Analytic Meditative Therapy as the Inverse of Symbol Formation and Reification

Western psychotherapy tends to regard the mind and mental distress in terms of differing theoretical models. Mental distress can be also be usefully viewed as the result of erroneous reification—the confusing of symbols and concepts with reality. This paper describes the theory and practice of analytic meditative therapy. Inspired by non-dual Buddhist and other eastern wisdom traditions, it uses meditative and cognitive processes to control anxiety, deconstruct reified symbols and encourage contemplative resting in non-dual mental space, where reality and its appearance are coemergent and coalesced but distinct, and healing occurs naturally without the need for any specific additional effort.Jonathan R. Harrison was born in Manchester, England in 1943. He has a master’s degree in physics and mathematics from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He studied non-dual therapy with Dr. Peter Fenner in France and Israel and during a personal retreat at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in India. Inspired by non-dual Buddhist and other wisdom traditions—Dzogchen and Mahamudra, Zen and Madhyamika, Advaita and Taoism—he currently lives and works in Israel, teaching analytical meditative therapy to individuals and groups.     

论明代的度僧

明代建立了完密的度僧制度:禁止妇女出家,限定家庭出身以及本人身分,限定出家年龄,考试通经,限定全国僧人总数,度牒免费发放。明初多循制度僧;中期经常违制度僧,并大量鬻牒;后期主要鬻牒。明代度僧抑制了佛教势力,有利于生产发展、社会稳定及明王朝统治的巩固;有所限制的鬻牒,部分解决了军饷、赈济;大量度僧鬻牒,对生产发展、社会稳定起阻碍作用;私度盛行,买卖、伪造度牒成风,僧官借机营私舞弊;度僧对北京治安、物价也有很大影响。对佛教来说,明代度僧造就了庞大僧团,维系着佛教表面繁盛;促进了诸宗融合,促成了赴应僧队伍专业化和壮大,推动了佛教的世俗化进程;导致佛学进一步衰微。     

A Social-Cognitive-Ecological Framework for Understanding the Impact of Exposure to Persistent Ethnic–Political Violence on Children’s Psychosocial Adjustment

In this article, we describe a theoretical framework for understanding how persistent and extreme exposure to ethnic–political conflict and violence interacts with cognitive, emotional, and self processes to influence children’s psychosocial adjustment. Three recent strands of theorizing guide our approach. First, we focus on how observational and social learning processes combine to influence the development of social-cognitive structures and processes that affect behavior. Second, we focus on the role of developing self and identity processes in shaping the child’s interactions with the world and the consequences of those interactions. Third, we build on the complex systems perspective on development and assume that human development can only be understood accurately by examining how the multiple contexts affecting children and the adults in their lives interact to moderate biosocial factors which predispose individuals to develop in certain directions. We review the recent empirical literature on children’s exposure to ethnic–political violence and we apply the social-cognitive-ecological framework to the empirical findings in this literature. Finally, we propose future directions for research and clinical implications derived from this framework.     

Why did Mary Shelley Write Frankenstein?

Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus” is presented here as her encoded image of unconscious emotions too painful for her waking personality to deal with. Her innovative image of man-made life is taken as emerging from the confrontation of her hopes for secure love with painful events in her life with Percy Shelley. This paper proposes that her novel served as a waking expression of unconscious feelings of hurt in reaction to Percy. The monster’s role is here decoded as her way to consciously process the idea that parts of her relation to Percy were so hurtful as to deform it into a miscreant. It is further proposed that the losses and frustrations of her earliest years inclined her to accept Percy’s violations in the hope of the secure love she longed for. The answer offered to this paper’s title accounts for why “Frankenstein” is taken to refer to the unnamed monster and not its creator.Anthony F. Badalamenti is a research scientist in psychiatry. He has a private practice in psychoanalysis and works at quantifying psychiatric research with Columbia University Psychiatric Institute, The Nathan Kline Institute and The University of New England. He holds PhDs in mathematics from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and in systems from Bell Telephone Laboratories. He is a member of the Society for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, from whom he received a distinguished research award, the American Mathematical Society, the Society for General Systems Research and the New York Academy of Sciences. He has published over 60 papers in psychiatric research.     

The formation and development of individual and ethnic identity: insights from psychiatry and psychoanalytic theory

This paper describes the concept of identity formation, examining the historical development of identity, particularly ethnic identity. The author distinguishes the normative developmental achievement of self and group identity with pathological identity diffusion due to an earlier attachment disorder. The clinical case of a young male’s experience of his Persian family’s immigration to a new host country details the challenges encountered in ethnic identity formation and its interference in consolidating this ongoing process. The complicated task of self identity formation during this phase of development in the face of parental unresolved and ambivalent attitudes toward their own sense of threatened self and group identity diffusion is discussed. Parental intrapsychic conflict combined with environmental conflict such as racism, prejudice, and more recent paranoia toward Middle Eastern immigrant families interferes further with the normal identity formation process. The paper elaborates the compromised bicultural identity of a youngster who struggles through his developmental life phases.Mali A. Mann, M. D., is Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA and Faculty Member, San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute.     

