Does John Henry Newman Have a Theo‐Drama?

The essay surveys Newman's work in literary drama, from an early essay on Aristotle's Poetics to his adaptation of Roman comedies for production at the Oratory School, in order to approach his affinities with Hans Urs von Balthasar's theological dramatic theory. Newman does not find a Balthasarian theo‐drama via literary drama – perhaps because he was not properly exposed to medieval religious drama – but scattered dramatic analogies in his history writing suggest that he undertakes a theo‐drama in that genre. Von Balthasar and Newman employ dramatic analogies to reject chiliastic apocalyptic and foster ‘keromatic’ apocalyptic.     

Psychoanalytic reflections on global warming and its relation to human omnipotence and ethical responsibility

Abstract

Global warming – reality or fantasy? Certainly, global warming is a dystopia linked to other catastrophes in human history, such as the Flood and Noah's Ark. Noah's belief in God saved his life and the life of his family. In our time, we need to sustain our belief in the human capacity to cooperate and survive. This is a necessary background when thinking of the future and analysing the border between fantasy and reality, between fear and paranoia, and in the process in which a new worldview takes form.     

The Divine Child

The divine child of this article is not a concrete person, but rather a part of one’s inner self, a part that is with us from birth, but often unknown to us until some later critical moment in life brings it into our awareness, often as an image in a vivid dream or fantasy. This figure can reveal, and bring with it, an amazing energy, and make felt desires never before known to us, which are now pressing for our awareness—and along with this awareness, a need to live an expanded, more conscious life.     

Mental imagery as an emotional amplifier: application to bipolar disorder

Cognitions in the form of mental images have a more powerful impact on emotion than their verbal counterparts. This review synthesizes the cognitive science of imagery and emotion with transdiagnostic clinical research, yielding novel predictions for the basis of emotional volatility in bipolar disorder. Anxiety is extremely common in patients with bipolar disorder and is associated with increased dysfunction and suicidality, yet it is poorly understood and rarely treated. Mental imagery is a neglected aspect of bipolar anxiety although in anxiety disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder and social phobia focusing on imagery has been crucial for the development of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT).In this review we present a cognitive model of imagery and emotion applied to bipolar disorder. Within this model mental imagery amplifies emotion, drawing on Clark's cyclical panic model [(1986). A cognitive approach to panic. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 24, 461–470]. We (1) emphasise imagery's amplification of anxiety (cycle one); (2) suggest that imagery amplifies the defining (hypo-) mania of bipolar disorder (cycle two), whereby the overly positive misinterpretation of triggers leads to mood elevation (escalated by imagery), increasing associated beliefs, goals, and action likelihood (all strengthened by imagery).Imagery suggests a unifying explanation for key unexplained features of bipolar disorder: ubiquitous anxiety, mood instability and creativity. Introducing imagery has novel implications for bipolar treatment innovation - an area where CBT improvements are much-needed.     

Affectivity: Regulation,Identity Formation,and Metaphorical Thought

ABSTRACT

Understanding affects, and their multiple roles in all aspects of the human condition and development, has more and more become a focus of study for contemporary psychoanalysis. Psychodynamic personality theories have always regarded affective life as pivotal to developmental experiences, the evolving structures of the personality, identity formation, and clinical processes. The centrality of emotion in development and affect regulation, as a maturational theme in the adolescent stage, are explored through the views afforded by object relations theory and ego psychology, intersubjectivity, the second separation individuation process, and unconscious metaphorical thought in the dream states of two clients and their therapist.     

Memory for Emotional Content from Entertainment Film: The Role of Subtitles,Sex, and Empathy

A major component of consuming filmed entertainment is vicariously experiencing emotions of the filmed characters, yet little is known about how this occurs. Four experiments assessed memory for emotions felt by characters in extended film clips from either a contemporary farce (Overboard) or a historical drama (Sense and Sensibility) under various conditions of native or foreign language in the dialogue or subtitles. English-speaking participants watched a clip and then assessed on 6-point scales specific positive and negative affect felt by characters at various points during the film. Both positive and negative affect felt by characters in both films were perceived and remembered better in conditions with English sound or subtitles than in conditions with no English channel, although, unexpectedly, spoken dialogue or subtitles alone were equally effective at conveying emotion. Overall, emotion memory from the contemporary farce was better than from the historical drama and was surprisingly good even in conditions with no English, especially for the farce. Conditions with only sound, subtitles, or pictures were very comparable to each other. Participants higher in trait fantasy empathy remembered emotions better. The components of an eventual model of emotional comprehension were sketched.     

