HANSEL AND GRETEL: A TALE OF TERROR

In the analysis of a woman with multiple childhood traumas, the fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel” figured prominently. The author discusses the use of the fairy tale in this case at various levels. He suggests an interplay between a national myth, the fairy tale, and a personal myth—the patient's psychodynamics. The fairy tale can be used to illuminate personal meanings derived from it. In the experience of childhood trauma, the repeated reading of a fairy tale can help organize and defend against terrifying anxiety.     

“To Enter One’s Skin”: The Concrete and Symbolic Functions of the Skin in the Social Unconscious,as Expressed in Fairy Tales and Group Therapy

This article deals with different modes of skin-related experiences in the social unconscious as expressed in two social products: fairy tales and group therapy processes. The phenomenon of the realization of a skin-related idiomatic expression that appears in fairy tales will be analyzed in order to touch upon the relations between concrete and symbolic modes of expressions in the social unconscious. This is based on previous works, showing that fairy tales reside along the seam line between thinking in words and thinking in images. A vignette from a therapy group shows its relevance to group psychotherapy.     

Resurrecting the buried self: fairy tales and the analytic encounter

The author uses the lens of myth and fairy tales to examine the narratives generated by the analytic experience. Fairy tales are understood as representing fundamental developmental conflicts, accounting for their enduring power over time. The analytic encounter is seen as an analogue of the fairy tale in which the hidden self, damaged by loss and abandonment, reemerges only through the redemptive power of [an] other's love. Clinical material is presented in which hidden parts of the patient's self are projected into the analyst for safekeeping; these hidden parts resonate with the analyst's own lost, unrealized potential and form an intersubjective experience which the author believes is transformative. The patient's dormant powers emerge in a newly experienced atmosphere of recognition, and in this way, the analytic encounter resembles the fairy tale in providing an identificatory bond and a protective space for the patient's hidden vitality.     

西方童话与中国神话中人物的人格特征研究

童话和神话中人物的人格特征影响着个体早期的社会化。本文选择了24篇著名的西方童话和中国神话,采用人格形容词评定法,对其中人物的人格特征进行对比研究发现,这些人物既具有人类追求真善美的共性,也表现出不同民族所特有的民族精神和价值观的差异性。分析了这些共性和差异性的表现及其产生原因,阐述了这些人物的人格特征对儿童形成其个性品质、行为模式、道德品质、社会角色等方面的作用和意义。     

The Sleeping Beauty and the Therapist’s Gaze: Commentary on Hours and Mayers’s Article on Finding a Path toward Re-Enchantment

In their article, Hours and Mayers make the case that in the imaginary world of fairy tales children have an opportunity to engage and symbolize and also to reflect on the experiences and motives of imaginary characters. This was the case with 8-year-old Barbara who responded to the fairy tales that were narrated to the group by joining in and beginning to share her ideas and reactions. In this commentary, it is argued that it was not just the experience of enchantment that enabled Barbara to begin to listen more attentively to the stories and to engage with her peers. It was also her experience of the narrator's gaze, the therapist who wanted to tell a story to her to make her feel enchanted by all the images and emotions stories can evoke to anyone who listens to them.     

Comments on 'the case of Melanie' and the reaction of Eduardo Gastelumendi

Following an attempt to connect the theory of archetypes with the theory of primal phantasies, the commentary refers to how moments of complexity may be differentiated in terms of 'now moments' and concludes with an amplification of the 'black woman' in Melanie's dream related to a black woman in an important Austrian fairy tale.     

