Some thoughts about psychoanalysis and cinema

Abstract

This article approaches the pleasures of the cinema through a discussion of the conditions of cinema going and the place of the cinema in twentieth-century culture. It links them to the history of cinema and to the debates about art and psychoanalysis. It introduces the centrality of parallels between the cinema and dreaming and the importance of sexuality for the cinema. It suggests that discussion about the psychic mechanisms elicited by film going is a productive way of thinking about the cinema.     

Some thoughts about thought disturbance in adolescence

One of the principal aims of adolescence is the development of the capacity to think for oneself. The authors explore the difficulties caused by disturbances of thinking in borderline adolescents, pointing out the role that the analyst can take in promoting better functioning of their patients' mental processes. Two cases are explored, one through a supervision and the other through direct clinical experience. Both illustrate the efforts of the analyst to carry out 'management in the area of thinking' with those borderline patients who have not received help from their parents to think, and still need to be shown how mentation takes place. The authors propose some changes in technique in order to implement this improvement, including sharing with the patient the way in which the analyst thinks about him. Thinking itself can be an important integrating factor for these patients.

Une des tâches principales de l'adolescence est de développer la capacité à penser par soi-même. Les auteurs explorent les difficultés occasionnées par des troubles de la pensée chez des adolescents borderline et soulignent le rôle que peut jouer l'analyste pour favoriser un meilleur fonctionnement des processus psychiques chez ces patients. Deux cas sont étudiés dans cet article ; dans l'un, le matériel est extrait de séances de supervision, dans l'autre, il est tiré directement de la situation thérapeutique. Ces cas mettent en évidence les efforts de l'analyste pour aider le patient à mieux fonder ses processus de pensée ; dans les états limites, le patient bien souvent n'a jamais pu bénéficier de l'aide de ses parents dans ce domaine et devra encore apprendre comment mettre en ?uvre l'idéation. Les auteurs proposent quelques modifications techniques afin de faciliter l'activité mentale chez ce type de patient, visant notamment à lui faire part de la manière dont son analyste pense à lui. La pensée en elle-même peut être un facteur important qui favorise l'intégration psychique chez ces patients.

Uno degli scopi principali dell'adolescenza e' lo sviluppo della capacita' di pensare per se stessi. Le autrici esplorano le difficolta' causate dai disturbi del pensiero in adolescenti borderline, sottolineando il ruolo che l'analista puo' avere nel promuovere un miglior funzionamento dei processi mentali dei loro pazienti. Vengono riportati due casi, uno attraverso l'esperienza di supervisione e l'altro attraverso l'esperienza diretta del lavoro clinico. In entrambi i casi viene illustrato lo sforzo dell'analista di portare avanti il 'management nell'area del pensare' con quei pazienti bordeline che non sono stati aiutati dai loro genitori a pensare, e che ancora hanno bisogno di capire come prende luogo il processo del pensare. Le autrici propongono dei cambiamenti nella tecnica per poter implementare tale miglioramento, compreso il condividere con il paziente il modo in cui l'analista pensa a lui. Il pensare puo' essere di per se' un importante fattore di integrazione per questi pazienti.

Eines der Hauptziele der Adoleszenz ist die Entwicklung der Fähigkeit, für sich selber zu denken. Die Autorinnen betrachten die Schwierigkeiten, die durch Denkstörungen bei Borderline- Jugendlichen verursacht werden, und stellen die Rolle heraus, die Analytiker einnehmen können, um ein besseres Funktionieren der mentalen Prozesse ihrer Patienten zu fördern. Es werden zwei Fälle betrachtet, einer durch Supervision und der andere durch direkte klinische Erfahrung. Beide illustrieren die Bemühungen der Analytikerin, 'Management im Bereich des Denkens' auszuführen mit diesen Borderline-Patienten, die von ihren Eltern keine Unterstützung zu denken erlangt hatten, und denen noch gezeigt werden muss, wie Denkprozesse stattfinden. Die Autorinnen schlagen einige Veränderungen in der Technik vor, um diese Verbesserung zu implementieren, einschliesslich dem, dass man dem Patienten mitteilt, wie die Analytikerin über ihn denkt. Denken selbst kann ein wichtiger integrierender Faktor für diese Patienten sein.     

