Supervising away from home: clinical,cultural and professional challenges

This paper explores some challenges of supervising clinical work of trainees, known as ‘routers’, who live in countries with diverse cultural, social and political traditions, and the analysts who travel to supervise them. It is written as an evolving dialogue between the authors, who explore together the effects of their own culture of origin, and in particular the legacy and values of their own training institutes on the styles and models of analytic supervision. Their dialogue is framed around the meaning of home and experiences of homesickness for analysts working away from home in an interactive field of strangeness in countries where analytical psychology is a relatively new discipline. The authors outline the findings from their own qualitative survey, where other supervisors working abroad, and those they have supervised, describe their experiences and their encounters with difference. The dialogue ends with both authors discussing what they have learned about teaching and supervising abroad, the implications for more flexible use of Jungian concepts, and how such visits have changed their clinical practice in their home countries.     

Hale-Bopp and Handedness: Individual Differences in Memory for Orientation

The accuracy with which a person recalls the orientation of a human figure or head has been shown to depend systematically on the person's handedness. This study investigated whether memory for the orientation of an inanimate object displays a similar effect. In contrast to previous work investigating memory for depictions encountered over many years, the present work focused on memory for a unique event that engaged considerable attention over a relatively brief period—Comet Hale-Bopp. The results showed that although right-handed and left-handed individuals did not differ in their memory for semantic information concerning the comet, they did differ in their memory for its orientation. Right-handed people were significantly more likely than left-handed people both to recall and to recognize the comet as facing to the left. The results suggest that memory performance may be influenced by patterns of underlying cerebral motor activation.     

Psychoanalytic practice in the early postgraduate years

As a pilot investigation for a longitudinal study of psychoanalytic careers, a survey was conducted of analysts who graduated during the last fifteen years from the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. Graduates were asked to describe both their analytic practice and their interest in pursuing appointment as training and supervising analysts. The 23-item questionnaire was completed by 67 of 102 potential respondents (66%). The study identified two subgroups of graduates: those who were not certified and were not training analysts (GAs), 78% of the sample, and certified and training analysts (CAs, TAs), 22% of the sample. GAs started a mean of 1.4 new analytic cases since graduation, as compared to CAs and TAs, who started a mean of 5.4 and 8.3 new cases, respectively. CAs and TAs also saw more twice-weekly therapy cases than did GAs. Once-weekly therapy was the most commonly practiced treatment for all subgroups. Interest in becoming a TA was highest during the first five postgraduate years and was lower among non-TAs five to fifteen years after graduation. Only one of the CA respondents met current APsaA immersion criteria for training analyst appointment.     

Cross-cultural Psychoanalysis and the Interpersonal Perspective

From its beginning Interpersonal Psychoanalysis was eminently suited to address theoretical and clinically issues when working with patients from different cultures. The open-ended quality of the detailed inquiry was a particularly useful tool to get to know the "stranger," as American social scientists of the fifties and sixties were quick to acknowledge. It therefore comes as a surprise how few interpersonalists have addressed themselves to cross-cultural issues. Particularly lacking has been attention to countertransferential problems in analyzing patients from other cultures. In addition the impact of the cultural climate on the analytic process itself has rarely been explored. As cross-cultural contacts in the consulting room have become more frequent it is important for analysts to consider that developmental sequences, family relationships, interpersonal distance, concepts of time and openness to emotional sharing may differ from what Western psychoanalysis considers to be "normal."     

Psychoanalytic training experience and postgraduate professional development – Part II

This exploratory study looks at the training and postgraduate experience of the 2008–2014 graduates of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. It follows our former study of all living graduates through the year 2007 (Schneider et al., 2014). The survey developed and used in the first study, with a few additional questions added to increase our understanding of the training experience, was sent to 38 graduates with a return rate of 58%. As with the first survey, graduates were invited to assess, among other training experiences, their training analysis, classroom work, and supervision, and to tell of their post‐graduation involvement in teaching, supervising, study groups and other professional endeavors. They were also asked to rate their satisfaction with themselves as psychoanalysts and with their analytic career. The questions added to the previous survey related to the graduates’ theoretical orientation, the influence on their training experiences of the change in gender distribution, and of the diversity of professions now represented in the analytic training program. They were also encouraged to provide spontaneous narrative data. The data from our second survey showed important differences when compared with our first. In the first survey male respondents were in the majority; in the second, women held the majority. Of the professions represented in the training program, psychiatry was the majority in the first survey, psychology and social work held the majority in the second. Most respondents claimed an object‐relation theoretical orientation. Analytic immersion continues to decrease, with most respondents having two patients at the time of graduation and one at the time of the survey.     

