‘It's not supposed to be this way’: Psychological aspects of a premature menopause

Background: Premature menopause (menopause diagnosed at 40 years or under) is a challenging condition with no prevention or cure. Causes can be the result of surgical intervention or spontaneous and largely unknown. It affects 1–6% of women aged 14–40. Aim: This study investigated women's experience of diagnosis, perception of cause, treatment received, main concerns, perceived long‐term consequences and impact on psychological wellbeing. Method: A cross‐sectional single group design questionnaire study that included both quantitative and qualitative measures was used. It was distributed to women on the database of two specialist London clinics and an internet‐based patient support group. A thematic analysis was undertaken. Findings: The response rate was 62%. Women's experiences varied but showed common themes regardless of timing of diagnosis and services accessed. Improved understanding by health professionals could help this group accept and adjust to the condition more effectively as could psychological support. Fertility was a primary concern regardless of parity and there were several secondary impacts both physiological and psychological. Discussion: A clear need for the offer of emotional support was indicated for all, but particularly for teenage girls and single women who tended not to access support from their own social network. Conclusion: Young women with this diagnosis could benefit from the offer of counselling, though uptake may be influenced by individual factors and vary according to age and circumstances. A good understanding of the physical aspects of this condition is important in the counselling of this group.     

‘The newspaper reader’: On the meaning of concrete objects in a psychoanalytic treatment1

The author investigates the meaning of concrete objects in the psychoanalytic treatment of a severely disturbed patient for the development of his inner world and the analytic process. She includes a survey of relevant theoretical concepts with an emphasis on Winnicott and Bion. It is shown that the objects served basic defensive functions both within the analytic relationship and for the precarious intrapsychic state of the patient. The author describes the technical dealing that led to a structural change. From the comparison of the initial dream and a later dream, Mr N's inner development from total inclusion in the object to triadic reality of separated, repaired objects becomes discernible. The author shows how this progress was facilitated by his use of concrete objects as links between his psychotic and non‐psychotic parts, as well as by the specifi c way the analyst handled the paradoxical transference‐ countertransference. She also illustrates the thesis that the developmental steps described are crucial for the capability to digest psychic pain by symbolization instead of discharging it in a destructive‐violent way.     

Constructing the truth From ‘Confusion of tongues’ to ‘Constructions in analysis’1

The author hypothesizes that the papers Freud wrote in the period 1934‐9 constitute a fi nal turning point in his work resulting from an attempt to work through, by means of self‐analysis, early traumatic elements reactivated by the conditions of his life in the 1930s. The author emphasizes that the ups and downs of Freud's relationship with Sándor Ferenczi and the mourning which followed his death in 1933 played an important role in this traumatic situation. He suggests that through these last works, Freud pursued a posthumous dialogue with Ferenczi. This working through led Freud, in Moses and monotheism, to an ultimate revision of his theory of trauma, a revision which the author examines in full, in the light of the works of the Egyptologist, Jan Assmann. A new analytical paradigm emerges: that of constructions in analysis developed in the article of the same name. The activity of construction appears as an alternative to the mutual analysis proposed by Ferenczi and is closely bound up with the notion of historical truth. In psychoanalysis, it would mean constructing a historical truth whose anchoring in the material truth of the past is essential, though it should not be confused with it.     

‘Lyin' Ted’, ‘Crooked Hillary’, and ‘Deceptive Donald’: Language of Lies in the 2016 US Presidential Debates

Language in the high‐stakes 2016 US presidential primary campaign was contentious, filled with name‐calling, personal attacks, and insults. Language in debates served at least three political functions: for image making, to imagine potential realities currently not in practice, and to disavow facts. In past research, the reality monitoring (RM) framework has discriminated accurately between truthful and deceptive accounts (~70% classification). Truthful accounts show greater sensory, time and space, and affective information, with little evidence of cognitive operations. An RM algorithm was used with Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software to code candidates' language. RM scores were significantly higher in fact‐checked truth statements than in lies, and debate language in the 2016 primaries was as deceptive as fact‐checked lies. In a binary logistic regression model, one RM criterion, cognitive processes, predicted veracity using computerized RM, classifying 87% of fact‐checked truth statements but only 28% of fact‐checked lie statements (63% classification overall).Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Why not to be a ‘Thomist’: A Critique of the Bañezian Reconciliation of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom

Thomas Osborne has asserted that ‘No one has developed an argument against premotion that works if the distinctions made by the Thomists are granted.' This article attempts to form just such an argument. Specifically, it argues that the Thomistic system – even with the distinctions it relies on having been granted – cannot account for human freedom, at least not in a sense sufficiently strong to sustain human guilt for sin. Further, it argues that the Thomists, by their own clear though tacit admission, acknowledge this insufficiency.     

From ‘Virgin Births’ to ‘Octomom’: Representations of Single Motherhood via Sperm Donation in the UK News

The use of sperm donation by single women has provoked public, professional and political debate. Newspapers serve as a critical means of both broadcasting this debate and effecting a representation of this user group within the public sphere. This study uses the theory of social representations to examine how single motherhood by sperm donation has been represented in the UK news over time. The study sampled news coverage on this topic in eight British newspapers during three 4‐year periods between the years 1988 and 2012. The dataset of news reports (n = 406) was analysed using a qualitative approach. Findings indicated that UK media reports of single women using donor sperm are underpinned by conventional categories of the ‘personal’, the ‘traditional’ and the ‘natural’ that when paired with their corollaries produce a representation of this user group as the social ‘other’. The amount of coverage on this topic over time was found to vary according to the political orientation of different media sources. Using key concepts from social representations theory, this article discusses the relationship between themata and anchoring in the maintenance of representations of the social ‘other’ in mass mediated communication. Findings are explained in relation to theoretical conceptions of the mass media and its position within the public sphere. It is argued that the use of personal narratives in news reports of single mothers by sperm donation may have significant implications for public understandings of this social group. © 2016 The Authors. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