Outpatient Group Therapy with Convicted Pedophiles

Abstract

There is ample theory and research about group therapy, dream work, and bereavement as separate subjects. However, there is little written specifically about utilizing dream work in bereavement therapy groups. Using the Foulksian group analytic model, dreams in one particular bereavement group (for parents of children killed in a terrorist action) were interpreted in such a way as to help members access deep unconscious feelings. This helped facilitate a fuller and more complete mourning process. The analytic, dream interpretive activity also helped overcome resistance in the group-as-a-whole and thereby facilitated movement through group development phases.     

Emotional reality: A further contribution to dramatology

This paper is a further contribution to dramatology, introduced in this journal in 2009. It focuses on the two basic modes of communication in any dramatic situation: (1) the nonverbal transfer of feelings and emotions, originating in the preverbal period of the love relationship between mother and child, and (2) the interchange of words and thoughts that develops with the acquisition of language. The early nonverbal mode of communication is the basis for proposing to rename Freud's concept of psychic reality “emotional reality.” On this view, emotional reality is seen as the primary fact of psychological life versus thoughts expressed in words as the derivative fact. Developmentally, emotions and ideas become united in complexes combining the emotional coloration of ideas and the ideational content of emotions. From the perspective of methodology, Freud, his followers, and his critics all conflated theories of disorder and theories of treatment. At the beginning of his journey, Freud was dyadic and interpersonal in formulating a unified theory of disorder and a method of treatment. In later years, he formulated monadic and intrapersonal theories of disorder while remaining interpersonal in his method of treatment, contributing to conflicts among the various psychoanalytic schools.     

Dreams,emotions, and social sharing of dreams

Current life emotional experiences have been demonstrated to elicit a process called social sharing of emotion, consisting of repetitive talking about these experiences in conversations with relevant others. Like many diurnal experiences, dreams are generally loaded with emotional elements, and empirical evidence has suggested that individuals share their dreams with others mainly belonging to the circle of intimates. The present study examined whether the intensity of the emotion experienced in a dream predicts the extent to which this dream is socially shared. The prediction was tested independently for positively valenced and negatively valenced dreams, on two samples of respondents, i.e., Belgians and Italians. Other potential predictors of sharing were considered, including a number of cognitive appraisals and cognitive consequences of emotion. Results confirmed that emotion intensity is the main predictor of social sharing for both negative and positive dreams. In addition, the analysis of dream contents accounted for a high level of emotional intensity associated with respondents’ dreaming. Implications for theory and functions fulfilled by emotion with regard to social interactions are discussed.     

Personality Judgment at Zero Acquaintance: Agreement,Assumed Similarity,and Implicit Simplicity

Measures of frequency of dream recall for 47 Ss and of amount of dreaming for 18 Ss, as determined by the Dement-Kleitman method, were available as part of a larger investigation of the influence of personality factors on dream recall. Rorschach Test indices obtained from these Ss were intercorrelated among themselves and correlated with the appropriate dream variable in order to assess the presumed affinity of dream phenomena and Rorschach response processes. The results were: (1) indices of fantasy predominance correlated positively with both amount of dreaming and frequency of dream recall; (2) indices of associative productivity correlated positively with frequency of dream recall; (3) an index of introspective constriction correlated negatively with frequency of dream recall. Further exploration of this area seems promising.     

AFFECT,SYMPTOM, FANTASY,DREAM: CLINICAL AND THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS

A symptom being studied in the process of analysis can be seen as not unlike the unconscious affect it sprang from. The author presents a case in which a symptom, premature ejaculation, was analogous to the unconscious affect of guilt, which itself seemed to be a premature defensive transformation of a deeper current of anger. Guilt was interpreted as if it were a psychic premature ejaculation, a defensive derailment of anger. Fantasy and dream seemed to be engaged in similar transformations, with a fantasy of “premature incarceration” not unlike the symptom itself in its analogous functioning. Analysis of affect, symptom, fantasy, and dream in complex, integrative analytic process led not only to resolution of the symptom itself, but also to a deeper understanding of the mind's complex functioning in general.     

Is the glass half empty or half full and does it even matter? Cognition,emotion, and psychopathology

ABSTRACT

This contribution examines the outcomes of recent decades of research on the interaction between cognition and emotion and how it has informed our understanding and treatment of emotional disorders with a special focus on depression. The review identifies important challenges to this work including the dynamic nature of cognitive processes and emotional responding, the bidirectional relation of cognition and emotion, the need for new tasks and for studies conducted outside of the laboratory, and the consideration of context such as interpersonal factors. Examining interactions between cognition and emotion and integrating basic research on cognition into the scientific understanding of emotional difficulties in psychopathology has contributed in many ways to what the field currently knows about the origins and the treatment of emotional disorders. Important challenges lie ahead – especially the integration of this work into the development of novel treatment approaches.     

