Some observations on the application of frame theory to the psychoanalytic situation and process

Frame theory can contribute to our understanding of psychoanalytic work in ways compatible with established psychoanalytic theory. Its concepts and metaphor convey the relativism of the psychic realities both parties bring to the analytic situation, as well as the multiple levels of transference that become framed upon the relationship. Its linkages to game theory stress the power of play and illusion in transference actualization and working through. The importance of rules and conventions for all three theories, and for the ability to do analytic work, suggests their essential grounding in the child's capacities for play, particularly those capabilities elaborated in latency following oedipal conflict resolution.     

Some observations and hypotheses about the psychoanalytic theory of adult development.

The developmental framework, when applied to adulthood, emphasizes the continuing evolution of the personality at five or fifty and 'focuses on the formation of psychic structure in process and underscores the continuity of normal and pathologic outcomes.' (COPER 9, 1974, p. 14). Many of the events we have discussed here are experiences unique to the adult and outside the realm of the child. Their uniqueness and developmental significance need to be better accounted for in psychoanalytic theory. Confrontation with each adult developmental task or crisis produces basic change in the life of each individual. To quote Bibring (1959): 'We find them as developmental phenomena at points of no return between one phase and the next when decisive changes deprive former central needs and modes of living of their significance forcing the acceptance of highly charged new goals and functions.' (p. 119). One purpose of this paper has been to demonstrate that such developmental turning points of no return are not limited to childhood but occur throughout the life cycle.     

Some random observations

Conclusion Of course, the rationale of PME is so different from what has been taught in orthodox statistics courses for fifty years, that it causes conceptual hangups for many with conventional training. But beginning students have no difficulty with it, for it is just a mathematical model of the natural, common sense way in which anybody does conduct his inferences in problems of everyday life.The difficulties that seem so prominent in the literature today are, therefore, only transient phenomena that will disappear automatically in time. Indeed, this revolution in our attitude toward inference is already an accomplished fact among those concerned with a few specialized applications; with a little familarity in its use its advantages are apparent and it no longer seems strange. It is the idea that inference was once thought to be tied to frequencies in random experiments, that will seem strange to future generations.     

Some observations on the psychoanalytic process

The author's aim is to delineate the psychoanalytic process and to distinguish it from the psychoanalytic situation, the transference neurosis, "insight," and psychoanalytic technique in general. Freud's 1913 views provide the basis for a concept of the psychoanalytic process centered on the recognition and interpretation of resistances and on the patient's reactions to the analyst's interventions. This clinically observable "unit" of the process is described and compared with Bernfeld's "facts of observation." The proposition is advanced that the process does not come to an end with the termination of analysis. It continues postanalytically in the form of the patient's more objective and more effective capacity for self-observation. The paper closes with a warning about the "pitfalls of perfectibilism" and with a plea for the elevation of the not-so-good analytic hour.     

Some observations on the process of mourning

The main proposal of this paper is that normal mourning is not completed after six months to a year or two as suggested in earlier literature, but may bring about a permanent alteration of psychological structures that affect various aspects of the mourning persons’ lives. These structural consequences of mourning consist in the setting up of a persistent internalized object relationship with the lost object that affects ego and superego functions. The persistent internalized object relationship develops in parallel to the identification with the lost object, and the superego modification includes the internalization of the value systems and life project of the lost object. A new dimension of spiritual orientation, the search for transcendental value systems, is one consequence of this superego modification.     

Some observations on applications of microcomputers in teaching

Several useful and important observations appear in the papers in this symposium. This paper highlights some of those ideas and some of the underlying themes of the symposium papers. Finally, focusing on some of the problems of either selecting software or developing software, the paper suggests that the fundamental problems associated with developing a computer-based instructional laboratory are the same as those associated with developing any instructional laboratory: setting one’s instructional goals and then integrating the equipment and procedures into the instructional context.