Making Sense of Heterosexuality: An Exploratory Study of Young Heterosexual Identities in Turkey

On the basis of the understanding that the shaping, experience, and meaning of sexual identities is informed by the social context, an exploratory study of sexual identities was done with a college sample in urban Turkey. Participants included 225 students taking an introductory psychology course at a private urban university in İstanbul (66.5% women, 33.5% men, age range: 18–30 years, M=20.1, SD=1.7, 98% heterosexual identified). A questionnaire was used to investigate how young people explain the development of their sexual identity and how it affects their lives. An overwhelming majority identified their sexual identity, feelings, and experiences as always having been the same and were quite confident that their sexual identity would remain the same into the future. Participants saw their heterosexuality as mostly having to do with ‘outside forces’ including general references to the role of society, culture, and social expectations and norms, family structure and socialization, peer relations, and modeling. Most perceived their sexual identity to have a positive effect on their lives. Results suggest some evidence of interest in and openness to considering issues of sexual identity among these young people, and are discussed in the context of previous research on heterosexual identity development, sociocultural factors, and with reference to the historical meanings of sexual identities and practices in Turkey.     

Changing career and changing identity: how do teacher career changers exercise agency in identity construction?

The quest to understand what it means to ‘become’ a teacher and the conditions in which such aspirations can be translated into lived experience, continues to exercise teacher educators and researchers alike. Whilst the literature points towards the importance of developing teacher identity, little attention has been given to understanding the transitional processes of individuals coming into teaching at a later point in their working lives. The research reported here was part of a wider project investigating the experiences of early career science teachers. In this study we follow one mature, highly qualified science graduate as she moved through initial teacher education and beyond into her first teaching post. Drawing on theories of identity and self-verification, the analysis reveals how disparity between strongly-held archetypal teacher images and socially constructed teacher identity played out and led this teacher to step away from her new career. Fostering a strong sense of self-efficacy is suggested as critical in supporting mid-career changers in making durable adjustments to new working roles and contexts of teaching.     

Exploring the Role of Religiosity and Spirituality in Amniocentesis Decision-Making Among Latinas

Given the complex array of emotional and medical issues that may arise when making a decision about amniocentesis, women may find that their spiritual and/or religious beliefs can comfort and assist their decision-making process. Prior research has suggested that Latinas’ spiritual and/or religious beliefs directly influence their amniocentesis decision. A more intimate look into whether Latinas utilize their beliefs during amniocentesis decision-making may provide an opportunity to better understand their experience. The overall goal of this study was to describe the role structured religion and spirituality plays in Latinas’ daily lives and to evaluate how religiosity and spirituality influences health care decisions, specifically in prenatal diagnosis. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eleven women who were invited to describe their religious beliefs and thoughts while considering the option of amniocentesis. All participants acknowledged the influence of religious and/or spiritual beliefs in their everyday lives. Although the women sought comfort and found validation in their beliefs and in their faith in God’s will during their amniocentesis decision-making process, results suggest the risk of procedure-related complications played more of a concrete role than their beliefs.     

All role transitions are not experienced equally: Associations among self-change,emotional reactions,and self-concept clarity

Individuals experience numerous transitions across various roles during their lives. These role transitions can be disruptive to the way individuals view their identity, and thus their well-being; however, role transitions do not affect all individuals equally. Therefore, in the current work, we focused on two factors which may influence self-concept clarity and explain differential experiences following role transitions. We tested the relationship between the amount of self-change and positive emotions in reaction to a role transition predicting self-concept clarity, including both role entries (e.g. parenthood/new relationships, Studies 1–4) and role exits (e.g. divorce/job loss, Studies 3 and 4). Across several studies and all role transitions, we found that among individuals who experienced low levels of positive emotions after a role transition, greater self-change predicted reduced self-concept clarity. Among individuals who experienced higher levels of positive emotionality, this association did not emerge.     

Quantum sortal predicates

Sortal predicates have been associated with a counting process, which acts as a criterion of identity for the individuals they correctly apply to. We discuss in what sense certain types of predicates suggested by quantum physics deserve the title of ‘sortal’ as well, although they do not characterize either a process of counting or a criterion of identity for the entities that fall under them. We call such predicates ‘quantum-sortal predicates’ and, instead of a process of counting, to them is associated a ‘criterion of cardinality’. After their general characterization, it is discussed how these predicates can be formally described. To Patrick Suppes on his 80th birthday.     