Once upon a time…: Using fairy tales as a form of vicarious contact to prevent stigma-based bullying among schoolchildren

We conducted a vicarious contact intervention with the aim of promoting bystanders' intentions to react to stigma-based bullying among schoolchildren. Participants were Italian primary schoolchildren (N = 117 first to third graders); the outgroup was represented by foreign children. Vicarious contact was operationalized with story reading, creating fairy tales on stigma-based bullying where minority characters were bullied by majority characters. Once a week for 3 weeks, participants were read fairy tales in small groups by an experimenter and engaged in reinforcing activities. Results revealed that the intervention increased intergroup empathy (but not intergroup perspective-taking) and anti-bullying peer norms and fostered contact intentions. The intervention also had indirect effects via intergroup empathy on helping and contact intentions and on bystanders' reactions to stigma based-bullying. We discuss theoretical and practical implications, also in terms of the relevance of the present results for school policy. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement .     

The Healing Power of the Imagination

In this conceptual article, the author demonstrates how fairy tales, folk tales and myths offer the child medicine for the unconscious. Through the power of the imagination children develop the ability to incorporate an image of God as eternal presence and limitless consciousness, a sense of object constancy, a sense of self to help battle the intrinsic hardships of childhood, and a map for the journey of oneness, separation, and reunification with oneness at a higher level of consciousness. The article also calls upon the power of a particular therapeutic fairy tale from a collection by this author and demonstrates its value as a teaching aid in the classroom, a tool for psychotherapists who work with children and adults who were traumatized as children, and a resource for parents in the development of their children's spirituality.

     

Fairy Tales: Visions for Problem Resolution in Eating Disorders

This article introduces a framework that uses fairy tales, such as Cinderella, as a vision-to-action treatment alternative for psychological dysfunctions focusing on eating disorders. Clinical examples are provided that integrate guided imagery, cognitive reframing, and behavioral assignments.     

‘Sleeping beauties’: succession problems of adolescence

The author explores the succession problems of adolescence. She uses the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tale Sleeping Beauty to consider various characters and narratives possible in the analytic field during the succession process. Use of the characters in a fairy tale allows an analyst to play with the different roles the patient unconsciously assigns her. The author conceives of the avoidance of adolescent turbulence as a common reaction to adolescence, but one that can also become entrenched, and result in a restriction of emotional growth. The paper explores the psychic isolation of adolescence and the splitting required to manage the conflicting desires of the phase. The persistent absence of passion, including in the analytic process, constitutes a psychic retreat from developmental turbulence. The analyst of such an adolescent may need to allow them to be ‘somnolent’ for some time, but may eventually need to wake them (metaphorically) or even pierce the somnolent, avoidant state. The author uses clinical vignettes of late adolescents to demonstrate such transitions, exploring her countertransference experience as well as the reaction of adults to the succession process of adolescence.     

Fairy tales,landscapes and metaphor in supervision: An exploratory study

Objective: Supervision is an important requirement for most health professionals and finding innovative and creative forms of ensuring safe and ethical practice are helpful to practitioners. This paper explores the use of fairy tales, mental landscapes and metaphors to illuminate the therapeutic and supervisory relationship. A therapy case study was used as reference. Design: The design was based on a grounded theory methodology and qualitative‐based collaborative meetings between professionals. Both researchers/participants were from different therapeutic backgrounds; drama therapy and integrative counselling. Findings: Two main themes emerged relating to the therapeutic process: (1) Using Archetypal themes in fairy tales to enhance the clarity of the therapeutic landscape; and (2) The facilitation of the sense system through the use of small objects to reconceptualise the therapeutic dynamic. Conclusion: The use of metaphor and small objects to explore retrospective therapeutic encounters can enhance the role of supervision by broadening the cognitive landscape of the therapist. Implications for the therapist/client and supervisor relationships are considered.     

Fairy-tales and teaching family therapy

This paper sets out to illustrate how well-known fairy-tales can be adapted to serve as a useful teaching tool in family therapy. Familiarity with fairy stories means they can be used as a ready access to common family constellations and dynamics. This may be particularly useful when asked to present an introductory workshop or single lecture to participants unsophisticated in family therapy conceptualizations or practice. Potential clinical applications are also briefly mentioned.     

