Frames of reference and cooperative social decision-making

Cooperative decision-making was studied as a function of the decision-makers' own, and the interdependent other party's gain or loss frame. As expected, results showed that (a) an own gain frame produced less cognitive activity than an own loss frame and (b) other's loss frame caused more cooperation than other's gain frame, but only in case of an own gain frame.     

Clinical Decision Making in Alzheimer's Disease

In the treatment of Alzheimer's Disease the occupational therapy goal is to enable persons to function as optimally as possible. Maximizing the patient's functioning in daily life necessitates a framework for clinical reasoning. Clinical reasoning currently emphasizes what persons can do but may fail to recognize the complex factors involved in what a person actually will do. A framework to guide clinical decision making for persons with Alzheimer's disease based on the model of human occupation was developed. The use of this framework is illustrated through a case application.     

Marco Conci interviews Marco Bacciagaluppi

Abstract

Following both Bion's and Aulagnier's thought, this paper seeks to examine two functions of psychotic syntax within the nonpsychotic personality. The first function is the creation of a split between voice and meaning in the mother–infant relationship, a split whose aim is to disengage contact with contents that cannot be metabolized and that are associated with the mother's denied death wish toward her infant. The second function pertains to the use of psychotic syntax as a way of denying separateness and annihilating the “speaking I.” Both functions will be exemplified by clinical case studies. In conclusion, psychotic language will be discussed as a “hybrid language” generated by an incestuous relationship between the mother's and the infant's language.     

Nineteenth-century inhibitory theories of thinking: Bain, Ferrier, Freud (and Phineas Gage)

The theories of thinking of Alexander Bain, David Ferrier, and Sigmund Freud are examined and their relation to Phineas Gage explored. During the 19th century Ferrier derived an inhibitory-motor theory of thinking from a similar theory of Bain's, and aspects of Freud's theory of thinking resemble both. All 3 theories were modeled on the sensory-motor reflex, and all proposed that thinking was inhibited action. Ferrier used his theory to explain the behavior of monkeys whose frontal lobes were ablated and the disinhibited behavior Phineas Gage exhibited after massive damage to his frontal lobes. I show there is some possibility that Freud knew the Bain-Ferrier theory of thinking and its application to Gage.     

The transcendent function in adolescence: miracle cures and bogeymen

Abstract: This paper proposes that Damasio's mental images, Stern's moments of meeting and Tronick's dyadically expanded consciousness refer to different aspects of the same psychological process as Jung describes in the transcendent function. This proposition is illustrated with two case vignettes of adolescents who functioned on a pre‐symbolic level, but who through a transformative experience were catapulted into new developmental trajectories and the beginning of symbol formation.     

Discovering the Inner Life of a Child

Abstract

Using Winnicott's concept of transitional space, joint attention, theory of mind, and a case vignette, the author describes techniques in elucidating and elaborating a child's play space, hence, psychic life. Explicating the child's theory of mind uncovers the dynamics, motives, conflicts, and unconscious material used by the analyst to form interpretations and encourage the child's self-reflective function (Fonagy & Target, 1996). Finally, a case vignette illustrates the enhancement of play space by elucidating the child's theory of mind.     

THE “AS‐YET SITUATION” IN WINNICOTT'S “FRAGMENT OF AN ANALYSIS”: YOUR FATHER “NEVER DID YOU THE HONOR OF”… YET

The author proposes a new hypothesis in relation to Winnicott's “Fragment of an Analysis”: that as early as 1955, in the case described in this text, Winnicott is creating the paternal function in his patient's psychic functioning by implicitly linking his interpretations regarding the father to the Freudian concept of Nachträglichkeit. The author introduces an original clinical concept, the as‐yet situation, which she has observed in her own clinical work, as well as in Winnicott's analysis of the patient described in “Fragment of an Analysis” (1955).     

The threat of moral transgression: The impact of group membership and moral opportunity

When other ingroup members behave immorally, people's motivation to maintain a moral group image may cause them to experience increased threat and act defensively in response. In the current research, we investigated people's reactions to others' misconduct and examined the effect of group membership and the possible threat‐reducing function of moral opportunity—the prospect of being able to re‐establish the group's moral image. In Study 1, students who were confronted with fellow students' plagiarism and who received an opportunity to improve their group's morality reported feeling less threatened than students who did not receive such opportunity. In Study 2, students reacted to a recent academic fraud case, which either implicated an ingroup (scholar in their own discipline) or an outgroup member (scholar in another discipline). Results indicated that participants experienced more threat when an ingroup (versus an outgroup) member had committed the moral transgression. However, as hypothesized, this was not the case when moral opportunity was provided. Hence, the threat‐reducing effect of moral opportunity was replicated. Additionally, participants generally were more defensive in response to ingroup (versus outgroup) moral failure and less defensive when moral opportunity was present (versus absent). Together, these findings suggest that the reduction of threat due to moral opportunity may generally help individuals take constructive action when the behavior of fellow group members discredits the group's moral image.     