The rhetoric of dread: Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) in information technology marketing

This article examines the nature and legality of FUD, which—as will be seen—is a timely subject. IBM may have been FUD’s originator but its greatest practitioner is allegedly none other than Microsoft, which (according to the firm’s critics) has repeatedly exercised FUD tactics in order to acquire and maintain its operating system monopoly. In particular, this article compares Amdahl’s experience with IBM to the emerging contours of Microsoft’s battle against a surprisingly able competitor, the open source operating system called Linux. A major contention of this essay is that attorneys, judges, and legal scholars tend to pay insufficient attention to the unique characteristics of technology enterprises, and thus cannot distinguish meaningfully between practices that are plainly legal under U. S. antitrust law, and those which are not. A perspective drawn from the history and sociology of technology (namely, Thomas P. Hughes’ concept of technological systems) is used to elucidate what is predatory, and what is not, in a dominant market player’s use of FUD and associated marketing tactics. where his scholarly and teaching interests include cyberlaw, intellectual property in high-tech industries, and the social issues posed by advanced information technology. He is also the author of several best-selling trade and textbook titles, including Webster’s New World Dictionary of Computer Terms, 9th ed. (Hungry Minds) and Computers in Your Future, 4th ed. (Prentice-Hall). He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.     

BUDDHISM AND PSYCHOANALYSIS: A PERSONAL REFLECTION

Around 600 BC Siddhartha Gotama practiced intensive meditation for several years and found a way for people to cultivate a sense of equanimity, wisdom, and compassion in their lives. Around 1900 AD Sigmund Freud undertook several years of intensive self-analysis and developed theories and therapeutic techniques for understanding how the unconscious operates in our lives to perpetuate neurotic suffering, and how we might gain insight and relief from that suffering and be more free to move toward our potential in this life. This article gives an overview of Buddhist theory and practice, gives an account of the author’s personal journey through both disciplines, and then point outs the similarities and differences in them, leading to an integration of elements of these two paths of exploration of the psyche, for the purpose of mutual enrichment.Dr. Nichol is a graduate of the Menninger Clinic and the Houston-Galveston Psychoanalytic Institute, and he is in private practice.     

Enacting the self: Buddhist and Enactivist approaches to the emergence of the self

In this paper, I take up the problem of the self through bringing together the insights, while correcting some of the shortcomings, of Indo–Tibetan Buddhist and enactivist accounts of the self. I begin with an examination of the Buddhist theory of non-self (anātman) and the rigorously reductionist interpretation of this doctrine developed by the Abhidharma school of Buddhism. After discussing some of the fundamental problems for Buddhist reductionism, I turn to the enactive approach to philosophy of mind and cognitive science. I argue that human beings, as dynamic systems, are characterized by a high degree of self-organizing autonomy. Therefore, human beings are not reducible to the more basic mental and physical events that constitute them. I critically examine Francisco Varela’s enactivist account of the self as virtual and his use of Buddhist ideas in support of this view. I argue, in contrast, that while the self is emergent and constructed, it is not merely virtual. Finally I sketch a Buddhist-enactivist account of the self. I argue for a non-reductionist view of the self as an active, embodied, embedded, self-organizing process—what the Buddhists call ‘I’-making (ahaṃkāra). This emergent process of self-making is grounded in the fundamentally recursive processes that characterize lived experience: autopoiesis at the biological level, temporalization and self-reference at the level of conscious experience, and conceptual and narrative construction at the level of intersubjectivity. In Buddhist terms, I will develop an account of the self as dependently originated and empty, but nevertheless real.     

Psychological and Socio-cultural Adjustment during Cross-cultural Transitions: A Comparison of Secondary Students Overseas and at Home

The study further explores the distinction of psychological and socio-cultural adjustment during cross-cultural transitions. One hundred and seventy-eight New Zealand American Field Service (AFS) students residing in 23 different countries completed questionnaires which contained assessments of the following: Personality (extraversion and locus of control); life changes (Social Readjustment Rating Questionnaire); homesickness, cultural distance, acculturation (cultural identity and cultural integration—separation); attitudes toward host country; language ability; amount of contact with host and co-nationals; relationship satisfaction with co-nationals, host nationals and host family; and outcome measures of socio-cultural (social difficulty) and psychological adjustment (Profile of Mood States). Stepwise regressions revealed that homesickness, external locus of control, life changes, and social difficulty accounted for 55% of the variance in psychological adjustment. In contrast, cultural distance, language ability, satisfaction with host national contact, cultural separation and mood disturbance explained 52% of the variance in socio-cultural adaptation. In the second part of the research, psychological and socio-cultural adjustment of AFS students was compared with a sample of 142 home-based New Zealand secondary school students. Although there were no significant differences in psychological adjustment between the two groups, the students who were resident abroad experienced greater socio-cultural difficulties than the students resident in New Zealand (P < 0.0005), and, as hypothesized, the correlation between psychological and socio-cultural adjustment was significantly greater in the home-based students compared to the AFS group (P < 0.0001).     

