The Uncanny Self in Love: Divorced Catholic Women Remember Abortion in Romania

This essay presents an ethnographic account of two divorced Catholic women's memories of praying to the Virgin Mary while seeking illegal abortions under the Romanian socialist regime. These women's stories focused on troubling memories of being in love, reflections that were retrospectively shaped by divorce. Drawing on Sigmund Freud's notion of the uncanny, I call these recollections uncanny memories of the self in love. Uncannily remembering one's self in love combines experiential self‐examination and ethical assessment of actions. The notion of the uncanny self in love thus helps bridge the divide between experience‐ and action‐oriented approaches to lived ethics. I argue that the ethical significance of the Virgin Mary's actions depended on my acquaintances’ approach to love. For one woman seeking to stay estranged from her ex‐husband, the Virgin Mary's actions accentuated his ethical immaturity. My other acquaintance harbored more ambivalent feelings toward her ex‐husband; for her, talking about the Virgin Mary helped her relativize feelings of ethical indignation. As a core implication of this argument, I urge greater awareness of the problematic tendency to include the need for greater awareness of tendencies in theories of lived ethics to reify socially situated perspectives on love.     

A World of Systems: The Role of Systemic Patterns of Experience in the Therapeutic Process

This article underscores and expands on a contextualist, complexity theory perspective in conceptualizing the organization of personal, subjective experience and the therapeutic process. It emphasizes that one's personal, lived experience originates and continues to evolve from within a relational matrix, with affect as its primary currency, and reevaluates what, exactly, is being analyzed and potentially transformed in the clinical setting. An extension of intersubjective systems theory, this article focuses on two complementary themes: the concept of the interpenetration of multiple worlds of experience and the idea of systemically derived organizing principles. These ideas enhance our understanding of the positive transformation of subjective experience and expand our perspectives about therapeutic change in psychoanalysis.     

Psychiatric pain and deliberate suffering

In public opinion and in medical practice the suffering of psychiatric patients is often considered self‐induced. Freudian psychoanalysis embraced this notion but managed to reconcile it with the pleasure principle only by positing an instinctual craving for death, to which Freud reduced instances of deliberate and repetitive suffering. In a simultaneous but separate line of thought, he also reduced all habits, including self‐destructive ones, to masturbation and all inhibitions of constructive drives to inhibitions of masturbation. This article explores this seeming paradox.

The transition from a paranoid‐schizoid position to a depressive one begins with the dawning assumption of ownership of certain aspects of one's being, with the correlative attribution of other aspects to the world outside the self. Inevitable errors in this process create tensions that may be discharged by suffering, either by atonement or by assuming ownership of the pain that one's dependency might otherwise inflict on one's objects. Eros serves Thanatos to preserve self‐ownership. Pragmatically, owning one's fate can feel more important than enjoying it, a fact the author dubs the “Principle of Ownership”; and illustrates with a number of literary and clinical vignettes.

The idea that psychiatric suffering is self‐induced contributes to the stigma that so commonly attends it. Ironically, this same idea makes psychological treatment possible: if painful adjustments replace relationships, then new relationships may have the power to correct them.     

Exploring the social side of self‐compassion: Relations with empathy and outgroup attitudes

Self‐compassion is a disposition involving compassionate attitudes toward the self when facing difficulties. We argued that specific self‐compassion components might influence indicators of openness to others, such as empathy and outgroup attitudes. We hypothesized that the component called common humanity versus isolation, involving the acknowledgement that one's sufferings are shared with all the other humans, would be positively related to the other‐oriented aspects of empathy, perspective taking and empathic concern, and to improved outgroup attitudes. We also hypothesized that the mindfulness versus over‐identification component, i.e., having a balanced view of one's situation avoiding exaggerations, would be associated with lowered personal distress. In three studies, with three independent samples, we regressed empathy and outgroup attitudes on self‐compassion components, while controlling for concurrent predictors such as self‐construal and attachment styles. Results supported our hypotheses, suggesting that improvements in empathy and outgroup attitudes may be fostered by positive individual dispositions.     

