“A Place to Enter and in Which to Feel”: Reply to Cath,Levine, and Peltz

In this response, I clarify my argument for the utility of affectively organizing and containing work in the treatment of a traumatized child. I find myself in agreement with many of the comments of Peltz regarding the vitalizing aspects of the work and Levine’s discussion of scaffolding to promote development. I delineate my thinking in response to Cath’s queries about transference, Oedipal themes, and the value of interpretation.     

Better to Give and to Compete? Prosocial and Competitive Motives as Interactive Predictors of Citizenship Behavior

Research has returned mixed results concerning the relationship between prosocial motivation and citizenship behavior. Building from research suggesting that mixed motives might explain these equivocal findings, we conducted two field studies examining the interaction between prosocial and competitive motives and two types of citizenship behavior. Prosocial motivation, but not competitive motivation, was positively related to citizenship behavior directed at others, though this relationship was weakened when prosocial motives were accompanied by competitive motives. Prosocial motives compensated for weak competitive motives to predict citizenship behavior directed toward the organization. Our studies expand research on prosocial and competitive motivation, mixed-motives, and citizenship behavior. Further, they carry personnel implications given that many organizations seek to hire employees high on both competitive and prosocial motivation.     

Replies to Comesaña and Yablo

There are few indulgences academics can crave more than to have their work considered and addressed by leading researchers in their field. We have been fortunate to have two outstanding philosophers from whose work we have learned a great deal give ours their thoughtful attention. Grappling with Stephen Yablo’s, and Juan Comesaña’s comments and criticisms has helped us gain a better understanding of our ideas as well as their shortcomings. We are extremely grateful to them for the attentiveness and seriousness with which they have considered our arguments and to philosophical studies for giving us this opportunity. Given the substantive difference between the two response papers, there is not much beyond sincere gratitude that we can covey to them jointly. We will therefore address them in turn.     

Schizophrenic speech,slips of the tongue,and jargonaphasia: A reply to Fromkin and to Lecours and Vanier-Clément

Chaika (1974, Brain & Language, 1, 257–276) raised the possibility that speech judged “schizophrenic” by researchers results from an intermittent, cyclical aphasia. Fromkin (1975, Brain and Language, 2, 498–503) judged such speech as no different from normal error and even as proof of intactness of linguistic competence. These claims are examined. Lecours and Vanier-Clément (1976, Brain and Language, 3, 516–565), on the other hand, found it not normal, but different from jargonaphasia, a claim not wholly substantiated. Schizophrenic speech is found to be different from that of normals on both formal and intuitive grounds, contributing to new understanding of the differences between normal, pathological, and artistic language.     

Response to ‘Transgender medicalization and the attempt to evade psychological distress’ (Withers 2020) and to Herdzik’s (2021) response to Withers

Psyche is non-binary and multiple and clinical work in the analytic container must be held in the fluidity of multiplicity. Analysts are called to bring Queer energy to analytical attitude. Queer energy is intrinsically non-conforming and desires to confront a priori concepts in service to the unfolding of the Self. A Queer analytic attitude seeks to blur narrative, deconstruct language and listen deeply for what is emergent in the field. Queer energy is also deeply activating and often results in polarizations of attitude and a failure to hold what is emergent. This response to Withers (2020) and to (Herdzik 2021) is an invitation for all of us to engage our activated complexes around work with transgender issues and the fluidity of the Queer experience. The multiplicity of the Self seeks to be known through analytic process. Consciously held authentic experience of what is emergent and thus unknown is at the core of this process. An analysis capable of holding Queer energy offers a theatre for the exploration of gender identity and its expression.     

Are there limits to scientists’ obligations to seek and engage dissenters?

Dissent is thought to play a valuable role in science, so that scientific communities ought to create opportunities for receiving critical feedback and take dissenting views seriously. There is concern, however, that some dissent does more harm than good. Dissent on climate change and evolutionary theory, for example, has confused the public, created doubt about existing consensus, derailed public policy, and forced scientists to devote resources to respond. Are there limits to the extent to which scientific communities have obligations to seek and engage dissenting views? We consider the two main criteria that have been offered for what constitutes “normatively appropriate dissent” or the sort of dissent that ought to have the opportunity to be heard and taken seriously. Many have argued that dissenters must (1) engage in uptake of criticism against their own views and (2) share some standards for theory appraisal. We argue these criteria ultimately are unsuccessful.     

Reply to “Expanding the Frame” by Anthony Bass and to Commentaries

In this reply I offer a short answer to the question about the theme “What do we learn from experience?” I can say that certainly the power of that particular experience with that patient made me more sensitive and careful toward similar moments with other patients. I then offer some comment on the contributions in this issue of the journal. I emphasize the interweaving of structure and process and the process of building meaning as an intersubjective achievement. I also intervene on the theme “how to transmit psychoanalytic wisdom.”     

