The day the earth stood still: The presence of trauma in time experience

The experience of time is commonly perceived as developing within the context of the early relationship between mother and infant. The beginning of life occurs in an adapted environment, aimed to protect the child from internal and external disruptions. Through healthy development, the mind acquires a feeling of continuity that gradually becomes a cohesive sense of personal identity. However, in cases of traumatic interruptions to the primary environment, the defensive shield of the self is penetrated and the individual becomes prematurely aware and adapted to the external reality. This forced acknowledgement of time and reality could be manifested in various types of time disturbances, such as disorientation about time or difficulties in following a schedule. In therapeutic relationships, this drama would be enacted in a struggle against the psychoanalytic setting, which disrupts the continuity of being with the therapist. Importantly, these patients express a deep conscious or unconscious fantasy to live in a timeless world, in which they would not be forced to adapt themselves to others’ expectations or needs. Clinical examples are used to illustrate how traumatic history is evident in the patient’s time experience and in the psychoanalytic dialogue.     

Discussion: The Analyst's Involvement in the Creative Aspect of Analysis

Recent formulations on the psychology of creativity in the analytic context, such as Albert Rothenberg's “homospacial thinking,” Arnold Modell's “unconscious metaphoric thought,” and Thomas Ogden's “transformational thinking,” are discussed. These concepts enable previously unconnected experiences to be combined within the mind, while emphasizing interpersonal imaginative processes such as identification and empathic knowledge; the dual cognitive features of these formulations permit awareness of the complexity of feelings in oneself and others, essential for psychoanalytic creativity. Further, the articles in this issue are synthesized, highlighting the importance of the analyst making creative (new and valuable) use of his or her entire life experience, feelings, attitudes, and fantasies in treatment. From this dicussion, it is evident that the analyst's creative use of self should be more systematically incorporated into psychoanalytic theory of technique.     

Group Wrongs and Guilt Feelings

Can it ever be appropriate to feel guilt just because one's group has acted badly? Some say no, citing supposed features of guilt feelings as such. If one understands group action according to my plural subject account of groups, however, one can argue for the appropriateness of feeling guilt just because one's group has acted badly - a feeling that often occurs. In so arguing I sketch the plural subject account of groups, group intentions and group actions: for a group to intend (in the relevant sense) is for its members to be jointly committed to intend that such-and-such as a body. Individual group members need not be directly involved in the formation of the intention in order to participate in such a joint commitment. The core concept of joint commitment is in an important way holistic, not being reducible to a set of personal commitments over which each party holds sway. Parties to a group intention so understood can reasonably see the resulting action as "ours" as opposed to "theirs" and thus appropriately respond to the action's badness with a feeling of guilt, even when they themselves are morally innocent in the matter. I label the feeling in question a feeling of "membership guilt." A number of standard philosophical claims about the nature of guilt feelings are thrown into question by my argument.     

Uses of guilt in the treatment of dehumanization

It is likely that under the impact of impending Nazism, aggression theory in late Freud, as presented in Civilization and its Discontents (1930), left the entirety of guilt to self‐punishment, thus retracting his view that love functions in the superego as remorse and restitution. This change however, essentially withdraws provision for treating victims of abuse, violence and terror. This paper proposes a paradigm shift that reframes Freud's late instinct theory into a theory of dehumanization by recovering reparative and relational components of guilt. This reframe has major implications for the position taken with regard to the role of witnessing and the moral imperative in recovery from dehumanizing experience, which orthodox psychoanalytic theory has essentially bypassed. It is propose that victim treatment, as case examples illustrate, reformulates guilt as drawing on the life instincts to revivify victims’ humanity through analytic witnessing and acknowledgment. Indeed, unless breaches of humanity are confronted by a witness, the life instincts stay merely rhetorical, if not contradictory, by leaving the death instincts to grow unseen and, thus, unopposed. A two‐fold formulation of guilt may better address and redress disorders of dehumanization, whereby ‘death guilt’ (under the sway of aggression) signifies the orthodox, irrevocable guilt of self‐reproach for the bad we may have done, and ‘life guilt’ (under the sway of a moral imperative) the redeemable guilt for the good we have still to do.     

