Reply to Commentaries

Each discussant approached my paper on embedded levels of illusion from a different perspective, representing schools as diverse as those derived from Jung and Bion. It is interesting that, although my paper was not primarily about dreams or how to interpret them, but rather about the way in which multiple levels of illusion may open a potential space in treatment, each discussant centered his comments around a dream that I had reported in one of my cases. In this reply, I compare the discussants' approaches to the dream with mine. I also wonder whether the dream itself represents an embedded level of illusion within my paper. If so, it may function as a transitional space in which we may entertain different viewpoints around not only the nature of dream work, but also around questions including the nature of the mind and the therapeutic process.     

Commentary on “Considering Gestational Life” by Thomas Cohen

Cohen’s paper (this issue) is discussed from a temporal persepective in order to query the place of psychic movement in nonsymbolic, “gestational” states and in treatment, and the relationship of these to personality development. The question of unconscious psychotic hostility to change is raised. The discussant queries the relevance of “merger” in “objectless intersubjectivity” in the context of the “systemic interchange” emphasized by the author, where it seems that the process of “interchange” is prior. Finally, the discussant raises the question of the role of primordial, “live” silence in gestation and in treatment.     

A Discussion of “Video Communication and Transgenerational Shame in the Mother/Daughter Bond”

The discussant addresses the following questions: is the paper a critique of the role of video technology in treatment, including its strengths and weaknesses? How far is it a clinical paper investigating the power of shame, including over generations, and the technical challenges in addressing this remotely? Treating such a profound and difficult condition as is described in the paper - in any therapeutic context - poses very significant difficulties. Does the paper deal with all of these considerations and, if so, to what extent?     

The concept of coding in learning-memory theory

The concept of coding, which refers to what is stored in memory during learning, is defended, as an important and necessary conceptual advance in learning-memory theory during the last decade. It is maintained that the concept covers a wide variety of functionally different coding operations, with many specifics of its operation still to be experimentally determined, and that attempts to restrict its meaning to arbitrary transformational coding, as suggested by Restle, should be rejected. The paper comments on the empirical contributions to coding theory by Johnson, Wickens, Martin, and Postman and Bums in the symposium for which it served a discussant function.     

Clinical discussants as psychoanalytic readers

Psychoanalytic discussants of clinical papers face certain tasks, opportunities, and difficulties. To be willing to present and publish their analytic work for colleagues to study, analyst-authors and discussants need to expect that the other will respectfully complement his or her perspective. Discussants are encouraged to immerse themselves playfully in the affective force-field constituted between analysand and analyst within the process of the presentation. As discussants struggle to extricate themselves from this force-field, they contribute best by confining their understandings to the presentation process rather than trying to pin down the actual psychoanalytic situation. When this is done, discussants are under less pressure to inform presenters. This paper considers how discussants need to process their feeling responses to clinical papers so as to enhance rather than injure the analyst-author. This approach is illustrated with vignettes of the author's efforts as a clinical discussant to become a constructive psychoanalytic reader.     

THE MUTUAL ENRICHMENT OF BASIC AND APPLIED RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE AND PRACTICE

Abstract— Dealing with the problems of substance abuse requires both an appreciation of clinical reality and an understanding of basic psychosocial principles. Each of the conference presentations of theory and research most of them nonapplied in nature, created a welcome and rare occasion for experimental and clinical psychologists (and hybrids) to reflect together on the applied implications of some basic research and on the research implications of some applied professional activities. Among the issues found especially noteworthy by this discussant. Here the following the return of cognition and rational decision making as legitimate and critical foci in behavior therapy, the role of exposure to aversive events in reducing their fearsomeness, the advantages of not working doggedly to achieve goals that are better approached with a nonachievement attitude the possibility that the difficulty in altering pathological behavior derives from the properties of human language, appreciation of individual differences in psychotherapy outcome research, the importance of considering the meaning that therapeutic ministrations can have for certain patients, and the need to reexamine the utility of patients expressing their concerns.     

