of interaction between standards settled in the past, particularly the historical power of medical corporatism, the unexpected long-term effects of French hospital reforms of 1958, and budgetary pressures. Theoretically, this paper shows two significant findings. Firstly, the French medical system has undergone a series of transformations unthinkable in the strict sense of a path-dependence approach: an opening of the medical profession to foreign physicians in the context of the Europeanisation of public policy, acceptance of non-EU/EEA doctors in a context of medical shortage and budgetary pressures. Secondly, there is no change of the overall paradigm: significantly, the recruitment policies of non-EU/EEA doctors continue to highlight the imprint of the past and reveal a significant persistence of prejudices. Non-EU/EEA doctors are not considered legitimate doctors even if they have the qualifications of physicians which are legitimate in their country and which can be recognised in other receiving countries.

Self, mémoire épisodique et narration chez l'enfant de 6 à 9 ans

Le self est une notion polysémique qui fait l'objet d'un consensus relatif dans plusieurs domaines, dont la psychologie du développement. Elle rend compte de la faculté de s'éprouver le même au fil du temps et de distinguer le « je » qui regarde du « moi » regardé. C'est le garant d'un sens de soi plus ou moins cohérent au fil du temps, en dépit des changements qui surviennent au cours de la vie. Le self combine des processus de réflexivité et d'intersubjectivité. Nous en avons analysé trois composantes fonctionnelles : la mémoire de travail, la mémoire épisodique et la narration, à partir d'un protocole expérimental témoignant de son ontogenèse chez des enfants de 6 à 9 ans (n=24 répartis en deux groupes de 6‐7 et 8-9 ans). Nous avons créé le « jeu informatique du lutin » qui propose un parcours semiorienté dans un monde imaginaire. C'est une narration de soi, opérant la mise en sens des temporalités et des espaces auxquels les événements se réfèrent. Deux semaines après cette « aventure », on recueille la narration des souvenirs épisodiques de cette histoire. Nous avons également utilisé un test de mémoire de travail visuospatiale non verbale. Des différences développementales affectent les dimensions narratives de la mémoire de l'épisode du jeu, comme l'efficacité de la mémoire de travail visuospatiale. Ces développements témoignent d'une augmentation de « l'épaisseur temporelle de la conscience» entre 6 et 9 ans. L'épaisseur de la conscience renvoie fondamentalement à la faculté du self de vivre le temps dans une cyclicité incluant le passé, le présent et le futur anticipé. Le développment observé élargit les possibilités de mettre en lien des mémoires et des scénarios futurs, tout comme les mises en sens des relations aux autres et à soi-­même. Self is a polysemic concept of common use in various scientific fields, among which developmental psychology. It accounts for the capacity to maintain the conviction to be « oneself », always the same through circumstances and throughout my life. This important function contributes in maintaining coherence and some sorte of Ariadne's thread in memory. To analyse the ontogeny of the self, we have focused upon three components : working memory, episodic memory and narration in children aged between 6 and 9 years. We used a non verbal working memory task. It was completed by a video game specially designed for our purpose, in which children were engaged in moving an elf in a landscape changing through seasons, in order to deliver a princess from a mischievous wizard. Two weeks after the game, the children had to tell what happened while they moved the elf. It is a self-narrative that creates a link‐up of temporality and spaces to which the events refer. The narrated episode was assessed for its coherence and continuity dimensions. Developmental differences affect the narrative dimensions of the memory of the episode of the game, as the effectiveness of visuospatial working memory. These developments show an increase in "temporal thickness of consciousness" between 6 and 9 years. The thickness of consciousness basically refers to the ability of the self to live in a cyclical time including past, present and anticipated future. The observed development broadens the possibilities to link memories and future scenarios, like setting sense of relations with others and with oneself.