Application of Group Psychotherapy to the Teaching of Dynamic Psychiatry and Understanding Student Resistances

Abstract

This paper explores the role of excitement in shame, extending the theoretical underpinnings of my work (Aledort, 2002, 2003, 2008, 2009) on narcissism and the omnipotent child syndrome. Shame, excitement, and early narcissistic self-states are complexly intermingled, each influencing the other. Empathy alone is insufficient; the passion connected to shame can be easily hidden. Detailed case studies describe a model for working with the excitement in shame, how it functions, and how it gets resolved.     

Courting the Enemy: McMahan on the Unity of Mind

Abstract

Jeff McMahan has recently developed the embodied mind theory of identity in place of the other standing theories, which he examines and consequently rejects. This paper examines the performance of his theory on cases of commissurotomy or the split-brain syndrome. Available experimental data concerning these cases seem to suggest that a single mind can divide into two independent streams in ways that are incompatible with our intuitive notion of mind. This phenomenon poses unique problems for McMahan's theory that we are essentially minds. I attempt to use his considered response to these cases as a weapon against his own embodied mind theory by highlighting some of the tensions in McMahan's response. In particular, I argue that in reaching his conclusion McMahan admits to something quite contrary to the very spirit of his own theory and that it is a powerful point in its support that one of the theories McMahan rejects can deal very well with these cases.     

Narcissism and Hypomania Revisited: a Test of the Similarities and Differences in Their Empirical Networks

The goal of the present research was to clarify the relationship between narcissism and hypomania, both of which are multidimensional in nature. More specifically, this study examines the relations between two narcissism dimensions (grandiose and vulnerable) and three hypomania dimensions (social vitality, mood volatility, and excitement) in relation to adverse developmental experiences, affective experiences, a multidimensional model of impulsivity, and general personality traits. The absolute similarities across the patterns of correlations manifested by the narcissism and hypomania subscales were then examined. Like the multidimensionality found in narcissism in which grandiose and vulnerable narcissism manifest unrelated or negatively related empirical networks, the same was true for the hypomania dimensions. Grandiose narcissism manifested substantially similar empirical profiles with the hypomania components of social vitality and, to a lesser extent, excitement. Conversely, vulnerable narcissism manifested a profile quite similar to a third hypomania component – mood volatility. These findings are discussed in the context of the difficulty in developing robust and coherent research literatures when using multidimensional total scores for either narcissism or hypomania.     

Collective Reasoning and the Discursive Dilemma

Abstract

The paper begins with a discussion of Philip Pettit's distinction between individualistic and collectivistic reasoning strategies. I argue that many of his examples, when correctly analysed, do not give rise to what he calls the discursive dilemma. I argue for a collectivistic strategy, which is a holistic premise-driven strategy. I will concentrate on three aspects of collective reasoning, which I call the publicity aspect, the collective acceptance aspect, and the historical constraint aspect: First, the premises of collective reasoning, unlike the premises of a private individual, have to be public in some sense. Second, the group members collectively accept the public premises, and thereby commit themselves to following them in their collective practical reasoning.Third, a person need not be consistent with his earlier private judgements, he is free to change his mind, but prior collective judgements, if not collectively abandoned, constrain the member's future judgements and decisions. I conclude that collective practical reasoning can be accounted for without collectivist ontological commitments.     

Kant's Synthetic and Analytic Method in the Critique of Pure Reason and the Distinction between Philosophical and Mathematical Syntheses

This article addresses Kant's distinction between a synthetic and an analytic method in philosophy. I will first consider how some commentators have accounted for Kant's distinction and analyze some passages in which Kant defined the analytic and the synthetic method. I will suggest that confusion about Kant's distinction arises because he uses it in at least two different senses. I will then identify a specific way in which Kant accounts for this distinction when he is differentiating between mathematical and philosophical syntheses. I will examine Kant's arguments in the Critique of Pure Reason with the latter sense of the distinction in mind. I will evaluate if he uses the analytic or the synthetic method and if the synthetic method is able to identify, without a previous consideration of some sort of given knowledge, sufficient conditions for deriving some aspects of our knowledge.     

