Ambiguous Individuality: Georg Simmel on the “Who” and the “What” of the Individual

The essay discusses the philosopher and sociologist Georg Simmel’s theorizing about the individual. Whereas it is typically within the context of the modern metropolis and the mature money economy that Simmel’s ideas have been discussed in the secondary literature, I render those ideas in another light by addressing the ontological and existential issues crucial to his conception of the individual. In Simmel, the individual is divided between the “what” and the “who,” between the qualities which make one something individual and one’s non-repeatable and finite existence which makes one someone singular. I argue that whereas the first dimension can be understood sociologically, in terms of social relations, the latter is not accessible to sociology as such, but must be treated philosophically. Therefore, if we wish to address this duality that lies at the heart of individuality, a “philosophical turn” for sociology is called for.

The Dignity of Creating: The Patient's Contribution to the “Reachable Enough” Analyst

Through the defining power of words, the phrase “difficult-to-reach” patient reflects the extent to which the analyst inverts the patient's will to change and makes the analyst the subjective agent of treatment progress. If making a constructive contribution to another person's life engenders a sense of creative agency, the traditional dichotomies of analyst/helper who gives and an empty patient who receives may not be useful. I trace the evolution of a 23-year-long psychotherapy from a parent–child dynamic through to more uncertain relational terrain in order to illustrate how the analyst's own evolution may have clashed with the patient's ambivalence toward change and endings. I raise questions of how the dignity of making a creative contribution to the “reachable enough” analyst's life may enable the patient to work through gratitude, attain a sense of belonging, and terminate with good conscience.     

The Ego and the Yid,Revisited: Commentary on Daniel Gaztambide’s “A Preferential Option for the Repressed: Psychoanalysis Through the Eyes of Liberation Theology”

In this commentary on Daniel Gaztambide’s “A Preferential Option for the Repressed: Psychoanalysis Through the Eyes of Liberation Theology” we discuss the Ego and the Y(id) to emphasize the otherness of the unconscious. In the idiom of racial anti-Semitism, the Y(id) was the personification of the feminine, the infantile, the irrational, the perverse, the primitive, and of “Blackness.” Gaztambide rightly refers to psychoanalysis’s marginal and progressive origins and to the role of Freud’s own racial identity as a Jew in producing that marginality. However, we caution against Gaztambide’s metaphorical equation of psychoanalysis and prophecy, and contend that psychoanalysis is at its best when it occupies a position of thirdness, critiquing both from within and without.     

On the Usefulness of “Value” in the Definition of Creativity: A Commentary

From the mid-1950s to the present time, creativity researchers have typically adopted the view that any new piece of work must be statistically novel as well as non-trivially valuable to some group of people if it is to be considered creative. A few scholars have suggested that a new piece of work must also be surprising, non-obvious, or interesting if it is to be considered truly creative. The utility of these traditional definitions of creativity has recently been sharply questioned in an article published in a previous volume of this journal (Weisberg, 2015). The commentary presented here took issue with a suggestion presented in that article that creativity researchers replace their traditional definitions of creativity with a simpler definition according to which any statistically novel and intentionally generated product is considered creative “regardless of whether it is ever of value to anyone” and with a logically related suggestion that the creativity of any intentionally-generated product be assessed purely in terms of its statistical novelty (Weisberg, 2015). After carefully evaluating both of these suggestions on conceptual and practical grounds, it was recommended that creativity researchers not follow either suggestion.     

On True Friendship and on the Anthropological Relevance of Freud’s The Future of an Illusion

In this response article to Isabelle Noth and Christoph Morgenthaler’s text on the correspondence between Sigmund Freud and Oskar Pfister, the author reflects on two issues: first, Freud’s theoretical ideas on friendship and, second, his essay The Future of an Illusion as a text in which Freud abandons his general theoretical starting point, namely the analysis of the human condition, normality, and cultural and religious phenomena from the perspective of clinical anthropology.     

Traversing the Ineffable: Commentary on Sharon Farber’s “Becoming a Telepathic Tuning Fork”

In this commentary I attempt to refine our definition of telepathy, questioning whether phenomena such as projective identification, dissociative processes, unconscious affective communication, and implicit relational knowing warrant equal classification. Should projective processes be distinguished from “telepathic” transmissions? I propose a continuum of mutual receptivity along which sensory and non-sensory-based forms of human empathic responsiveness might be positioned. This continuum will extend all the way to telepathic communications that defy material-based, Newtonian models of mind, since they occur between patient and therapist while situated in separate geographical locations.     