Suffering and the Shape of Well-Being in Buddhist Ethics

This article explores the defense Indian Buddhist texts make in support of their conceptions of lives that are good for an individual. This defense occurs, largely, through their analysis of ordinary experience as being saturated by subtle forms of suffering (du?kha). I begin by explicating the most influential of the Buddhist taxonomies of suffering: the threefold division into explicit suffering (du?kha-du?khatā), the suffering of change (vipari?āma-du?khatā), and conditioned suffering (sa?skāra-du?khatā). Next, I sketch the three theories of welfare that have been most influential in contemporary ethical theory. I then argue that Buddhist texts underdetermine which of these theories would have been accepted by ancient Indian Buddhists. Nevertheless, Buddhist ideas about suffering narrow the shape any acceptable theory of welfare may take. In my conclusion, I argue that this narrowing process itself is enough to reconstruct a philosophical defense of the forms of life endorsed in Buddhist texts.     

Common Core Thesis and Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Mysticism in Chinese Buddhist Monks and Nuns

This study explores the phenomenological structure of mystical experience among 139 Chinese Pure Land and Chan Buddhist monks and nuns. Semi‐structured interviews, thematic coding, and statistical analyses demonstrated that Stace's common facets of mysticism as measured by Hood's Mysticism Scale (M Scale) successfully described Buddhist experience as modified by Buddhist doctrines. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) revealed that these facets could be formed into Stace's three‐factor structure. A mystical introvertive unity hypothesized to be separate from an extrovertive unity instead converged in the Chinese Buddhist context. These results lend strong support to the thesis that the phenomenology of mystical experience reveals a common experiential core that can be discerned across religious and spiritual traditions. These data also demonstrated that this common core can and should be explored using mixed methods.     

Gender Verification: A Term Whose Time has Come and Gone

The process of testing to determine gender in putatively female athletes was developed in order to prevent cheating, but has devolved instead into a clumsy mechanism for detecting disorders of sexual development (DSD’s). In over thirty years of compulsory testing, individuals with DSD’s have been stigmatized and some have been denied the right to compete, although frequently their condition provided no competitive advantage. More recent guidelines require testing only on a case-by-case basis; the South African runner Caster Semenya was the first major test of this policy, and her experience points to the need for a more sensitive and confidential process. In addition, her case dramatizes the inadequacy of the term “gender verification.” Gender identity is a complex entity and resists simple classification. Sports authorities may set guidelines for who can compete, but they should refrain from taking on themselves the authority to decide who is and who is not a female.     

NEW VISIONS FOR ENGAGED BUDDHISM: THE JUNGTO SOCIETY AND THE INDRA'S NET COMMUNITY MOVEMENT IN CONTEMPORARY KOREA

This paper examines two major Buddhist movements in contemporary South Korea, the Jungto Society and Indra's Net Community, which address issues in daily lives of lay people. Visionary monks began these movements: Jungto was established by P?mnyun in 1988, and Indra's Net by Tob?p in 1999. Both began as grassroots communities based on Buddhist principles, seeking an alternative way of thinking and living in response to contemporary society's emphasis on mass consumption, commercialism, competition, and the exploitation of the natural resources. While their activities overlap in promoting peace and ecological preservation, Jungto is better known for its humanitarian aid programmes in impoverished areas of the world, and the Indra's Net for its rural community movement in South Korea. With their steady and visible activities, these movements not only offer a new vision and work for lay Buddhists but also appeal to a wider population by involving the general public.     

The Immigration Experience of Iranian Baha’is in Saskatchewan: The Reconstruction of Their Existence, Faith, and Religious Experience

For approximately 150 years, Baha’is in Iran have been persecuted on the basis of their religion. Limitations to aspects of their lives have compelled them to face “civic death” or migrate to other countries. This qualitative pilot study explored the experience of forced migration and how religion attenuates the disruption to the lives of Iranian Baha’is. Adaptive strategies that four participants utilised to re-establish continuity were examined. Participants who were satisfied with their lives developed a way to allow parallel cultural traditions (Iranian and Canadian) to co-exist; those who could not integrate found it difficult to maintain a balance between these traditions.