A tale and its tale

Once upon a time there was a little girl who had woken from a sleep so deep that it had lasted many moons”. Drawing on first generation post-war experiences in Germany, I construct a fairy tale in which I begin to trouble silences surrounding familial and national historiographical lacunae. With such tales positioned on the threshold of conscious experiences and embodied unconscious knowledge, I reflectively draw on psychoanalytic theory to consider silences as reminders of uncanny returns of what has been suppressed.     

Metaphoric Stories in Supervision of Internship: A Qualitative Study

The authors describe a qualitative study that explored how the use of stories in supervision may contribute to self‐reflection in master's‐level counseling interns. Interns from 2 universities participated in facilitated discussions of 3 fairy tales throughout a semester. The analysis of storied discussions revealed 3 themes related to supervisee experience: recurring cycles of highs and lows, balancing external and internal influences, and struggles with self‐awareness. Suggestions for practice and future research are included.     

GPCM模型项目参数估计程序的开发与研究

该文对GPCM的项目参数估计的方法进行较为深入的探讨,特别对容易混淆的参数初值计算以及项目参数分两步进行估计的原因进行了阐述。并且基于MMLE／EM算法,开发了相应的项目参数估计程序。通过大量的蒙特卡洛模拟,与国外专业软件PARSCALE比较,本程序的步骤参数估计值更好,区分度参数估计值相当,具有较好的应用价值。     

“Feeling Good in Your Own Skin” Part II: Idiomatic Expressions – The Way Language Connects to the Primary Levels of Mental Organization

After describing the role of sensations in the primary levels of mental organization, this part of the article suggests viewing somatic idioms as the language's way to connect with these levels. We seek to exemplify the qualities, meanings and functioning of idioms, since they serve as a basic key in investigating the different layers of the mind. Examples taken from clinical cases, as well as from universal literary products, such as fairy tales, provide useful contributions to this argument.     

The name of the helper: a new look at "Rumpelstiltskin"

The fairy tale of Rumpelstiltskin is studied in conjunction with related tales to provide a fuller understanding of its meaning than previous studies have done. The content of these tales depicts ambivalence about childhood magic and ambivalence about adult reality, which are uneasily resolved by eliminating magic and dwelling in a disenchanted world. Enchantment is retained formally in the telling of the story. To the extent that transference is enchantment, similar conflicts occur during psychoanalysis: is the patient better off adhering to transference or relinquishing it--or can it be integrated with day-to-day experience?     

Zur Psychoanalyse des Glücks

The article describes some of the foundations of the striving for happiness and the experience of happiness from the point of view of different psychoanalytical theories and applies this to the luck of “Hans in luck” in the fairy tale. While happiness in the drive theory is reached through the gratification of needs, in the theory of narcissism it is defined as a regression to a narcissistic feeling of unity. In object-relations theory it is described how, beside happiness as a mere passive aim of expectation, a capacity to be happy has to be developed progressively.     

Moral mires and the grip of the group: Morality as internalized group norms

I argue that morality is a set of internalized group norms. It is a reliable guide in a complex social world where group status and membership are not guaranteed by birth, but have to be asserted and maintained continuously. Morality is acquired through the process of socialization when children learn in their experience with peers, from observation of adults, and by instructional stories, such as fairy tales. Failure to internalize group norms results in a clinical condition of Psychopathy, or Antisocial Personality Disorder. Research into Antisocial Personality Disorder suggests that likely pathways of group norm internalization are states of arousal associated with social situations.     

About Teleological Behaviorism

Misconceptions abound about teleological behaviorism (TB). Because very few people other than the author publicly call themselves teleological behaviorists, the fault must be mine. The present article is an attempt to clear up those misconceptions. First I will try to indicate what teleological behaviorism is not. Then, in the form of six fables (loosely connected stories, allegories, analogies, fairy tales, and arguments), I will try to give the reader an understanding of what teleological behaviorism actually is.