The One-Sidedness of a Dialogue Between Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis

This discussant’s view is that neuroscience would be unable to provide data relevant to human experience without input from human minds, but the theory and practice of psychoanalysis, as yet, have little to learn from neuroscience in spite of extensive and fascinating neurobiological research. Gerson’s evident knowledge of that research is much appreciated.     

Reflections …

Remarks by the symposium discussant attempt to briefly and broadly summarize the panelists’ thoughtful discussions of thePast is Prologue … for the Society for Computers in Psychology. The unique role computers have played, are playing, and will play in the behavioral sciences is reviewed. Although enthusiasm and promise for the future roles of computers as tools, as models, and as sources of study remains high, a caveat is offered.     

When More Is Less: An Averaging/Summation Analysis of Social Anxiety

This research explored higher and lower socially anxious individuals' impressions of homogeneous and heterogeneous discussion groups. Based upon an averaging–summation analysis, it was expected that subjects would average their impressions and resultant anxiety in a heterogeneous group. This result was obtained; individuals anticipated experiencing less anxiety in a group composed of 1 faculty and 3 high school students than in a group composed of a single high status discussant. Furthermore, the responses of high and low socially anxious individuals to heterogeneous groups differed. These results suggest that high and low socially anxious individuals may differ in their focus of attention in small groups, resulting in a different weighting of status variables.     

Applying global workspace theory to the frame problem

The subject of this article is the frame problem, as conceived by certain cognitive scientists and philosophers of mind, notably Fodor for whom it stands as a fundamental obstacle to progress in cognitive science. The challenge is to explain the capacity of so-called informationally unencapsulated cognitive processes to deal effectively with information from potentially any cognitive domain without the burden of having to explicitly sift the relevant from the irrelevant. The paper advocates a global workspace architecture, with its ability to manage massively parallel resources in the context of a serial thread of computation, as an answer to this challenge. Analogical reasoning is given particular attention, since it exemplifies informational unencapsulation in its most extreme form. Because global workspace theory also purports to account for the distinction between conscious and unconscious information processing, the paper advances the tentative conclusion that consciousness may go hand-in-hand with a solution to the frame problem in the biological brain.     

Prologue

The discussant begins by describing her British Object-Relations perspective. She emphasizes the difference between obstructive or critical forces within the personality which are best described as a part of the self and those which are felt by the patient to have a quality of otherness about them: the latter are better conceptualized as internal objects since this is closer to the patient's subjective experience. The author stresses the importance—in Scharff's patient's inner world—of the useless maternal—and impotent paternal—object. ‘Stupid’ rather than ‘bad’ objects can affect introjective processes and limit the patient's intellectual functioning because, where the world is seen as uninteresting and unstimulating, it is therefore not worth attending to nor learning from. The author also made a further point. She saw the patient's repetitive bitter self-criticisms, although partly arising out of deprivation, depression, and abuse, as also possibly containing an element of masochistic pleasure in suffering and failure. This would raise delicate technical issues in balancing a sensitive approach to the real suffering with a clearly stated recognition of the addictive repetitive masochistic quality which accompanies it and which may be blocking recovery.     

Commentary on “Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy” by Tracey Moffatt and Discussion of “States of Exile and Marginalization” by Gillian Straker

This is an excerpt of the work that I presented in Sydney last May at the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy Conference “From the Margins to the Centre: Contemporary Relational Perspectives” in my capacity as discussant of Gill Straker’s work, which included the viewing of the film Night Cries by Tracey Moffatt. I focused on the relationships that are characterized by abuse of power, by inequalities that define interpersonal relationships, and by the type of trauma that ensues from them and on the ways and possibilities to find a way out, a method to reconcile with the victims.     

Sexuality and Death (Discussion)

Abstract

The case is presented to show how the fear of death, triggered off by sexuality, is related to the fear of castration. Instead the discussant develops the hypothesis that the fear of death depends on a shift of deep regression towards a primary identification with the figure of the dead father.     

Solitude: Potential Gift,Danger or Both: Commentary on Paper by Danielle Knafo

This discussion lauds the main thrust of Dr. Knafo's paper, which is the crucially important, and too often neglected, role of solitude in the fullest development of self. Questions are raised regarding conflicting aspects of solitude as presented, and clarification from Dr. Knafo is sought. In addition further explication is requested on some of her points of view. The abiding response from this discussant is “Bravo.”     

