Differentiating Ego Functions of Borderline and Narcissistic Personalities

This study investigated differences in ego functions of borderline and narcissistic personality disorders through examining responses to Rorschach structural and content variables. Reality testing, thought process, affective regulation, impulse control, and the defenses of splitting and grandiosity were examined from Rorschach protocols of 50 borderlines and 26 narcissists. The borderlines produced greater distortion in reality testing, p < .05; the narcissists produced more insidious thought process disturbance, p < .05; and higher functioning groups demonstrated greater control of impulses, p < .05. Borderlines in this sample demonstrated more affective constriction than the narcissists and used more splitting, p < .05; narcissists used more grandiosity, p < .05. Implications of this study are (a) ego functions mature inconsistently, (b) affective responsivity influences ego disorganization, and (c) level of functioning and IQ are related to the production of Rorschach variables.     

On Interaction Analysis and Dialogical Perspective: Emergent Patterns of Order and Relational Agency

This essay proposes to contribute with a continuing discussion on Grossen’s paper (2010) establishing a link between the analysis of interactions and dialogical perspective using what I call simplication-for-approaching-complexity (SFAC). This approach conceives of dialogical dynamics as a dynamic system of relationship that construct patterns. Moreover, these emergent patterns allow inferring the features of dialogical partners as relational agencies. The specific characteristics of the relational agency at any moment in dialogue can be inferred from the analysis of the specific pattern of order achieved by the historical development of dialogue. This proposal is illustrated by the analysis of mother-infant interactions.     

How Group Analysis Cures: An Exploration of Narcissistic Rage in Group Treatment

This paper addresses the use of group analysis in treating individuals for whom chronic narcissistic rage is a prominent feature of their character. Such individuals are often especially suspicious of participating in group experiences, as their sensitivity to slight and circumscribed empathy for others often leaves them vulnerable to being attacked and ostracized in groups. Their history often reveals experiences in which they were either the scapegoat of the family or of the playground, often both. Such individuals, however, may also long for inclusion and acceptance, and thus participation in a therapeutic group may be a particularly important part of their continued development. An extended clinical vignette illustrates how such work occurs within a therapeutic group using a self-psychological model. Narcissistic rage as manifested within the group-as-a-whole or groupself is also examined.     

Interaction Analysis and Psychology: A Dialogical Perspective

Interaction analysis is not a prerogative of any discipline in social sciences. It has its own history within each disciplinary field and is related to specific research objects. From the standpoint of psychology, this article first draws upon a distinction between factorial and dialogical conceptions of interaction. It then briefly presents the basis of a dialogical approach in psychology and focuses upon four basic assumptions. Each of them is examined on a theoretical and on a methodological level with a leading question: to what extent is it possible to develop analytical tools that are fully coherent with dialogical assumptions? The conclusion stresses the difficulty of developing methodological tools that are fully consistent with dialogical assumptions and argues that there is an unavoidable tension between accounting for the complexity of an interaction and using methodological tools which necessarily “monologise” this complexity.     

Understanding and Treatment of Narcissistic Personality Disturbances

The author discusses how sexuality on the one hand develops and changes during childhood, but on the other hand, holds onto the old residues of different, earlier phases. In adult sexuality, there always remain enigmatic, regressive, even borderline emotions and feelings from earlier experiences. These residues make sexuality incomprehensible and primitive, but also offer possibilities for dreams, fantasies and creativity later in life. Autoerotic fantasies, object fantasies, enigmatic knowledge, sexuality fantasies and creative thinking are realised via these developmental residues.     