Self psychology and projective identification—whither shall they meet? a reply to the editors (1995)

The concept of projective identification continues to be viewed as alien, even dangerous, by self psychologists. Six aspects of self‐psychology/intersubjectivity theory are explored in an attempt to understand the presumed incompatibility of self psychology and projective identification: 1) the empathic vantage point; 2) the focus on subjective reality; 3) the emphasis on the analyst's personal contribution; 4) the focus on selfobject experience; 5) the disruption—restoration process; and 6) the defining of transference and countertransference as “organizing activity.”; The self‐psychological/intersubjective concepts that come closest to describing the phenomenon of projective identification—that is, empathic immersion, affect resonance, and reciprocal mutual influence—fail to capture at least three of its essential elements 1) the patient's persistent, unconscious intent to communicate certain unformulated aspects of self through the other; 2) the analyst's sense of being “taken over”; by the patient's experience; and 3) the intensely visceral quality of the analyst's experience. It is argued that self psychology ignores this important form of patient communication to its own detriment and that the concept of projective identification needs to be reformulated in terms that are more experience near to self psychologists. It is suggested that there exists a normal, developmental need, a selfobject need, to communicate intolerable, unsymbolized affective experience through the other's experience—a need that remains more pervasive and intense in some of us than in others—and that the longed‐for selfobject response is to have one's communication received, contained, and given back in such a way that one knows the other has “gotten”; it from the inside out.     

Radical Moral Imagination: Courage,Hope, and Articulation

This paper develops the basis for a new account of radical moral imagination, understood as the transformation of moral understandings through creative response to the sensed inadequacy of one's moral concepts or morally significant appraisals of lived experience. Against Miranda Fricker, I argue that this kind of transition from moral perplexity to increased moral insight is not primarily a matter of the “top‐down” use of concepts. Against Susan Babbitt, I argue that it is not primarily a matter of “bottom‐up” intuitive responsiveness to experience. Beyond courage and hope, radical moral imagination involves the articulation of inchoate experience, which allows individuals to make new kinds of moral moves and to lay claim to others' acknowledgment of the meaning of these moves.     

Living Politically: An Irigarayan Notion of Agency as a Way of Life

This paper formulates Luce Irigaray's notion of agency as a political way of life. I argue that agency, within an Irigarayan framework, is both the outcome and the condition of a political life, aimed at creating political transformations. As Irigaray hardly addresses the topic of agency per se, I suggest understanding Irigaray's textual style as implying specific “technologies of self” in the Foucauldian sense, that is, as self‐applied social practices that reshape social reality, one's relations to oneself, and enhance one's freedom and pleasures in these relations. This interpretation aims to extract concrete transformative practices, which, by shaping one's sense of self in relation to others, create oneself as a free and active subject.     

SELF‐FORGIVENESS AND FORGIVENESS

If the notion of a victim's forgiveness encounters scepticism in today's world, more so the notion of self‐forgiveness by the offender. However, a failure to forgive oneself, when self‐forgiveness is appropriate, may be detrimental to one's moral and psychological well‐being. Self‐forgiveness is called for when guilt, self‐hatred and shame reach high levels. Further, a third party's assurance that the offence is forgivable may contribute considerably to the completion of the self‐forgiveness process. This article explores the notion of forgiveness of self and compares it with the notion of forgiveness of others. In addition, guilt and shame, right and wrong, repentance and dealing with the consequences of harmful actions are examined in the context of self‐forgiveness.     

Luther's Radical Conception of Faith: God,Christ, and Personhood in a Post‐Metaphysical Age

Luther's exposition of Paul's letter to the Galatians offers a premier window into a deconstruction of the tandem God, ego and symbolic order of the law by proposing a radical “technology of the self,” a new understanding of what it means to be a person in light of God's own becoming in the flesh—a new subjective perspective. This places the event of belief as a displacement of a socially and ecclesiastically constructed ego‐consciousness and the emergence of a new (social) center of subjectivity—Christ consciousness, that is, faith. For Luther the “person” emerges as a radical break with the self‐referentiality of the ego and through the perspectival assimilation of God's own subjective experience in the flesh.     

The construction of emotional experience: State‐related emotional awareness and its application to psychotherapy research and practice

The cognitive–developmental theory of ‘levels of emotional awareness’ (LEA) addresses an individual's capacity to experience and express emotion, a capacity highly relevant to psychotherapy. Previous papers on LEA and psychotherapy addressed the aspect of LEA theory pertaining to the ‘trait’ (i.e. enduring) aspects of an individual's emotional functioning over time. LEA theory also applies to the construction of emotional experience at any given moment, in which levels emerge or disappear in a process of microgenetic construction as a function of arousal and other variables. This state‐related perspective is supported by recent research showing that people vary in their LEA from moment to moment. Momentary changes in LEA correspond to the variations in lived experience that occur in relationships, including the therapy relationship, and provide the context for corrective emotional experiences that promote change. In this paper, the construction of emotional experience at different levels of organisation is discussed separately in relation to clients and therapists. Key phenomena relevant to psychotherapy include the transition from bodily sensations to specific differentiated emotional feelings, the ability to be aware of multiple feelings that may be contradictory or counter‐intuitive, and the appreciation of how complex combinations of feelings may differ in self and other. This perspective adds to the literature on how the integration of emotion and cognition contributes to change in psychotherapy. The clinical and research implications of this perspective are discussed.     