The attraction of evil and the destruction of meaning

Does the concept of evil deserve special formulation in the realm of psychoanalytic thought? In agreement with authors such as Meltzer (1992) and De Masi (2003) and through selected moments from a boy's long analysis, I will propose a definition of evil as a state of mind, characterized by disregard for the human quality of the object and the destruction of meaning and meaningfulness of life in and for others. Evil drains, perverts and strips symbols of intentions and goals, leaving them empty of emotional significance. In my patient, the state of mind that he called evil exerted a seductive appeal and was accompanied by a sadistic excitement that he elevated into a state of sexualized well‐being, which progressively perverted and destroyed emotional meaning, contributing to his confusion and desperation. Confronting this pathological configuration and describing the situation that I felt existed within his mind and between us, and rearticulating emotional meaning where it had been perverted, cannibalized or left empty, was the principal – and at times only – clinical instrument available to lead him out of his descent into nothingness.     

Projective identification in Othello and Verdi's Otello

In this paper I explore how projective identification is depicted in Shakespeare's Othello (1603–4 [2006]) and in Verdi's Otello (1887). Both the play and the opera can be seen as studies in projection – in the evacuation into others of feelings that the subject finds unbearable, such as envious and jealous exclusion or unbearable sexual excitement. The essential issue is the same in both the play and the opera, which is that the very sight of love between Othello and Desdemona, or of contentment in anyone's mind, drives Iago mad with envy and jealousy, which he has to expel and project into others, particularly into Othello, who is susceptible to this attack because of his own narcissistic vulnerability. I take two episodes, which appear in both the play and the opera, to explore in detail how projective identification is represented both verbally and musically. I suggest that music, and words used musically, are particularly suited to conveying complex inter‐ and intra‐personal processes such as projective identification.     

The analyst's excitement in the analysis of perversion

The author believes that unconscious sexual excitement in the transference and countertransference is an especially problematic aspect of the analysis of perverse character pathology and that perverse sexual gratifi cation deserves a more prominent position in the clinical theory of analyzing perversion than that which has been assigned tacitly through analysts' routine focus on the defensive and destructive dynamics of perversion. He presents clinical material from the analysis of a perverse patient that illustrates the role of excitement in the transference perversion established in this analysis; and he asserts that gratifying perverse enactments occurring in the transference perversion can appear not only as conscious or unconscious excitement in the transference but also, at times most clearly, as the analyst's excitement. The author suggests that using a clinical theory that supports the analyst in understanding his excited responses as perverse countertransferences-i.e. evoked excitement complementary to the sexual component of a perverse transference-will assist him in locating and thinking about gratifying, perverse excitement in the transference where it is most usefully analyzed. Finally, he discusses some of the reasons why analysts might deny, suppress or otherwise avoid perverse countertransferences and in so doing contribute to sustaining perverse resistances.     

Personal Dualism and the Argument from Differential Vagueness

Abstract

In Causing Actions, Pietroski defends a distinctive view of the relationship between mind and body which he calls Personal Dualism. Central to his defence is the Argument from Differential Vagueness. It moves from the claim that mental events have different vagueness of spatiotemporal boundaries from neural events to the claim that mental events are not identical to neural events. In response, I argue that this presupposes an ontological account of vagueness that there is no reason to believe in this context. I further argue that Pietroski's reasons for rejecting the possibility that mental events are vaguely constituted from neural events are inadequate. I go on to show how Pietroski's Personal Dualism is ill-equipped to deal with the problem of mental causation because of its apparently necessary appeal to ceteris paribus laws.     

Characterizing positive and negative ‘voicers’ in elite sport teams: The role of the Five Factor Model and narcissism in players’ frequency and passing on of voice

ObjectiveThis study examined the role of the Five Factor Model and grandiose narcissism in players’ positive (i.e., constructive voice, supportive voice) and negative voice (i.e., defensive voice, destructive voice) in elite sport teams.MethodPlayers from six field hockey and seven korfball teams from the two highest national levels were assessed for four weeks. Using social network analyses, players’ personality was related to their self-reported voice frequency, their voice frequency as perceived by all teammates (other-ratings), and the extent to which they pass on voice.ResultsExtraversion was positively related to players’ frequency of positive and negative voice. Other traits such as conscientiousness and emotional stability were only related to, respectively, positive or negative types of voice. Not all personalities (e.g., extraversion) were consistent in how they assess their own voice versus how others perceive this. Interestingly, traits such as extraversion, emotional stability and the agentic facet of narcissism were found to predict the passing on of voice.ConclusionThis study explored the importance of personality for (a) players’ frequency of a differentiated set of positive and negative voice and (b) the extent to which they function as ‘gates’ that more covertly pass on voice. Further, the results provide perspective on how specific personalities view their voice behavior versus how their teammates perceive their voice behavior. In this way, this study is a first step in identifying players who have the potential to endanger or strengthen a team in a clear or subtle, yet influential way.     