当事人的投入与会谈效果、咨询效果的关系研究

本研究探索了当事人会谈时的投入与即时会谈效果的关系;当事人咨询初期的投入与整体咨询效果的关系。结果发现当事人会谈时的投入与即时会谈效果、在咨询初期的投入与整体咨询效果都呈现显著的正相关。进一步回归分析发现,当事人在咨询初期的投入与整体咨询效果呈现正U型的偏态分布,少数投入水平最低的当事人获得中等水平的咨询效果,中等投入水平的当事人咨询效果最差,投入水平最高的当事人的咨询效果最好。     

Assessing Client Progress Session by Session in the Treatment of Social Anxiety Disorder: The Social Anxiety Session Change Index

Frequent assessment during therapy can improve treatments and provide accountability. However, clinicians often do not monitor progress because of the time it takes to administer and score assessments. In response, the Social Anxiety Session Change Index (SASCI) was developed. The SASCI is a short, easily administered rating of subjective improvement that asks clients with social anxiety disorder how much they have changed since the beginning of therapy. Change on the SASCI was related to change in fear of negative evaluation, a core aspect of social anxiety, and to clinician-rated improvement, but not to ratings of anxiety sensitivity or depression. Because it is brief and easily interpretable, the SASCI can be used in a variety of clinical settings to monitor change across therapy. The SASCI is presented along with examples of how the information gathered from frequent administration can inform clinical practice.     

Exploring Patterns of Relationship Between Trauma Symptomization and Family Constellation: Implications for Working With Trauma Presentations in Systemic Practice

ABSTRACT

This paper presents findings from research investigating trauma symptomization in children with prior trauma experiences from intact families (n = 32) compared with those from non-intact families (n = 32). Using a mixed method approach, a file audit of an Australian child/youth mental health service database was undertaken. Statistical analysis identified a significant relationship (p = < 0.05) of high numbers of trauma symptoms (NTS) for children from non-intact families, and low NTS for children from intact families. This finding indicates that children from intact families manage trauma better in terms of reduced symptomization. Other key patterns of relationship were identified and implications for systemic practice explored.     

Individual and Couple Patterns of Self-views and their Implications for Working with Premarital Couple Relationship Dissatisfaction

A sample of 520 Australian heterosexual couples participating in the PREPARE premarital program completed the multidimensional PREPARE relationship assessment inventory (Olson D. H. Prepare-Enrich Counsellor’s Manual. Brisbane, Australia: Prepare-Enrich, 1996) providing measures of couple relationship satisfaction and individual levels of self-confidence, assertiveness, avoidance, and partner dominance. Multiple regression analyses indicated that, after controlling for idealistic distortion and couple relationship status, high individual male and female self-confidence and assertiveness, and low individual male and female avoidance and partner dominance, were all significant independent predictors of couple satisfaction. Couples in which both partners were high on self-confidence were significantly more satisfied than couples in which one or both of the partners were low on self-confidence. A similar result was evident for couple patterns involving mutually high assertiveness, low avoidance or low partner dominance, relative to couple patterns in which one or both partners were unassertive, highly avoidant or high in partner dominance. These aspects of self-view point to a salient evidence-based intrapersonal and interpersonal context in which to conduct couple therapy.     

Narcissistic configurations: Violence and its absence in treatment

'On narcissism: An introduction' constitutes a turning point in psychoanalysis. Although narcissism is a concept which has not been explicitly referred to by many important thinkers for decades, it could be said that there is no paper written in psychoanalysis since Freud that does not implicitly take into account the modifi cations in thinking that the work brought about. In this paper, the author contrasts two types of narcissistic confi gurations: in the fi rst, the intolerance of the other is dealt with by expulsion and violence; in the second, by withdrawal. The author contrasts patients who express manifest violent behaviour with patients for whom the violent behaviour is absent but who, nevertheless, present similar background histories, which might have led to a prediction of violence. They are also profoundly different in terms of what they provoke in the countertransference. In addition, this paper argues that the treatment of narcissistic personalities has allowed in recent years the understanding of a modality of depression. Following Green, the author argues that, instead of a fruitless debate that involves evolutionary issues around the concept of narcissism, it is necessary to distinguish the narcissistic aspect in any analytic relationship, to identify the narcissistic transference in different types of psychopathologies.     