Kierkegaard,Repetition and Ethical Constancy

How can a person forge a stable ethical identity over time? On one view, ethical constancy means reapplying the same moral rules. On a rival view, it means continually adapting to one's ethical context in a way that allows one to be recognized as the same practical agent. Focusing on his thinking about repetition, I show how Kierkegaard offers a critical perspective on both these views. From this perspective, neither view can do justice to our vulnerability to certain kinds of crisis, in which our ethical self‐understanding is radically undermined. I further examine his alternative account of ethical constancy, by clarifying Kierkegaard's idea of a ‘second ethics’, as addressed to those who feel ethically powerless and as requiring an ongoing process of self‐transformation.     

No‐self,real self,ignorance and self‐deception: Does self‐deception require a self?

In this paper I dispute Eliot Deutsch's claim [See Deutsch, Eliot (1996) Self‐deception: a comparative study, in: Roger T. Ames and Wimal Dissanayake (Eds) Self and Deception: a cross‐cultural enquiry (Albany, State University of New York Press), pp. 315–326] that examining self‐deception from the perspective of non‐Western traditions (i.e. how it is understood in those cultures) can help us to better understand the nature of the phenomenon in one's own culture. Although the claim appears to be uncontrover‐sial and perhaps even self‐evident, I shall argue that it is fundamentally mistaken. What is important about both the claim and my critical assessment of it is not what it tells us about self‐deception. I shall show that it tells us little about self‐deception; that Deutsch confuses ignorance with self‐deception; and that he straightforwardly equivocates on the concept. Instead, what is interesting is what Deutsch's treatment of self‐deception in comparative perspective can tell us about comparative philosophy. The significance of what follows in this paper is less about self‐deception than it is about comparative philosophy.     

Simulation and Understanding Other Minds

There is much disagreement about how extensive a role theoretical mind‐reading, behavior‐reading, and simulation each have and need to have in our knowing and understanding other minds, and how each method is implemented in the brain, but less discussion of the epistemological question what it is about the products of these methods that makes them count as knowledge or understanding. This question has become especially salient recently as some have the intuition that mirror neurons can bring understanding of another's action despite involving no higher‐order processing, whereas most epistemologists writing about understanding think that it requires reflective access to one's grounds, which is closer to the intuitions of other commenters on mirror neurons. I offer a definition of what it is that makes something understanding that is compelling independently of the context of cognition of other minds, and use it to show two things: 1) that theoretical mind‐reading and simulation bring understanding in virtue of the same epistemic feature, and 2) why the kind of motor representation without propositional attitudes that is done by mirror neurons is sufficient for action understanding. I further suggest that more attention should be paid to the potential disadvantages of a simulative method of knowing. Though it can be more efficient in some cases, it can also bring vulnerability, wear and tear on one's personal equipment, and unintended mimicry.     

Saudi therapists' lived experience of self-awareness

Self-awareness and self-reflection in psychotherapeutic processes have been critical components for effective counselling and psychotherapy. However, little qualitative research in Saudi Arabia has been conducted that aims to explore the therapist's subjective experiences of the self in their professional work. Therefore, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the therapist's self-awareness within psychotherapy, by focusing on the therapist's lived experience of self-awareness and exploring how therapists recognise themselves as an integral component of the therapeutic relationship. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six experienced and accredited psychologists with at least three years of clinical experience, and the qualitative data were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Five superordinate themes emerged from the data; that is, development of the professional self, use of self, self-oriented, supervision and experience. This study provides an understanding of the therapist's self in psychotherapy, as it shows that self-awareness is important for therapists to manage their feelings, thoughts and behaviours in meeting with clients and that it is a valuable resource for a therapist to become aware of and reflect upon the process within oneself. This understanding is integrated into the training programmes in counselling psychology, especially in the areas of self-awareness and personal development.     

Goodness Beyond Speech

The article addresses Raimond Gaita's attempt to construe the ethical in terms of a notion of speech that is tied to presence (each of us, he holds, is called to become someone ‘authentically present in speech and deed’ ( Gaita 1991 , p. 145)), a notion through which he articulates a sense both of human uniqueness – speech demands that one find one's own words – and of human fellowship: to find one's words is to achieve the depth that enables one to be taken seriously by others. The article argues, however, that the notion of speech is caught in a double bind; for it requires a spontaneity that is incompatible with the self‐presence that it also requires. In a way that Gaita cannot acknowledge, goodness is beyond speech.     