On the Distinction Between the Motivating Operation and Setting Event Concepts

In recent decades, behavior analysts have generally used two different concepts to speak about motivational influences on operant contingencies: setting event and motivating operation. Although both concepts still appear in the contemporary behavior-analytic literature and were designed to address the same antecedent phenomena, the concepts are quite different. The purpose of the present article is to describe and distinguish the concepts and to illustrate their current usage.     

Clinical theory at the border(s): Emerging and unintended crossings in the development of clinical theory

The author provides some scaffolding for thinking about emerging and unintended integrative developments in clinical theory. The emergent theory to which the author refers works at a different level of theoretical discourse than explicit attempts at comparative translation of psychoanalytic concepts or theories. In contrast, most of the theory that is explored in this paper involves clinical discourse aimed at solving important common clinical problems. The work of a group of authors (Jay Greenberg, John Steiner, Anton Kris, Michael Feldman and Charles Spezzano) is described as simultaneously embedded within a particular orientation while demonstrating a kind of unwitting reach to a broad swathe of analysts. Distinctions are made between this kind of linking of clinical theory versus self‐consciously syncretic and integrative approaches to theory development. The author also discusses the educational implications of this emergent theory for teaching and learning during psychoanalytic training.     

Supervisors' and Supervisees' perceptions of the effectiveness of family therapy supervisor interpersonal skills

Abstract

This study surveyed a randomly selected group of Approved Supervisors of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (n=318) and their supervisees (n=299) on their perceptions of the effectiveness of several supervisor interpersonal skills. Both supervisors and supervisees had high ratings for the majority of the interpersonal skills and rated “respects the supervisee” most effective. Trends in supervisors' and supervisees' responses were assessed for (a) theoretical orientation, (b) supervision setting, (c) gender, (d) number of years supervising family therapists (for supervisors), and (e) number of years practicing family therapy (for supervisees).     

Experiences related to expert supervisors' views of ideal therapeutic practice

Aims: This study examines the relationship between expert supervisors' professional experiences and their views about the importance of different psychotherapy techniques. Method: Thirty psychodynamic‐interpersonal (PI) supervisors and 13 cognitive‐behavioural (CB) supervisors (N=43) were instructed to rate 20 therapeutic techniques according to how characteristic each technique is of an ideally‐conducted session within their theoretical orientation. The measure used for this assessment was the Comparative Psychotherapy Process Scale. Results: Findings demonstrated that supervisors' beliefs about ideal therapeutic techniques are related to their number of years in post‐graduate clinical practice, training, and supervising trainees, as well as to the number of publications they have authored. Further, experience within a given orientation tends to lead to a greater endorsement of techniques within that orientation, although this finding is more uniform for CB supervisors than PI supervisors. Finally, differential types of experience lead to differential focusing on specific techniques. Discussion: The clinical importance of these findings is explored.     

Feature localization and identification

Theories on visual search differ substantially with respect to the relationship they assume between localization and identification processes. The aim of the present study was to rigorously compare the alternative theoretical notions on how localization and identification processes are related. In two experiments, participants searched for a target with a unique line orientation among distractors containing another orientation. Localization and identification performance were measured in combination, as function of display size and target eccentricity. To compare the alternative theories, formal binomial models were developed and compared with respect to their goodness of fit to the individual data. The formal analyses showed that the model assuming identification processes to be conditioned on localization processes provided the best fit to the individual data. Furthermore, maximum likelihood estimates of the parameter corresponding to identification processes were differently affected by display size than identification performance was. The results were discussed in terms of their implication for current theories on visual search.     