When Unfair Treatment Leads to Anger: The Effects of Other People's Emotions and Ambiguous Unfair Procedures1

The present research examines how emotions of a third party interacting with an authority who has treated him or her unfairly affect one's feelings of anger toward the authority as a function of the ambiguity of the unfair treatment. Across a scenario and a laboratory study, it was found that when participants did not receive voice and it was unclear whether this was the result of an authority's unfair intentions, participants were less angry when the third party expressed shame, rather than anger, toward the same enacting authority. A second laboratory study replicated this effect, but now by showing that one's feelings of anger (in the case of ambiguity) were lower when the other person expressed guilt, relative to anger.     

Rethinking the Priority of Practical Reason in Kant

Throughout the critical period Kant enigmatically insists that reason is a ‘unity’, thereby suggesting that both our theoretical and practical endeavors are grounded in one and the same rational capacity. How Kant's unity thesis ought to be interpreted and whether it can be substantiated remain sources of controversy in the literature. According to the strong reading of this claim, reason is a ‘unity’ because all our reasoning, including our theoretical reasoning, functions practically. Although several prominent commentators endorse this view, it is widely thought to lack exegetical support. This paper seeks to strengthen the case for this reading by showing how theoretical reason's positive function, as Kant presents it in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic, may be construed as fundamentally practical. I argue that reason's supreme regulative principle ought to be understood as a categorical practical imperative. This interpretation, I suggest, resolves the apparent inconsistencies that blight Kant's account of the principle in the Appendix, while bringing greater overall coherence to his account of theoretical reason's regulative function.     

The analyst's narrative function: Inventing a possibility

This article describes a psychic function common to analysts that was gradually revealed through clinical work with children. It is a psychic quality derived from function α, which involves analysts’ capacity for reverie – their narrative function. The author presents two clinical situations where this function developed in the analytic field in relation to patients’ difficulty in symbolizing. In the first case there was an early traumatic experience unavailable for representation. The analyst lent the patient her ability to represent and produced a narrative that made it possible to create a world of phantasies and transform nightmares into ‘dreamable’ dreams. In other words, she removed the quality of unbearable, irrepresentable reality that characterized those raw experiences encrypted in the psyche. In the second case the analyst's narrative function sought to connect with the isolation, the shell that housed a child suffering from an autistic disorder whose ability to represent had not been established. The analyst provided meaning for the patient's repetitive, stereotyped play, thus weaving the child's subjectivity and gradually introducing a notion of alterity. The author seeks to show how this function, in the thematic construction of the session, facilitated both the working‐through of a traumatic situation (with the ability to share representations) and the constitution of the psychic fabric.     

Assumptions of agreement and familiarity on the abbreviated conners teachers rating scale

Implicit in the development and use of the Conners' scales are the assumptions that the raters will agree upon their rating of hyperactivity regardless of a lack of operational defitions of items in such scales, and that the cut-off score (1.5) for ADHD should be higher in cases where the rater has some familiarity with the clinical case. This study describes a method for the evaluation of both assumptions. Seven children were rated by nursing staff and school teachers using the Abbreviated Conners Teachers Rating Scale (ACTRS) daily. Observations were conducted during the 7 a.m.-3 p.m. and 3 p.m.–7 p.m. shifts in order to provide two separate scores across raters. The results supported the assumption of agreement within (for example nurses' ratings during the 7 a.m.–3 p.m. period) and between (i.e. nurses' ratings versus teachers' ratings) settings. The results did not support the assumption of familiarity: scores during early observations were similar to the scores during later observations (when more familiarity with the clinical case is assumed). It was concluded that familiarity with the clinical case does not necessarily lead to higher scores (i.e. a better prediction of hyperactivity as a function of the rater's familiarity with the case) on the ACTRS. Agreements within and between observers could be a function of the raters' agreement in terms of using a specific cut-off point (i.e. 1.5) in their definition of a case as ‘hyperactive’, rather than the raters' agreement on reporting similar scores across observers.     

