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This chapter examines “Proustian jokes” of the kind that gives pause for thought rather than to inflict a wound. Most of the mad beliefs in À la recherche du temps perdu are droll as well as crazy, and have their place in what is often and rightly said of the novel, that, among so many other things, it is also a great comic novel. The chapter considers examples of Proustian jokes that it suggests also reveal some of the key sources and terms of Marcel Proust's own aesthetic: the idioms of philosophical Idealism, the practice of naming one thing as another, the transposition of one order of sensation to another, and the drama of the unfinished or unfinishable sentence. It argues that the target of self-directed humor in the Recherche is not just an empirical self but the category of Self and the risk-laden practices of self-talk.

People split their time between living in the real world of everyday life and the mental world of self-thought that they create in their own minds. This chapter explores the nature of self-awareness, beginning with the question of “who is talking to whom” when people talk to themselves inside their own heads (self-talk). It then examines the negative consequences of living in one's own mind for social interactions, performance on mental and physical tasks, and decision-making. Topics covered include self-preoccupation, choking under pressure, insomnia, sexual problems, and interference with spontaneity, intuition, and flow. The chapter concludes with a discussion of meditation, which has been shown to quiet the self, reduce self-preoccupation, and help people to live more fully in the real world.

This chapter takes a cognitive-behavioral approach to intervention with parents who have physically abused their children. A description of the theoretical basis for such an approach is explored, followed by available empirical support. Behavioral parent training and other cognitive-behavioral techniques — problem-solving, self-talk, and cognitive-re-structuring — are presented and applied to a case example.

Chapter Two delves more deeply into the holistic practice of yoga as it bridges the “conscious mind” and the “feeling body”—two parts of the “self” that are often considered as separate entities, but work holistically to impact well-being. Information on mindfulness, meditation, and pranayama, or the art of breathing, show how mindful movement and attention to the breath enhance focus and impact peak performance. The section on pranayama, or breath work, describes diaphragmatic breathing and the ujjayi breath as well as more advanced breathing techniques that either relax or stimulate body and mind. Basic information is given on yogic concepts such as chakras, bandhas, drishtis, mantras, and mudras to provide a foundation for the use of these techniques with specific populations.

For the development of a democratic self, dialogical relationships between different people and between different positions in the self are paramount. After a review of studies on self-talk, the main part of this chapter is devoted to a comparison of the works of two classic thinkers on dialogue, Mikhail Bakhtin and David Bohm. A third theoretical perspective is depicted in which central elements of the two theorists are combined. This perspective centers around the concept of “generative dialogue” that, as a learning process, has the potential of innovation in the form of new and common meanings without total unification of the different positions. Elaborating on central features of generative dialogue, a distinction is made between consonant and dissonant dialogue, the latter of which is inevitable in a time of globalization and localization in which people are increasingly interdependent and, at the same time, faced with their apparent differences.

After Laura believed in her students’ goodwill, even that of her frequently misbehaving students, she was able to view student misbehavior in the same light that she viewed mistakes in academic learning. Mistakes call for teaching, not punishment. Thus, Laura applied the principles of good teaching to develop her approach to classroom discipline or to respond to misbehavior. She structured the environment to make it manageable, and she tried to provide each student with the scaffolding needed for success. If the student failed, she made adjustments and tried again. She exercised clear authority, but she also worked to respect her students’ need for autonomy. She explicitly taught her students important social and emotional skills, such as how to regulate their emotions and how to guide their own behavior through self-talk.

Self-efficacy theory is one of the most researched topics in sport psychology. This chapter defines self-efficacy and provides an overview of the antecedents and outcomes of strong and weak self-efficacy. An overview of self-efficacy-based research in disability sport is also provided. Correlational work has demonstrated that athletes with strong self-efficacy, relative to athletes with weaker efficacy, have stronger psychological skills, less anxiety, more positive affect, and less negative affect and receive more social support from significant others. Imagery and self-talk are also related to self-efficacy providing theoretical support for these two antecedents. Athletes with strong training self-efficacy also tend to have strong performance self-efficacy. Research examining self-efficacy for pain management and the challenges of training is advocated as well as longitudinal research and intervention work. Similarly, work examining disability and disability sport–specific antecedents and outcomes of efficacy is called for, as is research into coach, team, and referee self-efficacy.

Athletes with disabilities can perform more consistently and come closer to their potential if they maximize their mental skills as well as their physical skills. The purpose of this chapter is to present of humanistic developmental model of psychological skills training and an examination of disability sport psychology research on psychological skills. A humanistic developmental model prioritizes both athlete performance and well-being as they are viewed as complementary goals that exert a bidirectional influence on each other. In this model foundational factors, psychological skills and qualities, psychological methods, and facilitative and debilitative factors are seen as relatively distinct categories. Researchers have supported the importance of foundational factors, as reported in other chapters. Researchers have also supported the value of imagery and self-talk as methods to enhance confidence, motivation, and psychological skills, which in turn are positively related to performance. A host of facilitative and debilitative factors in disability sport also influence training quality and performance.

Laura made her students’ lives in the classroom as positive as she could by creating a classroom community that met her students’ needs for autonomy, belonging, and competence. She helped them become aware that they were in the process of composing not only their current, but also their future, lives. Through the study of biographies and the opportunity to meet and interview successful members of their community, she provided models of possible future lives. She taught the academic, social, emotional, and moral understandings her students would need to compose happy, productive, and good lives. She nurtured in them the understanding that they are in control of their lives and that they have the capacity to compose successful lives, even in the face of hardship.