Snake mother imagery in generalised anxiety disorder

Abstract

Symbols psychoanalysis, depth psychology, mythology and religion from a multiplicity of perspectives – there are many guidelines for their interpretation and integration in clinical practice. The present study, based on a Jungian analytic model, incorporated the snake mother as an imaginary symbol in a patient with generalised anxiety disorder and her treatment within a clinical case study. From an integrative symbolism approach, snakes are considered mysterious, with the ability to express the primary instinctual powers and psychic energy that take root beyond the ego strength and archetypal images. Here, with respect to the patient's main complaint and her underlying core conflict according to Jungian therapy and Persian mythology, it was indicated that the snake mother symbolism, an imagery object from childhood to adolescence, originated from both the personal and the collective unconsciousness. The way in which the symbolism of the snake mother came to work in the therapeutic process was similar to a that of dream and symbolism approach. The snake mother operated as an alternative animus in the shape of a caregiving mother, and supported the patient against her father's misbehavior during her early childhood. It could represent the shadow, the reconsolidation of the anima/animus for patient, and a projection of negative thoughts and actions from animal instincts.     

Age,Emotion Regulation Strategies,Temperament, Creative Drama,and Preschoolers' Creativity

Based on Yeh's (2004) Ecological Systems Model of Creativity Development, this study investigated the effects that age, the use of emotion regulation strategies, temperament, and exposure to creative drama instruction have on the development of creativity among preschool children. Participants were 1164‐ to 6‐year‐old preschool children. This study categorized the emotion regulation strategies used by preschool children and developed a creativity test which includes the measurement of usefulness, an indicator of creativity that has, until now, been ignored. The main findings are that (a) 6‐year‐olds outperform 4‐ and 5‐year‐olds in terms of creativity; (b) emotion regulation strategies as well as a positive temperament have positive effects on children's creativity; (c) creative drama instruction contributes to children's creativity; and (d) age group, emotion regulation strategies, temperament, and creative drama instruction can collectively predict children's creativity.     

Effect of Film Velocity on Genre Recognition

Abstract

In this study effects of film velocity on genre recognition were tested. “Happy reunion” film scenes were taken from comic, action, drama, and nonfiction genres. Their speed was varied to result in 3 levels: original velocity, acceleration by one third, and deceleration by one third. Fifty participants judged the fittingness of all scenes in each of the 4 genres. Velocity proved to be an effective parameter in the recognition of the comical and dramatic genres but not of the action and nonfiction genres. As predicted, when a scene belonging to any genre was decelerated, participants judged the scene as belonging more to the dramatic genre (p < .01) and less to the comic genre (p < .01). Acceleration of a scene belonging to any genre increased its comical fittingness (p < .05). The role of prototypicality of scenes in the interaction with velocity turned out to be only modest. In a few cases genre crossings (i.e., confusing a scene's genre with another in recognition) resulted from velocity manipulations of nonprototypical but not prototypical scenes.     

If These Walls Could Talk: Places as Stages for Human Drama

I advance the argument that the construction of identity is dependent on the actor's participation in interpersonal dramas. The narratives that flow from participation in personal or social drama become the anchors that affirm one's claims to identity. Historically, psychologists have given little attention to the places that provide the stages for such action. A dramatic engagement involves not only the act, the actors and their motives, but also the scenes (the places) that provide the backdrop for social life. Observations of the variability in performances attributable to scenes suggests place identity as a significant component of social identity. Accounts of emotional attachments to places support place identity as a useful construction in describing the components of a self. An implication of this analysis is that architects and planners, in their efforts to redesign cities, should take into account the construction that urban places are stages for the enactment of human dramas.     

„Bei den Seepferdchen bekommen die Väter die Kinder“: Verwirrende Realitäten bei der Aufmerksamkeitsdefizit-und-Hyperaktivitäts-Störung

Considering the in-patient diagnostics and treatment of an 11-year-old child with a complex attention disturbance who was treated before in an out-patient setting for many years with methylphenidat and behavioral therapy, we first point out the great variety of attention, cognitive and sensomotorical disorders. Such a comprehensive disorder should rather be considered as a complex neurotical developmental disorder (MCDD – Multiple Complex Development Disorder) and requires treatments in more than one field (psychotherapy, body therapy, training in learning etc.). The individual therapy presented here in detail is based on a developmentally oriented psychodynamic approach involving the latest results of infant, attachment and biomedical research. It is shown how the boy succeeds to develop mechanisms for self-regulation and to experience the therapist as a person who survives his attacks.     

Developmental and dynamic dimensions of hate,rage, and violence

Abstract

Hate may be regarded as a complex affective-cognitive emotion and attitude alloyed with aggression. Hate and aggression have both neurobiological and environmental determinants. Hate may be overt or covert, externalized or internalized, and/or somatized. Persistent recurrent painful and traumatic experiences generate and exacerbate hate and aggression. An amalgam of hate and love is evident in the ambivalence of all self and object relationships and in conscious and unconscious fantasy. In the mature personality, there is a preponderance of love over hate. There may be justified hatred of sociopathic individuals and groups.