The cultural significance of synchronicity for Jung and Pauli

This paper considers the cultural significance of C.G. Jung's concept of synchronicity, as this was envisaged both by Jung himself and by the physicist Wolfgang Pauli, Jung's most important discussant in developing the concept. For both thinkers the principle of synchronicity was, above all, an attempt to develop an expanded, more holistic understanding of science. The paper argues, however, that their motives for proposing this development were not just, as might be expected, scientific, philosophical, and psychological (including personal), but also historical, social, political, and religious, and involved consideration of esoteric as well as mainstream currents of thought.     

A Courageous,Creative, Though Cautionary,Tale: Commentary on Dr. Lauren Levine’s Paper, “A Mutual Survival of Destructiveness and Its Creative Potential for Agency and Desire”

This discussion lauds the richness and in-depth nature of Lauren Levine’s clinical work, including the efficacy of a much needed consultation with a colleague. The analytic work is viewed in light of concerns raised by senior relational analysts in a previous issue of Psychoanalytic Dialogues. Additional thoughts stimulated by the presentation are offered by the discussant.     

Inhibition within a reference frame during the interpretation of spatial language

Spatial terms such as right are potentially ambiguous because they can refer to different regions of space when defined by competing reference frames (e.g., my right within a relative reference frame versus an object's right within an intrinsic reference frame). In such situations, previous research has suggested that multiple reference frames are initially activated, followed by inhibition of the reference frame that is not ultimately selected to define the spatial term. Reference frames are complex multi-component representations, raising the question of exactly which components of the non-selected frame are inhibited. It is possible that the whole frame may be inhibited, including all axes and endpoints, or that only select endpoints and axes may be inhibited. Three experiments conducted using a negative priming paradigm revealed that only certain components of the non-selected reference frame were inhibited, consistent with the idea that some axes are privileged. These results also suggest that the components of a reference frame can be independently accessed. Implications for representing and accessing spatial information are discussed.     

A Discussion of “Accompaniment in Jazz and Psychoanalysis”

The author discusses the contributions of Markman’s text (this issue) focusing on similarities and differences in how he and this author use rhythm as a musical metaphor for the interactional processes constituting a psychoanalytic encounter. This review emphasizes 1) Markman’s unique sense of reverie, 2) his thinking about rhythm in terms of embodied registrations, and, 3) the difference between Markman’s unit of analysis and that frequently used by this discussant for describing embodied registrations.     

Discussion of “Three Dimensional Field Theory”

Ringstrom addresses major changes in a number of paradigms that have been occurring over the past 50 to 70 years within the larger scientific/philosophical community and, more specifically, within psychoanalysis. His overall purpose is to further delineate and integrate these paradigmatic changes and their theoretical and clinical implications for understanding psychoanalytic change. In his title, “Three Dimensional Field Theory: Dramatization and Improvisation in a Psychoanalytic Theory of Change,” Ringstrom a third “spatial” dimension to relational field theory that makes it more than a metaphor. Dramatization and improvisation does not just refer to a technical approach but, more important, provides a framework by which he understands effective therapeutic interaction. This discussant attempts to evaluate several of the paradigm shifts, namely, the informational revolution and dramatization and improvisation.     

Algorithmic correspondence and completeness in modal logic. V. Recursive extensions of SQEMA

The previously introduced algorithm SQEMA computes first-order frame equivalents for modal formulae and also proves their canonicity. Here we extend SQEMA with an additional rule based on a recursive version of Ackermann's lemma, which enables the algorithm to compute local frame equivalents of modal formulae in the extension of first-order logic with monadic least fixed-points FOμ. This computation operates by transforming input formulae into locally frame equivalent ones in the pure fragment of the hybrid μ-calculus. In particular, we prove that the recursive extension of SQEMA succeeds on the class of ‘recursive formulae’. We also show that a certain version of this algorithm guarantees the canonicity of the formulae on which it succeeds.