The desirability of beliefs: preschoolers' appreciation of fact beliefs and subsequent emotions

In this study, we investigated the extent to which preschool children's own knowledge about reality biases their understanding that others' beliefs about reality govern others' emotions and not reality itself. Therefore, an increasing tension was created between the beliefs of the protagonist and the participant, by providing varying degrees of evidence about the validity of the protagonist's belief. Children of between 4 and 5 years of age were asked to predict the protagonist's emotion, given the protagonist's desire and the protagonist's belief. The results show that, to a certain extent, preschool children take others' beliefs into account when predicting others' emotions. When the outcome is clear, children probably feel tied to reality, and in the case of false beliefs, their knowledge about reality biases their emotion predictions, as was also evident in ‘false belief’ research (Wimmer H, Perner I. 1983. Beliefs about beliefs: representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children's understanding of deception. Cognition 13: 103–128). However, when it is uncertain what the actual outcome will be, then it is not the likelihood of others' beliefs but the desirability of the outcome that biases children's predictions of others' emotions. In other words, when the actual outcome is yet unclear, 4‐ and 5‐year‐olds show a tendency for wishful thinking in their predictions of others' emotions. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Spiking Phineas Gage: a neurocomputational theory of cognitive-affective integration in decision making

The authors present a neurological theory of how cognitive information and emotional information are integrated in the nucleus accumbens during effective decision making. They describe how the nucleus accumbens acts as a gateway to integrate cognitive information from the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus with emotional information from the amygdala. The authors have modeled this integration by a network of spiking artificial neurons organized into separate areas and used this computational model to simulate 2 kinds of cognitive-affective integration. The model simulates successful performance by people with normal cognitive-affective integration. The model also simulates the historical case of Phineas Gage as well as subsequent patients whose ability to make decisions became impeded by damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex.     

The image schema and innate archetypes: theoretical and clinical implications

Based in contemporary neuroscience, Jean Knox's 2004 JAP paper ‘From archetypes to reflective function’ honed her position on image schemas, thereby introducing a model for archetypes which sees them as ‘reliably repeated early developmental achievements’ and not as genetically inherited, innate psychic structures. The image schema model is used to illustrate how the analyst worked with a patient who began life as an unwanted pregnancy, was adopted at birth and as an adult experienced profound synchronicities, paranormal/telepathic phenomena and visions. The classical approach to such phenomena would see the intense affectivity arising out of a ruptured symbiotic mother‐infant relationship constellating certain archetypes which set up the patient's visions. This view is contrasted with Knox's model which sees the archetype an sich as a developmentally produced image schema underpinning the emergence of later imagery. The patient's visions can then be understood to arise from his psychoid body memory related to his traumatic conception and birth. The contemporary neuroscience which supports this view is outlined and a subsequent image schema explanation is presented. Clinically, the case material suggests that a pre‐birth perspective needs to be explored in all analytic work. Other implications of Knox's image schema model are summarized.     

The Case(s) of Gordon Allport

ABSTRACT Gordon Allport has frequently been criticized for advocating the use of idiographic studies but undertaking only one such study himself. This article describes Allport's work on the case of Marion Taylor, an unpublished study that clearly contributed to his later work on the case method. The unfinished Taylor case materials suggest that Ada Allport was an important collaborator in Allport's work with individual cases. The case of Taylor is compared with the later case of Jenny Masterson using Allport's rules for the preparation of case studies in order to shed light on Allport's ambivalence regarding case studies.     

Freud

The author explores the evidence-base and selection criteria for a short-term supportive dynamic approach for patients whose psychological mindedness and quality of object relationships is low. Illustrating this approach with a case example he outlines the central features of Supportive Dynamic Therapy. He describes a psychodynamic conceptual and developmental framework that can be used to guide the therapist's interventions and responses, and modulate the patient's anxiety. A dynamic focus presented in the form of a central issue is shown to have a significant function both in containing the patient's anxiety, and in giving shape to the therapist's efforts to support the patient's ego-strengths and adaptive abilities. The therapeutic work can be seen to result in an alteration in the trajectory or reiterating pattern of the patient's life.     

The Life Space of a Scientist: The Visionary Function and Other Aspects of Jean Piaget's Thinking

This article (a) sketches briefly some systematic aspects of creative work as part of the rationale for the use of the case study method, (b) outlines a spectrum of processes that can be grouped as the 'visionary function,' which includes metaphor and other figures of thought, and (c) illustrates the previous points by examining both Jean Piaget's creative work and his ideas about creative work, drawing on unpublished interviews and other sources. Special attention is given to an example of metaphors and other figures of thought that play important roles in Piaget's thinking. These include the circle of the sciences, nourishment and growth, biology and knowledge, toys, projection, possibilities, incubation, writing as thinking, internal logic, music, morality and structure, adolescent dreamer, ascent, and ascending equilibration.