ONE BRAIN,TWO MINDS: AN ESSAY ON PRIMORDIAL AND ADVANCED MENTAL ACTIVITY

The Primordial Mind in Health and Illness: A Cross‐Cultural Perspective. By Michael Robbins. London/New York: Routledge, 2011. 240 pp.     

AN ESSAY ON DREAMING,PSYCHICAL WORKING OUT AND WORKING THROUGH2

In this paper the author attempts to expand the idea put forward by Freud who considered dreams as a special form of unconscious thinking. It is the author's contention that the psychical working‐out function performed by dreams is a form of unconscious thinking, which transforms affects into memories and mental structures. He also attempts to clarify the way in which meaning is built and transformed in mental life. In that respect the unconscious internal world is seen as a form of unconscious thinking, a private theatre where meaning is generated and transformed. He focuses on what happens to feelings in dreams in connection with the meanings as a result of and an expression of the several stages of working through. The dream world is described as the setting where the mind gives expressive pictorial representation to the emotions involved in a conflict: a first step towards thinkability. The dreamwork also constitutes a process through which meaning is apprehended, built on and transformed at an expressive non‐discursive level, based on representation through figurative/pictorial images. The author draws on Meltzer's formulation to conjecture that the working‐through function of dreams, mainly in response to interpretations, is performed by a process of progression in formal qualities of the representations made available by dreaming in the form he has called affective pictograms. It is through progression in formal qualities of the representation that the thinking capabilities of the affective life develop and become part of the process of what is called metaphorically the metabolisation of emotional life. This process takes place through migration of meaning across various levels of mental process. In this perspective the analyst'sinterpretations of dreams effect what linguists call transmutation of the symbolic basis, a process that is necessary to help the mind to improve its capacity to think. Something expressed on the evocative plane and condensed into a pictographic image is then transformed into verbal language that expresses meaning. These conceptions are illustrated by a detailed clinical case.     

FICTIONAL FORM AND SYMPHONIC STRUCTURE: AN ESSAY IN COMPARATIVE AESTHETICS

It is agreed on all hands that both fictional narratives and the familiar genres of classical music possess an inner structure that both can be perceived and be appreciated aesthetically. It is my argument here that this inner structure plays a crucially different role in fictional narrative than it does in classical music, confining myself here to 'absolute music' (which is to say, pure instrumental music without text, programme, dramatic setting, or other 'extra-musical' content). The argument, basically, is that whereas the sophisticated listener to the absolute music repertory is keenly, consciously aware of the inner structure, the sophisticated reader of fictional narrative, the principal exemplar being the novel, is not so aware. Therefore, whereas musical structure directly contributes to aesthetic satisfaction, narrative structure contributes only indirectly (which is not to deny that, at times, the reader is consciously aware of narrative structure, and that, at such times, it does contribute directly to aesthetic satisfaction).     

PSYCHOANALYSIS IN CHINA: AN ESSAY ON THE RECENT LITERATURE IN ENGLISH

Using extensive quotation, the author reviews the introduction and current state of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy in China from the vantage point of recent publications in English. Psychoanalysis was briefly introduced to China before the Communist era, then forbidden, and has experienced an accelerated reintroduction since the late 1980s. The author briefly summarizes the cultural and historical background of China relevant to the introduction of psychoanalysis, the traumatic history of China, and the deep structure of thought and philosophical differences from Western culture that challenge a simple imposition of psychoanalytic ideas and practice, and some psychological effects of rapid cultural change throughout China. Training programs in China, the general enthusiasm for analysis among the Chinese, and a number of notable contributions by Western and Chinese authors are discussed. Also surveyed are the use of distance technology for training and treatment, the personal experience of Chinese senior and junior colleagues, and ongoing challenges to the continuing growth of psychoanalysis and analytic psychotherapy in China.     

COMMENTS ON GEORGE WILLIAMS'S ESSAY ON MORALITY AND NATURE

Abstract. Although there is no questioning the heroism of those who rebel against the selfish replicators their task seems very nearly insurmountable. I question whether anyone can formulate a broadly acceptable moral system that will not in some respects be constrained by the legacy of generations spent as selfish and kin-selected replicators.     

AN ESSAY ON BEAUTY: SOME IMPLICATIONS OF BEAUTY IN THE NATURAL WORLD

Abstract. The beauty of the universe presented by modern science under the positivist approach is regarded as sufficiently great that human contemplative capabilities are exceeded. An example of bottom-up viewing is presented and described as capable of producing levels of excitement best described as dangerous neurological storms. The existential quiescence resulting from apprehension of so much grandeur is discussed. It is suggested that our religious propensities need extensive rehabilitation and that appreciation of the beauty revealed by the positivists is likely to result in a cosmic paradigm shift that could destabilize traditional views of human identity.     

AN ARISTOTELIAN ACCOUNT OF VIRTUE ETHICS: AN ESSAY IN MORAL TAXONOMY

Abstract:  I argue that a virtue ethics takes virtue to be more basic than rightness and at least as basic as goodness. My account is Aristotelian because it avoids the excessive inclusivity of Martha Nussbaum's account and the deficient inclusivity of Gary Watson's account. I defend the account against the objection that Aristotle does not have a virtue ethics by its lights, and conclude with some remarks on moral taxonomy.     

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL ORIGINS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY

Recent research an young children's memory for personal episodes provides new insights into the phenomenon of Infantile amnesia, first identified by Freud. New research indicates that children learn to share memories with others, that they acquire the narrative forms of memory recounting, and that such recounts are effective in reinstating experienced memories only after the children can utilize another person's representation of an experience in language as a reinstatement of their own experience. This competence requires a level of mastery of the representational function of language that appears at the earliest in the mid to late preschool years.     

BECOMING ANOREXIC: ON LOSS,DEATH AND IDENTIFICATION AND THE EMERGENCE OF ANOREXIA NERVOSA

This paper investigates the connections between death, pathological identifications and anorexia nervosa. Literature is reviewed concerning various psychodynamic models of causation of anorexia, and in particular transgenerational patterns in the evolution of this eating disorder, with reference to problems in the development of autonomy of the emerging self. The role of loss in the family is examined, and the development of pathological identifications is described. A case of an adolescent girl initially presenting with an unexplained seizure is described in which multiple identifications seem to be occurring while the patient develops anorexia, perhaps reflecting previous losses in the family and also in a kind of strange identification with, and mimesis of, the parents' unmourned dead. It is suggested that the development of these multiple identifications gives some aetiological clues to this puzzling illness and also indicates a therapeutic focus. It is argued that a psychodynamically‐informed child psychiatrist can bring an enriching approach to working with patients with this disorder.     

论冷漠现象

“如果全部历史都不过是人类不断排除困难的命运史,那么,他们现在所遵循的道路是什么呢?”就有关人类的定义而言,所谓人们并不仅仅像在生与死之间奔波那样过自己的生活、而是当他们在这个世界上生存的时候还要寻求意义这样一种观点,几乎是一种平淡无奇的种差(differentia)。在寻求意义的过程中,人们所承担的任务与某个童话人物的任务是非常相似的:“走到哪里我并不知道,得到什么我并不知道。”人们在并不知道走向哪里的情况下不断前行,在由各种无法预见的可能性组成的语义领域中不断排除困难、艰难度日。构成有关走这条路还是走另一条路的韵…