Augustine and education in critical thinking

Augustine's concept of the deep self provides a basis for a complex and many‐faceted account of critical thinking. He uncovers the moral sources of thinking in the inner depths of the self and shows that critical thinking presupposes radical self‐reflection ready to face the truth about oneself. Self‐knowledge assumes transparency, consciousness of the corrupt desires and prejudices that distort one's thinking. Unresolved guilt endangers transparency and thereby makes it difficult to become aware of the vices distorting one's perspective on reality. That is why human beings need divine grace that gives them the courage to face their corruption.

For Augustine, the problem of critical thinking is part of a larger problem about how the human self and identity are formed, which factors influence the process, and how a person comes to know herself. Augustine writes an open account of his life in order to clarify this problem. His intention is to make sense of the nature of his self by thinking carefully who he is and how he became who he is.

Augustine seeks to find an answer to this question both philosophically and autobiographically, by analysing the factors that influenced the formation of his own identity and the development of his self‐knowledge and by reflecting philosophically on the nature of these influences. Reason is one essential part of the human soul. Since God has given reason to human beings, it must have a purpose. Augustine seeks to clarify this purpose by reflecting on fundamental epistemological questions: What is knowledge and where does it come from? What is the relationship of human reason to knowledge? How can one reach ultimate knowledge?

According to Augustine, human reason and perception have been formed to acquire knowledge about reality. If God had not made human reason and perception fitting for their task, knowledge would be completely unattainable. Since God has made human reason capable of acquiring reliable knowledge, reason has an important task in the spiritual development of human beings. It is especially useful when trying to make clear conceptual distinctions.

Reason does not, however, function independently of the will and the emotions. For reason to acquire a reliable grasp on reality and to understand things properly, the human heart must love the truth, the good and the right sufficiently to face its own prejudices and to gain self‐knowledge.

Critical thinking has, therefore, certain crucial preconditions, according to Augustine. The aim of this article is to clarify the structure of these preconditions. (1) In order to think critically, one has to distinguish between how reality appears to one and how it is in fact. (2) There is a close connection between willing and thinking, between one's deepest desires and one's view on reality. (3) One cannot distinguish reality from appearances unless one realizes how corrupt desires and prejudices distort one's perspective on reality. (4) In order to be able to face one's evil desires and become conscious of their distorting influence, one needs the courage to face one's depravity. Such a courage presupposes God's grace and his promise of forgiveness, since without divine grace human beings try to cover up the truth about themselves and remain unconscious of the distorting influence of their evil desires. (5) One needs a source of light that enlightens the deep recesses of the self and shows it in the true light but is yet external to the human being and independent of him. (6) This source of inner light has to be of a personal nature to provide the learner with the possibility of inner dialogue. Augustine assumes that God is the inner teacher of every human being. A crucial factor in the development of critical thinking is that one becomes more dialogically engaged with the inner teacher.     

Self‐judgment and reputation monitoring as a function of the fundamental dimensions,temporal perspective,and culture

Social acceptance and the development of one's competencies and status are fundamental aspects of the human experience, but the former (communion) should take precedence over the latter (agency) in self‐judgment. Study 1 results indicated that (i) people across two cultures judged themselves as possessing higher communion than agency characteristics; (ii) communion self‐judgments were more consistent across temporal perspective; and (iii) level of self‐enhancement across cultures was similar for communion but different for agency. In Study 2, people across culture reported being more troubled and demonstrated a greater desire to repair their reputation when they imagined others perceived them as lacking in communion compared with agency. These findings support the idea that social life pressures people to view themselves as possessing communion traits and to ensure that others have this perception as well. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Humanistic psychologists decline to be guests in the medical household

Abstract

It is theorized that affirmation of the self by another makes it possible for the self to know itself, be the author of its own discourse, genuinely listen to another, move toward another as in empathy, as well as experience having another person live within one's self. Affirmation, moreover, allows one to distinguish between the self and sources of self‐satisfaction, and take responsibility for another, thereby preventing premeditated violent acts, which it is argued, are the product of dis‐affirmations of the self. The birth of affirmation, it is postulated, derives from the gaze of the other, the domain, as Levinas stated, of concrete existence. It is here that a person is granted his or her right, simply, to be.