Liminality in Language Use: Some Thoughts on Interactional Analysis from a Dialogical Perspective

This essay traces my engagement with Michèle Grossen’s ideas of a dialogical perspective on interaction analysis (Grossen Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 1–22, 2009) and highlights a process account of self in interaction. Firstly I draw on Turner’s concept of liminality with respect to the transformative, temporal significance in interaction. Secondly I explored further the conversation analytic concepts such as formulation and reformulation as a viable analytical tool for a dialogical perspective. Lastly, I addressed the issue of interaction in institutional settings, in particular with interactional asymmetries of interaction, whilst relativising the I-position dialogical perspective. I explore insights from social anthropology as well as revisiting conversation analysis and discursive psychology, concluding that a promising direction would be sought through a cross-fertilisation between dialogism and other sibling perspectives concerning language use, communication, social action and discourse- and narrative-based analyses.     

The Shift from Monologue to Dialogue in a Couple Therapy Session: Dialogical Investigation of Change from the Therapists’ Point of View

As part of a larger research project on couple therapy for depression, this qualitative case study examines the nature of dialogue. Drawing on Bakhtinian concepts, the investigation shows how the conversation shifts from a monologue to dialogue. Among the findings are: first, the process of listening is integral to the transforming experience. That is, the careful listening of the therapist can evoke new voices, just as the experience of one of the partners’ “listening in” to the conversation between the other partner and the therapist can create movement and new trajectories. The latter is a qualitative difference between dialogic therapy with a couple and that with an individual. Second, the therapist not only acts as creative listener, but as the dialogue unfolds, actively contributes to meaning‐making. Third, the study upholds having a team of researchers as a polyphonic forum and the usefulness of Bakhtinian concepts in clinical research on dialogue in multi‐actor sessions.     

青少年孤独感与人格五因素的关系:人际关系能力的中介作用

该研究采用小五人格问卷、中学生孤独感问卷和人际关系能力问卷,以784名青少年为被试,考察青少年孤独感的特点及其与人格五因素、人际关系能力的关系。结果发现:(1)青少年的孤独感存在显著的性别差异,男生显著高于女生;(2)在孤独感各维度中,除同伴关系评价与开放性的相关不显著外,其他维度与人格各维度及人际关系能力间均相关显著;(3)人格的情绪性和开放性显著正向预测孤独感,外向性、宜人性和人际关系能力显著负向预测孤独感;(4)在外向性、情绪性及开放性与孤独感的关系中,人际关系能力起部分中介作用,而在宜人性与孤独感的关系中,人际关系能力起完全中介作用。     

Narcissistic defensiveness: Hypervigilance and avoidance of worthlessness

Clinical theories of narcissism postulate the paradoxical coexistence of explicit self-perceptions of grandiosity and covert fragility and worthlessness. To examine the operation and time course of the latter component at a very early stage of information processing, a sequential priming study was conducted. Consistent with predictions high narcissists appear to be hypervigilant for ego-threats; they initially activated worthlessness and then rapidly and automatically inhibited it. In contrast, low narcissists neither activated nor inhibited worthlessness after ego-threat. A second study showed that conscious suppression did not elicit parallel effects among narcissists, thus supporting the idea that the effects in the first study were the result of unconscious repression processes. Differences between intentional and automatic processes in self-regulation are discussed. The findings demonstrate the importance of worthlessness in narcissistic self-regulation and help clarify how narcissists protect and defend their grandiose self-views.     

Organizing Patterns in a Dyad and in a Group: Theoretical and Clinical Implications

This paper describes the importance of group experience in relation to affect regulation for the individual and the group. After surveying work that has significantly influenced the psychoanalytic perspective on the group, the author illustrates how group experience can be a key affect regulator during some developmental phases and can have an important role in development of a person's identity. From an inter-subjective perspective, the author emphasizes how group identity is attained through shared and repeated expectations that regulate the affective life of the group—what he calls group organizing principles. Last, using clinical examples, the author emphasizes the importance of affect regulation and the creation of expectations and group organizing principles in the therapeutic arena.     

Pain and its Metaphors: A Dialogical Approach

Most health professionals are unaware of the extent to which aspects of language, such as metaphor, influence their practice. Sensitivity to metaphor can deepen our understanding of healthcare and, arguably, improve its quality. This is because metaphors, and the linguisticality of which they are a part, shape medical practice in important ways. Examples are the metaphors used in pain management. By exploring the dialogical tension between such metaphors, we can better understand the ways in which they influence medical practice.