‘You were not born here,so you are classless,you are free!’ Social class and cultural complex in analysis

The unconscious impact of differences in culture and social class is discussed from the perspective of an analyst practising in London whose ‘foreign accent’ prevents patients from placing her within the social stratifications by which they feel confined. Because she is seen by them as an analyst from both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the British psycho‐social fabric and cultural complex, this opens a space in the transference that enables fuller exploration of the impact of the British social class system on patients’ experience of themselves and their world. The paper considers this impact as a trans‐generational trauma of living in a society of sharp socio‐economic divisions based on material property. This is illustrated with the example of a patient who, at the point of moving towards the career to which he aspired, was unable to separate a sense of personal identity from the social class he so desperately wanted to leave behind and walk the long avenue of individuation. The dearth of literature on the subject of class is considered, and the paper concludes that not enough attention is given to class identification in training.     

An English Source of German Romanticism: Herder's Cudworth Inspired Revision of Spinoza from ‘Plastik’ to ‘Kraft’

This examination considers the influence of the seventeenth century Cambridge Platonist Cudworth upon the thought of the late eighteenth century German thinker Herder. It focuses upon Herder's use of Cudworth's philosophy to create a revised version of Spinoza's metaphysics. Both Cudworth and Herder were concerned with the problem of determinism. Cudworth outlined a number of difficulties relating to this problem in the thought of Spinoza and proposed amendments, particularly the introduction of the middle principle of plastik, which would mediate between the Ideas of transcendent reason and mechanical materialism. We find these amendments to Spinoza's philosophy also employed in Herder's contribution to the Pantheism Controversy, in which he too offers a revised Spinozism and introduces his own middle principle of Kraft. This demonstrates an important but under‐explored English contribution to a key development in German intellectual history. The Pantheism Controversy was an epoch‐making event, helping to bring an end to the German Enlightenment and to inaugurate the Romantic movement. Herder's version of Spinoza's thought revived the philosopher's fortunes, and Herder's notion of Kraft became central to Romantic aesthetics. Finally, Herder's use of Cudworth demonstrates the important but overlooked source of Platonic realism in German Romantic thought.     

Direct and indirect influence in the Asch paradigm: Effects of ‘valid’ or ‘denied’ information

In an experiment using the Asch paradigm, a source whose response was ‘denied’ (source younger than subjects, in an experiment context implying the development of visual acuity) was found to have less direct influence than a ‘validated’ source (older or same age as subjects), tending to specialize in a pattern of influence similar to the so-called conversion phenomenon (i.e. direct influence only).     

‘They will not control us’: Ingroup positivity and belief in intergroup conspiracies

This research examined the role of different forms of positive regard for the ingroup in predicting beliefs in intergroup conspiracies. Collective narcissism reflects a belief in ingroup greatness contingent on others’ recognition. We hypothesized that collective narcissism should be especially likely to foster outgroup conspiracy beliefs. Non‐narcissistic ingroup positivity, on the other hand, should predict a weaker tendency to believe in conspiracy theories. In Study 1, the endorsement of conspiratorial explanations of outgroup actions was positively predicted by collective narcissism but negatively by non‐narcissistic ingroup positivity. Study 2 showed that the opposite effects of collective narcissism and non‐narcissistic ingroup positivity on conspiracy beliefs were mediated via differential perceptions of threat. Study 3 manipulated whether conspiracy theories implicated ingroup or outgroup members. Collective narcissism predicted belief in outgroup conspiracies but not in ingroup conspiracies, while non‐narcissistic ingroup positivity predicted lower conspiracy beliefs, regardless of them being ascribed to the ingroup or the outgroup.     

‘Merit’, ‘Preferential’or ‘Diversity-Based’Selection: Effect of Information Frame and Informant Gender on the Public's Views on Preferential Treatment in Selection

The study examined (1) the public's reactions to the philosophical justifications for merit vs. preferential selection, and (2) the effect of information frame (i.e. ‘merit’, ‘preferential’and ‘diversity’frames) and informant gender on people's views on preferential selection. Results show that in general the public supported merit selection and opposed the preferential practice and that their reactions to the justifications for a selection practice determined the level of support for (or opposition to) that practice. In addition, people's support for merit selection was weakened under the preferential-frame-female-informant condition; their opposition to preferential selection was also reduced when a male informant advocated the advantages of the preferential practice by using the term diversity-based selection instead of preferential selection. Results were discussed in the context of the social influence literature.     

Truth as a ‘Living Bond’: A Dialectical Response to Recent Rhetorical Theology

Abstract: In recent years, the Radical Orthodoxy movement (especially John Milbank) has developed an influential theological response to the putative nihilism inherent in modern philosophical tendencies to construe the relation between finite and infinite realities as utterly disjunctive and thus incapable of mediation. This response, which generally implies the championing of a ‘participatory’ ontology, has been very hostile to Protestant or ‘dialectical’ theology, whose insistence upon an ‘indirect’ rather than a ‘rhetorical’ form of truth is taken to implicate such theology in the nihilism of a ‘univocal’ ontology. In this article I offer another reading of the dialectical, via Søren Kierkegaard and René Girard, according to which its anti‐objectivism is due not to the inheritance of modern epistemological dilemmas but to a quite biblical existential rigor. I argue, contrary to Milbank, that this rigor is not finally gnostic, but instead that it alone can preserve the form of truth as a living, spiritual form.