Collective Guilt and Collective Guilt Feelings

Can collectives feel guilt with respect to what they have done? It hasbeen claimed that they cannot. Yet in everyday discourse collectives areoften held to feel guilt, criticized because they do not, and so on.Among other things, this paper considers what such so-called collectiveguilt feelings amount to. If collective guilt feelings are sometimesappropriate, it must be the case that collectives can indeed beguilty. The paper begins with an account of what it is for a collectiveto intend to do something and to act in light of that intention.According to this account, and in senses that are explained, there is acollective that intends to do something if and only if the members of agiven population are jointly committed to intend as a body to do thatthing. A related account of collective belief is also presented. It isthen argued that, depending on the circumstances, a group's action canbe free as opposed to coerced, and that the idea that a collective assuch can be guilty of performing a wrongful act makes sense. The ideathat a group might feel guilt may be rejected because it is assumed thatto feel guilt is to experience a ``pang'' or ``twinge'' of guilt –nothing more and nothing less. Presumably, though, there must becognitions and perhaps behavior involved. In addition, the primacy, eventhe necessity, of ``feeling-sensations'' to feeling guilt in theindividual case has been questioned. Without the presumption that it isalready clear what feeling guilt amounts to, three proposals as to thenature of collective guilt feelings are considered. A ``feeling ofpersonal guilt'' is defined as a feeling of guilt over one's own action.It is argued that it is implausible to construe collective guiltfeelings in terms of members' feelings of personal guilt. ``Membershipguilt feelings'' involve a group member's feeling of guilt over what hisor her group has done. It is argued that such feelings are intelligibleif the member is party to the joint commitment that lies at the base ofthe relevant collective intention and action. However, an account ofcollective guilt in terms of membership guilt feelings is found wanting.Finally, a ``plural subject'' account of collective guilt feelings isarticulated, such that they involve a joint commitment to feel guilt asa body. The parties to a joint commitment of the kind in question may asa result find themselves experiencing ``pangs'' of the kind associatedwith personal and membership guilt feelings. Since these pangs, byhypothesis, arise as a result of the joint commitment to feel guilt as abody, they might be thought of as providing a kind of phenomenology forcollective guilt. Be that as it may, it is argued the plural subjectaccount has much to be said for it.     

More than enough guilt to go around: oedipal guilt, survival guilt, separation guilt

The concepts of oedipal guilt, survivor guilt, and separation guilt are examined using clinical material from a child case to demonstrate the intermingling of these constructs. A brief review of their evolution in the psychoanalytic literature reveals a frequent conflation of the terms guilt and fear, the former at times standing in for both meanings. The fear/guilt distinction and the subsequent differentiation of guilt into oedipal, survivor, and separation guilt have implications for how analysts understand and interpret particular kinds of clinical material. Two sets of adult clinical data are next presented: the first illustrates a shift from interpreting a patient's fear of retribution for forbidden desires to interpreting guilt over pursuing those desires. The second vignette illustrates a common dynamic in which a patient's fear/anxiety regarding the ability to lead an independent life defends against deeper feelings of guilt over this same desire. This latter dynamic can play an important role in negative therapeutic reactions and interminable analyses. Developmental research suggests that toward the end of the first year of life, infants' capacity to attribute independent mental states and intentionality to self and others allows for the rudimentary experience of guilt.     

On the Meaning of Being Real: Fantasy and ‘the Real’ in Personal Identity-Formation

Abstract

With the help of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, this article addresses certain perplexities concerning personal identity that emerge from different kinds of interpersonal encounters. Lacan’s notion of the ‘fundamental fantasy’ incorporates the insight that phantasmic projections (of both self and other) form the basis of personal identity and interpersonal relations are a complex interplay between such projections. Nevertheless, in face of disconcerting pretence phenomena, the notion of a real self plays a profoundly important part in interpersonal relations. To call some phantasmic projections ‘pretensions’ or ‘delusions’ is simultaneously to admit that some must, by contrast, embody or express a real self. Lacan’s paradoxical answer to the question of whether the fundamental fantasy embodies the real self is ‘yes and no’. To explain this, I unpack the notion of the fundamental fantasy insofar as it is construed as the basis upon which we construct a complex identity (a semblance) imperfectly shielded from the traumatic Real. I offer an indirect account of the Real, via a critique of Rowlands on absurdity. I then sketch the developmental formation of a complex semblance, guided at its core by the fundamental fantasy, which structures the comportment of the self with a three-fold other. While the fundamental fantasy forms the core of a person’s identity and might be named the basis of the real self, Lacan warns that one must traverse it to acknowledge the Real in oneself. I elaborate on this via Derrida’s conception of the parergon. My aim is to demonstrate the irreducible complexity of identity formation and to show that to be real is to accept the uncertainty associated with acknowledging the Real in me that exceeds both my pretensions and the phantasmic reality that structures my identity.     