Anderson and Belnap’s Invitation to Sin

Quine has argued that modal logic began with the sin of confusing use and mention. Anderson and Belnap, on the other hand, have offered us a way out through a strategy of nominalization. This paper reviews the history of Lewis’s early work in modal logic, and then proves some results about the system in which “A is necessary” is intepreted as “A is a classical tautology.”     

Barriers to children’s walking to school in Iranian and Chinese samples

Factors that contribute to children’s walking to school have been investigated in previous research, which primarily focussed on socio-economic variables in high income countries. There is a general lack of studies which have examined mode choice differences on school trips in low and middle income countries. Focusing on parental social cognitive variables in addition to household socio-economic characteristics, the present study is among the first to compare barriers to children’s walking in daily commuting to schools across samples from two middle income countries: Iran and China. A self-administered questionnaire was devised and distributed among primary school pupils (7–9 years old) in Mashhad, Iran and Nanjing, China. The children were asked to take the questionnaires to their parents to complete and return the filled forms. A total of 671 (response rate of 90 percent) and 224 (response rate of 82 percent) completely filled questionnaires were returned in Mashhad and Nanjing, respectively. Multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) showed that parents in Mashhad perceived higher risk and reported more worry of children being involved in road crashes when walking to school. Analyses revealed more safety favourable parental attitudes in the Chinese sample, compared to the Iranian sample. Parental attitudes towards transport safety were safer in the sample from Nanjing as compared to Mashhad. Hierarchical binary logistic regression showed that walking time from home to school and parental worry about road crashes were negatively associated with children’s walking to school in both samples. In the Iranian sample, results suggested that while household car ownership and higher family income were associated with a decreased probability that a child walk to school, the total number of children in the household increased the probability of walking to school.     

How Do Income and Its Components and Perception Relate to Alienation?

This study examines the relationship between individuals' financial reality and alienation—a psychological state that negatively affects employee performance. Using hierarchical regression to analyze 311 questionnaires completed by full‐time employees, income‐related variables were found to explain a substantial part of the variance in alienation. A negative relationship between income and alienation was identified, but was moderated by the value that individuals attributed to money and was related to pay satisfaction. Pay composition had an independent effect on alienation: Higher control over amount of income and a recent increase in income were related to lower levels of alienation beyond the effect of income level. Potential practices to reduce alienation include spreading wage increases, enhancing pay transparency, and linking pay to performance.     

“I want to pray and I don’t want to pray”: expressive individualism and prayer

This article reports on a study of the relationship between expressive individualism, an important characteristic of individualistic cultures, and different varieties of prayer. Four dimensions of expressive individualism (autonomy, setting oneself apart from others, personal development, and the expression of emotions) and four types of prayer (petitionary, religious, meditative, and psychological) were distinguished. Data were collected from participants in internet forums on Christian religiosity (N?=?158); they were asked to complete questionnaires about expressive individualism and prayer. The relationship between expressive individualism and prayer was found to be an ambivalent one, and one that is negatively dominated by autonomy. After eliminating the effect of autonomy, two patterns remain visible, both of them characterised by a positive connection to religiosity. Setting oneself apart from others is associated with petitionary and religious prayer; personal development with meditative and psychological prayer. The explanation of this concealed longing for religion is sought in the pressure resulting from expressive individualism as a way of life.     

Entitlement to Self‐Knowledge and Brute Error

Abstract

I discuss Burge’s argument that our entitlement to self‐knowledge consists in the constitutive relation between the second‐order review of thoughts and the thoughts reviewed, and defend it against Peacocke’s criticism. I then argue that though our entitlement to self‐knowledge is neutral to different environments, as Burge claims, the consideration of Burge’s own notion of brute error shows that Burge’s effort to reconcile externalism and self‐knowledge is not successful.     

Reply to Øystein Linnebo and Stewart Shapiro

In reply to Linnebo, I defend my analysis of Tait's argument against the use of classical logic in set theory, and make some preliminary comments on Linnebo's new argument for the same conclusion. I then turn to Shapiro's discussion of intuitionistic analysis and of Smooth Infinitesimal Analysis (SIA). I contend that we can make sense of intuitionistic analysis, but only by attaching deviant meanings to the connectives. Whether anyone can make sense of SIA is open to doubt: doing so would involve making sense of mathematical quantities (infinitesimals) whose relationship to zero and to one another is inherently indeterminate.     

A Group Journey—to Hell and Back

The process of a therapy group in an inpatient daycare unit¹ became saturated with anger and detachment, ultimately leading to a despairing silence. Based on Ferenczi’s concept of Orpha, I will explain the group silence as indicative of deep trauma and dissociative self-states. I propose that the therapist’s willingness to “hang in” with his group and be part of a seemingly unbearable enactment enhances the possibility for emergence of hope and restoration of positive communication. It is rare in the literature for authors to expose the pitfalls that they and their group members can fall into, leading to despair, shame, and hopelessness. When working in the complex environment of a mental hospital where every level of staff is stressed, therapists often find themselves without support and consultation. My hope is that my colleagues can learn from my challenges, errors, and lessons, as I have.