Virtual reflection: Antoine Arnauld on Descartes' concept of conscientia

ABSTRACT

Although Descartes has often been portrayed as the father of the modern concept of mind, his approach to consciousness is notoriously problematic. What makes it particularly hard to assess his role in the development of the theories of consciousness is the difficulty of clarifying the kind of consciousness he might have in mind when using the associated Latin terms (conscius, cogitatio, conscium esse, etc.). In this article, I analyse Antoine Arnauld’s early interpretation of the passages in Descartes that refer to the issue of consciousness. I argue for two separate but interconnected claims. Firstly, I show that when Arnauld sets out to make a case for Descartes’ concept of cogitatio, he reads the central passages in light of some scholastic theories of cognition, in particular, the concept of ‘reflexio virtualis’ which, far from being a Cartesian invention, comes from the late scholastic discourse. Secondly, I argue that by talking about virtual reflection Arnauld provides an interpretation of Descartes’ views in terms of the intrinsic structure of the first-order thought – a reading which is still plausible, even by our contemporary standards.     

Ronald Thiemann, Thomas Torrance and Epistemological Doctrines of Revelation

Abstract: Ronald Thiemann goes against the grain of much recent theology in arguing that the Christian doctrine of revelation is worth believing and defending, but he finds most modern expressions and defences of it to be fatally infected with epistemological foundationalism. He criticizes the foundationalism of Thomas F. Torrance; in its place he offers a coherentist account and defence of the doctrine of revelation. In this article I look closely at some of the distinctly theological strengths and weaknesses of Thiemann's coherentism and Torrance's foundationalism. I argue that Thiemann's understanding of foundationalism is fraught with ambiguity and his dismissal of it somewhat premature. I argue further that his coherentism produces problems that make it less than ideally suited for a doctrine of revelation, and I suggest that the modest foundationalism of Torrance is a much stronger position.     

A Dangerous Subject: The Fashion Model and the Beauty/Narcissism Double Bind

In the wake of modernity, women's sexuality was positioned in a way that created a beauty/narcissism double bind that is still with us today. My concern in this article is that the subject position of “fashion model” serves as a constant reminder of this split, which is directed at all women and weakens the generalized woman's political agency. Fashion models themselves experience harassment and humiliation as well as pleasure and desire in their work as fashion models. However, the small portion of feminist work that has engaged explicitly with the fashion‐model business sees it mainly as an enterprise that is alienating and hostile to women. Although I do not entirely disagree with this analysis, it neglects the meaning of beauty and what beauty does to us with regard to creativity and pleasure. I wish to explore how some of the work experience of fashion models intersects with and challenges the beauty/narcissism double bind. I suggest that rather than grounding our understanding of the subject position “fashion model” and the fashion business solely in their reinforcement of the beauty/narcissism double bind, we should pay attention to the importance of what beauty and aspects of narcissism may mean.     

Freud and narcissism: Developing links for inclusion of the ‘object’

Abstract

The problematic of narcissism in the way Freud visualized forces us to acknowledge the dualism of drives inside the subject; the object relations theory then builds up on the inherent need and the structuring potential of the object. The paper traces the growth of this concept in Freud's thinking in a bid to show how the object's otherness is not fully metabolized within the Freudian corpus. On the other hand, recent criticisms of object relations theory point to the perfunctory role ascribed to Freud's most radical discovery of the dualism of drives. Winnicott, Laplanche and Green have all developed theories that have provided pertinent rejoinders to the problematic of narcissism and object relations. The paper discusses how deconstructing and “going back over Freud” helps us to redefine object relations and give the drive functioning due importance. Hence the main thesis of the paper – that of narcissism – reveals the decentered subject's tussle with itself and with the alienness emanating from the object's otherness. If used creatively, ideas such as “otherness”, “objectalizing function” and Green's conceptualization of the clinical significance of negative and positive narcissism then seek to enrich the theorization on narcissism.     

