Topsy--living and dying: a footnote to history

This paper explores the significance of Marie Bonaparte's book, Topsy: The Story of a Golden Haired Chow. The manifest importance of Topsy has been attached to the fact that the Freuds translated it out of gratitude to Bonaparte and because of their love for dogs. Another level of significance emerges when the book is placed in historical context. Topsy elucidates the relationships between Marie Bonaparte, Sigmund Freud, and Anna Freud. It reflects Bonaparte's feelings about Freud's illness and is part of an ongoing dialogue with him. The persistent misplaced emphasis on the "dog story" has obscured the more profound issues. The author suggests that the conflicting needs to appreciate transience and to avoid mourning may account for both the importance of the book and for its obscurity.     

Teaching Genesis: A Present-Day Approach Inspired by the Prophet Nathan

The prophets Nathan (2 Samuel 12:1–15) and John the Baptist (Mark 6:16–28) had comparable tasks before them: to convince their respective kings about the wrongs of taking somebody else's wife and marrying her. Nathan succeeded, while John failed and furthermore lost his life. What made the difference? One possible explanation is that Nathan proceeded in two steps: (1) Tell an interesting, nonthreatening story that nevertheless makes the point at issue; (2) transfer that message to the case at hand. In contrast, John used a direct approach, which raised apprehension, even fear (on the part of Herodias, the woman involved), and led to failure. That lesson has wider applications, as illustrated here for teaching the biblical Genesis narration. The other ingredient in this teaching is relational and contextual reasoning (RCR), the use of which is also indicated for other issues besides teaching Genesis.     

Mary and femininity: A psychological critique

This essay uses Freud to interpret the symbolism and theology of Mary in modern Catholicism. In her role as the mother of believers, Mary functions to place the Christian in the position of a child who receives illusory gratification from the mother. In her role as model for Christians to emulate, Mary functions to place the Christian in the position of receptivity and dependence which Freud associated with femininity. Reinterpreting Freud from a feminist perspective, I suggest that the kind of femininity Mary represents serves to perpetuate patriachal social structures and to inhibit full psychological maturity.     

Betrayal: A psychological analysis

Betrayal is the sense of being harmed by the intentional actions or omissions of a trusted person. The most common forms of betrayal are harmful disclosures of confidential information, disloyalty, infidelity, dishonesty. They can be traumatic and cause considerable distress. The effects of betrayal include shock, loss and grief, morbid pre-occupation, damaged self-esteem, self-doubting, anger. Not infrequently they produce life-altering changes. The effects of a catastrophic betrayal are most relevant for anxiety disorders, and OC D and PTSD in particular.Betrayal can cause mental contamination, and the betrayer commonly becomes a source of contamination. In a series of experiments it was demonstrated that feelings of mental contamination can be aroused by imagining unacceptable non-consensual acts. The magnitude of the mental contamination was boosted by the introduction of betrayal themes. Feelings of mental contamination can also be aroused in some ‘perpetrators’ of non-consensual acts involving betrayal. The psychological significance of acts of betrayal is discussed.     

Hypnotic control of attention in the Stroop task: a historical footnote

Raz, Shapiro, Fan, and Posner (2002) have recently provided a compelling demonstration of enhanced attentional control under post-hypnotic suggestion. Using the classic color-word interference paradigm, in which the task is to ignore a word and to name the color in which it is printed (e.g., RED in green, say "green"), they gave a post-hypnotic instruction to participants that they would be unable to read. This eliminated Stroop interference in high suggestibility participants but did not alter interference in low suggestibility participants. replicated this pattern and further demonstrated that it is not due to a visual strategy (such as blurring or looking at a different location). As a historical footnote, we describe a "case study" from 18 years ago in which we observed the same result using a hypnotic instruction to a single highly suggestible individual that he could not read. The elimination of Stroop interference has important implications for both the study of attention and the study of hypnosis.