The effects of feelings of guilt on the behaviour of uncooperative individuals in repeated social bargaining games: An affect-as-information interpretation of the role of emotion in social interaction

In two studies we found that feelings of guilt provoke individuals to cooperate in repeated social bargaining games (a prisoner's dilemma in Study 1 and an ultimatum game in Study 2). Feelings of guilt were either experimentally manipulated (Study 1) or assessed via self-report (Study 2) after participants had played one round of a social bargaining game. As predicted, individuals who experienced feelings of guilt (compared to individuals who felt no guilt) after pursuing a non-cooperative strategy in the first round of play, displayed higher levels of cooperation in the subsequent round of play (even one week later). Results are discussed in terms of an “affect-as-information” model, which suggests that non-cooperating individuals who experience the negative affective state associated with guilt in a social bargaining game may be using this feeling state as “information” about the future costs of pursuing an uncooperative strategy. Because in guilt the focus is on the specific, individuals are capable of ridding themselves of this emotional state through action (Lewis, 1993, p. 570)     

A Psychoneurotic Inventory of Penitentiary Inmates

ABSTRACT

Identity fusion theory suggests that merging groups into one’s personal identity should result in heightened levels of group agency. Research on the self-expansion model complementarily indicates that including others into the self is linked to a greater feeling of self-efficacy. Across three correlational studies, we examined whether personal and group identity fusion is associated with stronger feelings of personal agency, and we propose that relatively stable feelings of clarity of self-concept would mediate this association. Individuals strongly fused with a country (Studies 1–3) and family (Study 2) exhibited greater feelings of agency and goal-adherence, and self-concept clarity emerged as a significant mediator of this association when controlling for group identification measures.     

大学生羞耻和内疚差异的对比研究

以 48名北京大学本科生为被试 ,检验羞耻和内疚差异的 3种假设 :研究一同时检验“公开化与私人化”和“个人无能与违背道德”两个假设 ;研究二检验“伤害自我与伤害他人”假设。方法是依次呈现一系列不同的负性情境 (情境事先已按要检验的假设加以控制 ) ,要求被试设想自己亲身经历该情境 ,然后回答体验到的羞耻和内疚的程度及理由。结果表明 :①“公开化与私人化”对羞耻和内疚的影响有显著差异 (p <0 0 5 ) :“有他人在场”可以易化羞耻 ,而内疚感的产生一般不需要“观众”在场。②“违背道德”在引发羞耻和内疚感上基本相等 ,而“个人无能”引起更多的羞耻感 (p <0 0 1)。③“公开化与私人化”和“个人无能与违背道德”的交互作用不显著。④“伤害自我”更多引起羞耻感 (p <0 0 5 ) ,而“伤害他人”更多引起内疚感 (p <0 0 1)。     

Who is the Hero in the Life of the Traumatized Patient? Reflections on Bodansky’s Work with Mrs. E

The vexed question of how to explain analytic success with traumatized patients like Bodansky’s Mrs. E is considered from a perspective on psychoanalytic history and the specific theory-buttressed assumptions and practices of earlier generations of analysts that led them to conclude that traumatized patients couldn’t be helped via psychoanalytic work. I then consider Mrs. E’s life with an organizing question, Who is its hero?, applying perspectives from Charles Dickens and from Fraiberg and colleagues’ work, and use these perspectives to question the theory-based assumption that Mrs. E must have somewhere had a good object experience to have a life. These perspectives allow contemplation of a saving forceful agency at Mrs. E’s core (perhaps one experienced by her as “animal”) that seems essential to understanding her successes in living. The success of her treatment in assisting her with building a life suggests that her analyst’s helping her with mirroring and, even more important, with mentalizing, contribute importantly to her life improvement. Some potential limitations of his approach to her are also implied in his account; in particular, his limited work with her intimate desires and feelings, both libidinal and aggressive.     

Finding Female Fulfillment: Intersecting Role-Based and Morality-Based Identities of Motherhood, Feminism, and Generativity as Predictors of Women’s Self Satisfaction and Life Satisfaction

Focused on 113 U.S. mothers of college-aged daughters, we extend the existent role-based identity literature to address role- and morality-based identities and their ties to women’s fulfillment. Specifically, women’s identities as mothers, feminists, and generative individuals were assessed for their associations with each other, as well as their unique and combined associations with women’s self satisfaction and life satisfaction. Across the results, generativity yielded the greatest significance. Women with higher generativity identity report having higher self satisfaction and life satisfaction; women who were highly committed to mothering have stronger associations between generativity and life satisfaction. Women with strong generativity identities also tend to identify themselves as feminists. Feminist and mothering identity were not related to one another nor directly tied to satisfaction with one’s self nor life. Implications are discussed regarding continued assessment of role- and morality-based identity intersections as well as to the functions and limitations of the three identities and their assessment featured herein.     

Western ‘sincerity’ and Confucian ‘Cheng’

In philology, both ‘sincerity’ and ‘cheng’ primarily mean, ‘to be true to oneself’. As a philosophical term, ‘sincerity’ roots in Aristotle's ‘aletheutikos’. In medieval Europe, it is regarded as a neutral value that may either serve or disserve for ‘truth.’ As for Romantics, it is a positive value, and an individualistic concept whose two elements ‘true’ and ‘self’ refer to a person's ‘true feeling’ and ‘individuality’. In contrast, both ‘self’ and ‘true’ in Confucianism are universalistic concepts, meaning ‘good nature’ common to all humans, and ‘true feeling’ distinguishing them from beasts. Cheng itself means to face one's universal self with universal true feeling.     