Discussion of Robert Grossmark's Case of Pamela

The author discusses Robert Grossmark's “Case of Pamela” from the perspective of developmental (relational) trauma and offers the view that Pamela's remarkable growth as well as the stunning power of the clinical process that made it possible is best illuminated from the vantage point of self-states, dissociation, affect dysregulation, and the dread of annihilation. The phenomenon of pathological narcissism, which in a classical idiom would be a central concept in describing Pamela's personality organization, is here formulated relationally in a self-state context. That is, each self-state, to the extent that it is protectively dissociated from others becomes, inherently, an island of narcissism and is what narcissism truly means. In the face of trauma, each island of selfhood operates to obliterate, automatically, the felt invasion of otherness from parts of the self that hold alternative views of “self-truth,” as well as from an other in real life—a separate person with a mind of his or her own. As each narcissistic island of Pamela's selfhood was recognized and accepted as valid in its own terms by Robert, the experiential wholeness of Pamela's sense of self began to be restored. The clinical process through which this was accomplished is seen by the author as the expansion and enrichment of Pamela's overarching self-coherence through her gradual representation of Robert's “otherness” as part of each self-representation. This in turn allowed the restoration of safe, communicative interchange between the formerly dissociated self-state islands of narcissistic insularity.     

Reply to Reynolds

Abstract

How should we read Foucault's claims, in his late work, for the relevance of ‘aesthetic criteria’ to politics? What is Foucault's implicit understanding of the nature of aesthetics and the autonomy of the aesthetic sphere? Would an ethics which gave a place to the aesthetic legitimize a politics of manipulation, brutality and aggression ‐ in short, a ‘fascist’ politics ‐ as some of Foucault's critics argue? In this paper, I examine key accounts of the fascist ‘aestheticization of politics’ ‐ from Walter Benjamin's classic essay, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ (1936), to Philippe Lacoue‐Labarthe's work on the relation between Heidegger's philosophy and the fascist theme of politics as the plastic art of the state. Through a discussion of Foucault's late work, the paper demonstrates the connection between Foucault's turn to ancient Greek ethical practices and his call for a contemporary renewal of the idea of ethics as an art of living. The aim of the paper is to show in what ways the ethico‐political position which is presented in Foucault's late work, far from contributing to a fascist politics, in fact provides ways of thinking about the relationship between the aesthetic and the political which avoid both mindless radicalism and totalitarian narcissism. In doing so, the key question is, ‘What's aesthetic about Foucault's “aesthetics of existence"?’     

Trauma and defences: their roots in relationship. An overview

In this paper the differing psychodynamic models of defences are outlined and compared with an attachment theory perspective in which affect regulation plays a central role. Behavioural and intrapsychic distance regulation (defensive exclusion) are seen as the main strategies for affect regulation and are the manifestations of the habitual pattern of emotional regulation in the relationship between the child and the primary caregiver. A new perspective on unconscious fantasy is offered, in which fantasies are seen to be actively created as defensive narratives to protect the development of healthy narcissism and to become integrated into a person's internal working models. Archetypal defences are explored from a developmental perspective and some neurobiological issues relevant to defences are highlighted.     

Hume's Unified Theory of Mental Representation

On its face, Hume's account of mental representation involves at least two elements. On the one hand, Hume often seems to write as though the representational properties of an idea are fixed solely by what it is a copy or image of. But, on the other, Hume's treatment of abstract ideas (and other similar cases) makes it clear that the representational properties of a Humean idea sometimes depend, not just on what it is copied from, but also on the manner in which the mind associates it with other ideas. Past interpretations of Hume have tended to focus on one of these elements of his account to the neglect of the other. But no interpretation of this sort is likely to capture the role that both copying and association play within Hume's discussion. In what follows, I argue that the most plausible way of understanding Hume's discussion involves attributing to him a unified account of mental representation in which both of these elements play a central role. I close by discussing the manner in which reading Hume in this way would alter our understanding of the relationship between Hume's thought and contemporary philosophy of mind.