The nature of behavioral assessment: A commentary

This special issue of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis provides the reader with a sample of current work in behavioral assessment. The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of behavioral assessment and to place the other articles in context of this developing area.     

The Pandemic,the Protests,the Chaos: A Destabilizing Effect on the Analyst

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - In May 2020, within the cultural and emotionally regressive chaos of the pandemic, the analyst witnessed a violent Black Lives Matter protest. Myriad...     

The Flawed Person of the Analyst: Commentary on Paper by Lauren Levine

The way that the current conception of mutual enactment is understood, any analysis, in order to be ultimately successful must first go badly for some period of time. Any analysis that goes too smoothly is subject to the suspicion that some very difficult interactional material is being mutually unaddressed. In this context I see that Dr. Lauren Levine enacted the role of her abandoned patient (concordant countertransference) and as well, for a time, indeed, figuratively abandoned her patient (complementary countertransference). The author's central contribution in this paper is an illustration of how drawing on difficult and painful dimensions in one's own personal analysis, the analyst has the advantage of being able to withstand highly toxic material in both the transference and the countertransference. Dr. Levine is fortunate in having had a personal analysis that helped her integrate highly shameful aspects of her self, though it must be recognized that this is not always the case in all training analyses.     

去玄的玄学解读——简评耿宁先生的王弼研究

耿宁认为,儒学中政治与道德实践的具体、实在效用,与人性、心性的本体问题如何解决有着极为重要的关系,打通用之实与体之玄的宋明儒学之努力,也与魏晋玄学、与王弼的探讨有关。首先,王弼的哲学言说方式,是为其儒家的政治、伦理关怀服务的。王弼思想之玄远,是为解决政治和伦理效用过多纠缠于具象而不能体现大效用的问题而设。王弼的贡献,不仅在于他通过《老子》赋予儒家政治与伦理思想新意义,而且在于他同时通过《庄子》赋予儒家生活形式与修身功夫新意味。正是通过《庄子》,原本被片面玄化(抽象化)理解的《老子》道家思想对儒家思想的补充作用,起到了连通道家与以孟子为中心的儒家理论的桥梁意义。     

The importance of primary care for theoretical medicine: A commentary

Froom and Froom all attention to referral bias as a frequent cause for misinterpreting the medical literature. This is particularly a source of false certainty, and therefore false science, in U.S. practice, where referral centers are often seen as the only legitimate source of medical knowledge and where primary care is discounted as a source of scientific observations. Appreciation of the primary care setting is therefore a critical element in theoretical understanding of medical epistemology.     

Recognition models evaluated: A commentary on Keren and Baggen

In a recent paper (1981), Keren and Baggen proposed two new models for alphanumeric confusion data, based on Tversky’s (1977) feature model of similarity, and compared them with Luce’s (1963) biased choice model. On the basis of their data, they concluded that, although the choice model fit slightly better, their models were to be preferred on grounds of parsimony and interpretability. It is shown here that both of these models are special cases of the Luce model, so that the general Luce model will necessarily fit better. This leads to considerable reinterpretation of Keren and Baggen’s conclusions. Finally, better methods of estimating parameters and evaluating goodness-of-fit are suggested, taking advantage of this relation between the models.     

The Sleeping Analyst,The Waking Dreams: Commentary on Papers by Richard A. Chefetz and David G. Mark

The discussion applies the basic psychological concepts of emotion schemas and the referential process to the case material presented by Drs. Richard Chefetz and David Mark. Emotion schemas are types of memory schemas that develop in an interpersonal field. They include subsymbolic processes, symbolic imagery, and linguistic codes, integrated to varying degrees. In treatment both participants come in with their emotion schemas, developed in the course of their lives, activated in the events of the day; communication between analyst and patient occurs on all levels in subsymbolic somato-sensory and symbolic verbal forms. The discussion of Dr. Chefetz's presentation emphasizes the relationships among multiple schemas of self and others, within the patient and between patient and analyst. The discussion of Dr. Mark's three cases focuses on connections and disconnections within the schemas as well as between them and emphasizes the pivotal role of imagery in connecting subsymbolic experience and words, and in the reconstruction of dissociated schemas in the context of the therapeutic relationship.     

The man who executed "imagined" movements: evidence for dissociable components of the body schema

We examined the nature of representations underlying motor imagery and execution in a patient (CW) with bilateral parietal lesions. When imagining hand movements, CW executed the imagined motor act but was unaware of the movements. These movements were significantly more accurate than volitional movements for the left but not right hand. CW also exhibited preserved motor imagery for the left but not right hand. Consistent with previous accounts, these findings suggest that motor imagery may normally involve the inhibition of movements. CW's unawareness of movements during motor imagery may reflect inattention or misattribution of the unexpected sensory feedback. Furthermore, in line with current models of motor control, motor imagery may depend on the integrity of a "forward model" derived from motor outflow information to generate a prediction of the consequences of a motor command. Such predictions appear to be preserved for imagery of left but not right hand movements in CW. Action may additionally depend on precise updating of effector position derived from the comparison of predicted and actual sensory information. We propose that CW's impaired volitional movements may be attributable to the degradation of such an updating mechanism.