On “The private life of the psychotherapist” and the psychology of caring

This paper is an extended book review of The private life of the psychotherapist by James Guy, an associate professor of psychology at Biola University. This review discusses the joys, stresses and realities of being a therapist. After an overview of joining, remaining in, and retiring from the profession, the next sections deal with the relation between the core skills of psychotherapy as a generic form and the psychological consequences that they are likely to produce.     

“Drive On”: The Relationship Between Psychological Variables and Effective Squad Leadership

The U.S. Reserve Officer Training Program (ROTC) conducts systematic assessments of cadets’ leadership abilities during field training exercises (FTX) to assess their leadership abilities. While cadets in ROTC programs learn specific tactical operation procedures to augment FTX performances, much less is known about the relationship between psychological variables and squad leadership performance. To this end, 220 cadets completed self-efficacy, psychological flexibility, and grit questionnaires, which were then compared to FTX performance scores. Results underscored that only self-efficacy was significantly related to cadets’ squad leadership ability. Furthermore, prior service in the U.S. Army had no effect on the performance score one attained, highlighting an interesting paradox. Therefore, while self-efficacy can be cultivated through prior experiences, it seems more prudent to educate ROTC cadets on how to apply psychological skills to bolster self-efficacy in preparation for upcoming challenging leadership experiences.     

Commentary on Allan Kellehear's “Near-death experiences and the pursuit of the ideal society”

Allan Kellehear's article raised four questions for me: (1) whether the near-death experience (NDE) presents enough data about the nature of a transcendent society for it to be a useful model for earthly societies; (2) the degree to which transcendent societies have to address the practical considerations of a material society; (3) whether NDEs are projections of experiencers' cultural concepts about the nature of the transcendent realm(s); and (4) the kind of hope offered by the growing awareness of the features of Western NDEs. I address these questions by referring to transcendent realm concepts and NDEs in the anthropological literature, particularly that of the North American Indian Prophet Movement.     

The Shaping Influence of Film and Television on the Spirituality and Identity of Children and Adolescents: an educational response—part 3

This is the third in a series of articles in this journal which considers the shaping influence of film and television on children's spirituality (Rossiter, 1996, 1997). All three are framed within a particular conceptual scheme (discussed in detail in part 1) which sets out to promote theorizing (on the part of teachers and others interested in the question) about a range of possible psychological mechanisms through which film and television can have a spiritual and moral influence. The scheme is theoretical and pedagogical in focus; it is not directly concerned with research on causal links between the watching of film and television and children's thinking and behaviour. This article begins by concluding the discussion in part 2 on the potential influence of feature films and television. Then follows an exploration of the possible spiritual influence of television advertising.     

Commentary on “The Negative Transitional Object: Theoretical Elaboration and Clinical Illustration”

This commentary engages with Pauley’s (this issue) clinical case through a brief discussion of the transitional object and a questioning of the author’s new concept the negative transitional object.     

One Need Not Be a House to Be Haunted: On Enactment,Dissociation, and the Dread of “Not-Me”—A Case Study

This paper examines psychic trauma as experience so shockingly strange that it exceeds the threshold for cognitive processing and begins to flood the mind with unintegratable affect that threatens to disorganize the internal template on which one's experience of self-coherence, self-cohesiveness, and self-continuity depends. A detailed clinical vignette illustrates how the unprocessed “not-me” experience held by a dissociated self-state as an affective memory without an autobiographical memory of its traumatic origin “haunts” the self. It remains a ghostly horror even in an otherwise successful psychoanalysis unless a new perceptual reality is created between patient and analyst that alters the narrative structure maintaining the dissociation as though the past were still a present danger. The analyst's making optimal use of dissociative processes in an intersubjective and interpersonal context enables the patient more readily to self-regulate affect in those areas of implicit memory where trauma has left its mark; the dissociated ghosts of “not-me” are thus persuaded, little-by-little, to cease their haunting and participate more and more actively and openly as self-reflective, self-expressive parts of “me.”