Some thoughts on the psychoanalytic situation.

This article develops ideas set out in a previous study on the "archaic matrix of the Oedipus complex" versus the fully developed Oedipus complex (their similarities and their differences), applying these to a study of the psychoanalytic situation. The central hypothesis is that there is a correspondence between the psychoanalytic situation and the structure of the mental apparatus. The author supposes that our perception of the world is intimately linked to the primary maternal relationship, to our wish to fuse with the mother once more, and to the accompanying fear such a wish inspires. To deal with this we create enclaves where the regressive wish can be satisfied without fear of ego dissolution. The author suggests that the psychoanalytic situation is one such enclave. She examines its specific features in the light of the structure of the mental apparatus as she defines it.     

Some introductory thoughts

Education must be a central part of the building of Europe: because access to knowledge can overcome the dangers of exclusion, but also because education offers the key to citizenship and thereby to the future of Europe.     

Tracking the construction of episodic future thoughts

The ability to mentally simulate possible futures (episodic future thinking) is of fundamental importance for various aspects of human cognition and behavior, but precisely how humans construct mental representations of future events is still essentially unknown. We suggest that episodic future thoughts consist of transitory patterns of activation over knowledge structures at different levels of specificity, with general knowledge about the personal future (i.e., personal semantic information and anticipated general events) providing a context or frame for retrieving, integrating, and interpreting episodic details. In line with this hypothesis, Study 1 showed that the construction of episodic future thoughts is frequently a protracted generative process in which general personal knowledge is accessed before episodic details. We then explored in more detail the nature of this general personal knowledge and tested the hypothesis that it is mainly organized in terms of personal goals. Study 2 showed that cuing participants with knowledge about personal goals increased the ease of future event production during a fluency task. Study 3 further demonstrated that cuing participants with their personal goals facilitated access to episodic details during the imagination of future events. Taken together, these findings indicate that general personal knowledge and, in particular, knowledge about personal goals plays an important role in the construction of episodic future thoughts.     

Predicting the phenomenology of episodic future thoughts

Recent findings suggest that multiple event properties contribute to shape the phenomenology of episodic future thoughts, but the specific role of each property is not yet fully understood. This study shows that different phenomenological features are predicted by distinct event properties. The vividness of an episodic future thought largely depends on the familiarity of its constitutive elements (i.e., the envisioned location, persons and objects), while the visual perspective adopted is instead related to the temporal distance of the imagined event. Cognitive feelings such as the sense of pre-experiencing the future depend on sensory-perceptual qualities, and are further modulated by the personal importance attributed to the event. These findings suggest that the essence of episodic future thought-the sensation of mentally visiting one's personal future-lies, in part, in the relevance of imagined events with respect to personal goals.     

Some thoughts about a scientist-practitioner approach to assessment training in counselling psychology

Training effective scientist-practitioners has long been an issue of concern in counselling psychology. In a recent paper, Friedlander (1992) developed a useful prototype to foster science-practice integration in a counselling seminar. Drawing on Friedlander's prototype, the question of “how to foster science-practice integration in assessment” is considered. Some assessment reading lists and class exercises designed to illustrate such integration are proposed. These teaching materials are presented: (a) in hopes that they might prove useful for some assessment instruction purposes; and (6) in hopes that they might stimulate further thinking about how to best foster science-practice integration in counselling psychology assessment courses.     

Some thoughts about the function of gaze-avoidance in early infancy: A mother-baby observation

This paper examines the role of gaze-avoidance in early infancy. After a brief review of the literature on the subject, there is a discussion based on an infant observation material. The importance of a meaningful eye-to-eye contact between mother and baby is stressed. The author takes the view that gaze aversion could be seen as a response of the infant to maintain his sense of self when threatened with overwhelming anxiety.