Future orientation of institutionalized and noninstitutionalized delinquents and nondelinquents

The present study is an analysis of the relationship between delinquency, institutionalization and future orientation, based on a social-learning theoretical framework. Two hundred and forty male adolescents (institutionalized and noninstitutionalized delinquents and nondelinquents) answered open and structured questions concerning their anticipations and evaluations of the future. The data were analysed by analyses of variance and t-tests and partly confirm the hypotheses: Delinquents structure their future in a less differentiated, less extended, and more internal way than nondelinquents. This was especially true for the institutionalized delinquents. However, delinquents structured their fears concerning their personal development more extensively than nondelinquents. Future orientation varied according to the length of institutionalization in different domains of life. These results do not support the dominant assumption of the literature that delinquents have an unrealistic future orientation. Rather, it is shown here that institutionalized delinquents anticipate rather negative future events which they expect to occur shortly after the time of their release. However, the present results have to be cautiously interpreted on account of the special selection of the sample and the rather short duration of institutionalization. Also, the method of a differentiated measurement of future orientation used here is hardly practiced in the literature though such a conceptualization as a multidimensional construct seems to be theoretically fruitful.     

What do we learn in psychoanalytic training?

Can one define the aims of psychoanalytic training that most analysts would agree upon? For more than a decade the EPF Working Party ‘End of Training Evaluation Project (ETEP)’ has worked on this issue. Summarizing results of this work the author describes a set of basic elements every developing analyst should have learned or internalized during his training. His assertion is that most analysts notwithstanding their theoretical orientation could agree upon these necessary requirements for a successful ending of psychoanalytic training. These elements are demonstrated in the ability to understand the emotional demand of a patient in every session and the often ensuing emotional storm, to appreciate and deeply understand the value of free association, to preserve a neutral stance, to think in terms of transference and countertransference, and to think conceptually about what is happening and what one is doing in the session.     

Theoretical Orientations of New Zealand Psychologists: An International Comparison

Registered practicing psychologists in New Zealand (n = 221) were surveyed concerning their predominant theoretical orientation. Results were compared with findings obtained among Australian psychologists by Byrne and Reinhart (1990), British psychologists by Garrett and Davis (1995), and North American psychologists by Norcross, Karg, and Prochaska (1997a). The results showed that while New Zealand psychologists use cognitive approaches more often than both British and North American psychologists, they use behavioral and psychodynamic approaches less often. Overall, it was found that the eclectic approach is the most popular theoretical orientation obtained in surveys of Australian, New Zealand, and North American psychologists, in that no group subscribed exclusively to a single theoretical orientation.     

Psychoanalytic training experience and postgraduate professional development: A survey of six decades of graduate analysts

This exploratory study explored the training and post‐training experience of graduates of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. All living graduates of the past six decades were invited to complete a survey that addressed their training analysis, classroom work, supervision and other training experiences as well as their degree of post‐graduation involvement in teaching, supervising, study groups and other professional endeavors. They were also asked to rate their sense of themselves as psychoanalysts and their satisfaction with their analytic career. Further, they were encouraged to provide spontaneous narrative data. Our findings contribute to the current understanding of the careers of psychoanalysts – including that there is a difference in generational cohorts regarding professional satisfaction, identification as an analyst, and experience of training. We also found that there are no real differences between analysts who do and do not have analytic patients on some important variables: supporting analysis as a treatment method, identifying oneself professionally with psychoanalysis, and disillusionment with psychoanalysis – which is consistent with other studies. Also discovered were differences between male and female analysts' perception of certain aspects of their training.     

A common ground in clinical discussion groups: Intersubjective resonance and implicit operational theories

Clinical discussion groups based on the Three‐Level Model for Observing Patient Transformations (3‐LM) enable us to reflect on the clinical common ground shared by psychoanalysts who have different theoretical frameworks. The very existence of this common ground is controversial. While analysts such as Wallerstein support it, others, like Green, think it is just a myth. In their 2005 controversy Wallerstein and Green proposed an observation procedure that might clarify this matter. This procedure bears great similarity to the one used by clinical discussion groups that apply the 3‐LM. The study of numerous theoretically heterogeneous groups that use this model shows that communication is possible in crucial areas. We may thus conclude that a partial and dynamic common ground exists. At a phenomenological level, certain fragments of material produce a shared resonance that enriches clinical understanding for the whole group. Communication is also possible with regard to the conceptualization of patient changes, although some controversial issues persist at this level. Finally, at the level of theoretical explanations, divergences concerning abstract theories do not prevent a fertile interaction among ‘in vivo’ personal implicit theories. The latter give rise to the actual operational frameworks underlying participants' approach to clinical problems.     