Scenes of shame,social roles,and the play with masks

This article explores various scenes of shame, raising the questions of what shame discloses about the self and how this self-disclosure takes place. Thereby, the common idea that shame discloses the self’s debasement will be challenged. The dramatic dialectics of showing and hiding display a much more ambiguous, dynamic self-image as result of an interactive evaluation of oneself by oneself and others. Seeing oneself seen contributes to the sense of who one becomes. From being absorbed in what one does, one might suddenly become self-aware, shift viewpoints and feel pressed to put on masks. In putting on a mask, one relates to oneself in distancing oneself from oneself. In being at once a moral agent and a performing actor with an audience and norms in mind, one embodies and transcends the social roles one takes. In addition to the feeling of shame, in which the self finds itself passively reflected, the self’s active reflections on its shame are to be taken into account. As examples from Milan Kundera, Shakespeare’s King Lear, a line from Kingsley Amis, a speech by Vaclav Havel and Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments indicate, self-(re)presentation in the public and the private sphere is a complex hermeneutical process with surprising twists.     

When feeling bad makes you look good: Guilt,shame, and person perception

In two studies, we examined how expressions of guilt and shame affected person perception. In the first study, participants read an autobiographical vignette in which the writer did something wrong and reported feeling either guilt, shame, or no emotion. The participants then rated the writer's motivations, beliefs, and traits, as well as their own feelings toward the writer. The person expressing feelings of guilt or shame was perceived more positively on a number of attributes, including moral motivation and social attunement, than the person who reported feeling no emotion. In the second study, the writer of the vignette reported experiencing (or not experiencing) cognitive and motivational aspects of guilt or shame. Expressing a desire to apologise (guilt) or feelings of worthlessness (private shame) resulted in more positive impressions than did reputational concerns (public shame) or a lack of any of these feelings. Our results indicate that verbal expressions of moral emotions such as guilt and shame influence perception of moral character as well as likeability.     

Self-Expression and Self-Control

It is often said that people are ‘not themselves’ when they are in situations which rob them of their self‐control. Strangely, these are also circumstances in which people are often said to be most fully themselves. This paper investigates the pictures of the self behind these two truisms, and the relation between them. Harry Frankfurt’s work represents the first truism, and standard objections to his work the second. Each of these approaches is found to capture one independent and widely employed picture of the self. The connection each draws between being oneself and flourishing, however, suggests a point of contact between them. This point of contact is used to develop a third view of being oneself which integrates the insights of the other two.     

Each Individual is a Surprise: A Conversation with Marianne Horney Eckardt

“Each Individual is a Surprise” is a brief account of a dialogue between Marianne Horney Eckardt and myself about the state of psychoanalysis and the psychoanalytic process, the danger of idolatry, the damaging impact of psychoanalytic schools when they create a standardized and pathologizing approach to people, the value of curiosity and humility and retaining one’s clinical creativity. The role of Rank, Horney, Sullivan, and Fromm in Dr. Eckardt’s long life and rich work is touched upon.     

Between God and self: exploring the attachment to God and authenticity/inauthenticity tendencies of South African Christian youths

The paper explores the relationship between attachment to God (AG) and authenticity/inauthenticity among Christian youths in relation to a range of socio-demographic variables. Cross-sectional data were collected from 100 South African Christian youths using measures of AG and authenticity/inauthenticity. The correlation results reveal that feelings of insecurity in terms of having anxiety in a relationship with God is positively related to self-alienation (feeling out of touch with oneself) and accepting external influences (conforming to the standards and expectations of others), but negatively correlated to authentic living (being in tune with one’s self). Feelings of insecurity in terms of avoidant God-attachment was also related to self-alienation. In addition, demographic differences were observed for gender and church denomination. These results suggest that insecurity with God may either be linked to feelings of authenticity or self-estrangement among Christian youths and have broad implications, both for clinical usage and further cross-cultural research.     

Identity and the self. The importance of recent developmental research for the psychoanalytic theory of the self]

Recent findings from research on human development have implications for the psychoanalytic concepts of self and identity. The emerging feeling of selfhood appears to be the precipitate of finely tuned interactive regulations involving mother and child. Similarly, early mirroring processes are shown to have a fundamental significance for the experimental structure of self and identity. The author discusses the new meanings acquired by the identity concept as a result of these investigations. He describes the elementary psychic structures of identity as well as the subordinate regulatory function of the sense of identity.