How the mind understands other minds: cognitive psychology, attachment and reflective function

Jung's epistemological relativistic attitude was very advanced for his time and very much in line with the contemporary philosophy of science. Further, Jung states that the patient's unconscious has the capacity to represent itself by creating metaphors which give the therapist all the help he might need in treating his patient. As such, Jungian analysts have not been encouraged to embark on theoretical work and as a result, the Jungian movement has been lacking those theories that connect general psychological principles with clinical practices. In an attempt to enlarge our 'middle-range theories', we shall discuss Peter Fonagy's concept of reflective function. In our opinion, the theoretical hypothesis regarding the instinct of reading the mind (Baron-Cohen 1995) and Fonagy's idea of reflective function are extremely useful in our Jungian clinical practice and these concepts are utilizable because they are not at odds with analytical psychology's general epistemological and theoretical framework.     

Presumed Guilty: Constructing Deviance and Deviants through Techniques of Neutralization

Techniques of neutralization have become one of the most ubiquitous concepts in the study of deviance. This article examines the way in which analysts who use neutralization theory construct the nature of deviance and those who engage in it. The author argues that by invoking the concept of neutralizations, analysts endorse the deviant label being applied to those they study and engage in the practice of “motive mongering.” In many cases, assumptions about the behavior and disposition of those who engage in deviant behavior have been accepted without empirical justification. The implications of this practice for objectivist and subjectivist approaches to defining deviance are examined.     

Internal Objects - A Theoretical Analysis of Jungian and Kleinian Models

In this paper I discuss the ways in which experimental and objective research from cognitive science and developmental psychology can help analysts evaluate the theoretical models of mental objects which we use; I indicate the ways in which such evidence tends to support models of internal objects as mental representations or developmental capacities rather than as wish-fulfilling expressions of instinctual drives. This land of empirical evidence is not just of academic interest but also has direct clinical relevance, particularly with borderline patients; such patients' sense of identity is totally dependent on the analyst's understanding of their internal world and for this to be misunderstood by the analyst can be catastrophic. An accurate theoretical model of mental objects can therefore help analysts to contain their patients more effectively.     

概念加工深度影响道德概念水平方位隐喻联结

通过6个实验探究了不同概念加工深度下道德概念与水平方位的隐喻联结。实验1采用迫选任务范式, 实验2、实验3和实验4均采用空间Stroop范式, 实验5和实验6均采用启动范式。结果发现：(1)在思维迫选中存在道德与左、不道德与右的隐喻联结; (2)在较深、中等概念加工深度下发现了隐喻一致性效应, 在较浅概念加工深度下未发现这种效应; (3)在较浅概念加工深度下始源域和目标域之间的映射均不存在, 即未在启动范式中发现隐喻联结。结果表明：道德概念与水平方位存在隐喻联结, 这种隐喻联结中左表征道德、右表征不道德, 并同时受到始源域和目标域加工深度的影响。     

Toward a Critical Global Psychoanalysis

In light of the contemporary shift away from the universalizing of the Eurocentric perspective, brought into focus with the advent of globalization, it may be useful to consider reorienting traditional psychoanalytic assumptions about human nature to those that are more appropriate to the recognition of a culturally pluralistic world. The author argues that ego psychology originated in the Western Enlightenment's emphasis on liberal individualism, which has limited its applicability across races, classes, and cultures. Relational theories, in their capacity to include the examination of the socially constructed dimensions of the analytic dyad (including race, class, gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation), offer crucial theoretical and clinical possibilities, lacking in traditional psychoanalysis, that may help analysts to address some of the important cultural sources of psychological suffering. In the relational view expressed here, the unconscious—as made manifest in everyday life and in the transference and countertransference of the analytic situation—is reformulated to include social and cultural influences.