From psychosocial equilibrium to catastrophic breakdown: Cyprus 1955–1974

The recent history of Cyprus presents an example of a society in which a centuries-long peaceful coexistence of diverse populations gave way to violence and murderous hate, with devastating end results. This paper tries to understand and describe the process by which Cypriot society slid from a position of psychosocial equilibrium and integration towards one of disintegration, fragmentation and catastrophic breakdown. This paper draws from work by social anthropologists, sociologists, historians and others, and from my own personal experience. To these I applied insights afforded by psychoanalysis to identify and explore the psychic processes and states of mind that characterized a psychosocial disintegrative process. I came to see external political events and internal psychological processes as inseparably intertwined and dynamically interdependent, each emanating from and catalysing the other. The factual details of the process described are of course unique in their local specificity, but the psychic phenomena that characterized it are not: at both the individual and group levels they are replicated in other societies undergoing similar processes of self-destruction.     

Between the waves: Harvard Pigeon Lab 1955-1960

Six or more graduate students were active in and around the Pigeon Lab in the spring of 1955 and also in 1960, but when I arrived it the fall of 1955 there were none. Looking back in 2001 at that period I can appreciate the unique opportunity for research that I had, as well as the exceptional and productive groups of graduate students who had recently finished their study and research and those who would carry on the tradition of excellence.     

Explicative models of musculoskeletal disorders (MSD): From biomechanical and psychosocial factors to clinical analysis of ergonomics

Following the apparition of new working schemes and work organization in companies, a so-called “reactive productivism” was set up at the worker level. This is characterized by an increased workload, flexibility efforts and productivity requirements, which show noticeable impacts on the worker’s health in their own professional environment. Among these consequences are musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) which have become the most current form of professional disease in France. Such troubles and disorders, in relation to working conditions, are complex mechanisms, often expressed by chronic pain and associated with functional troubles and even disability. The majority of researchers are currently in agreement in affirming the multidimensional aspect of these disorders in biomechanical and psychological terms. The purpose of this paper is to list and review the main risk factors leading to such consequences. These epidemiological and psychological factors will be related to francophone clinical and ergonomic concepts and positions. This perspective is oriented more towards the “meaning of activity” with a clinical and a psychodynamic approach. In our conclusion, we present a predictive model on musculoskeletal pain in relation to maneuver margins, workload and work recognition.     

The Effect of the Media on Suicide: Evidence From Japan, 1955–1985

Research on media impacts on suicide has been largely restricted to the United States, a Christian nation marked by moral aversion to suicide. The present study extends the analysis to an Eastern nation, Japan, where people are less critical of those who suicide. Such a cultural definition of suicide might multiply imitative effects. Yule-Walker times series estimates indicate that the imitative effect is restricted to stories concerning Japanese victims. Further, the increase is similar in magnitude to that reported in the American cultural context. The Japanese audience may not be as predisposed to media effects, given a lower divorce rate, low couple centeredness, and a high level of extended family social support. These factors may offset a potentially very high “Werther effect.” The model explains 88% of the variance in monthly Japanese suicide rates.     

Increasing differentiation of women and men: gender trait analysis 1974-1997

Analysis of the responses of some 4,000 college students showed increasing differentiation in the ratings of gender characteristics of typical women and men, especially with regard to feminine traits. Roughly similar patterns were observed in five other studies using the same gender traits. All studies showed continued or increased sex typing on affectionate and sympathetic. In the present study women became more feminine, and males became less, on all but one of the feminine traits. This increasing differentiation of women and men is not consistent with predictions from the sociocultural model; they are more consistent with those of the evolutionary model.     

A bibliography of articles of interest to teachers of psychology appearing in psychological reports 1955-2010

Abibliography is presented of articles related to various aspects of the teaching of psychology that have appeared in Psychological Reports from 1955-2010. The 605 articles are classified into 21 sections including those devoted to history, psychology of the scientist, teaching tips, textbook evaluation, and evaluation of students and professors.     

'A serious venture': John Rodker (1894-1955) and the Imago Publishing Company (1939-60)

John Rodker (1894-1955) was the founder of the British publishing house--the Imago Publishing Company--which undertook the republication of the complete works of Sigmund Freud in German just before World War II. Rodker, himself a writer as well as a publisher, was initially tempted by a psychoanalytic career; numerous obstacles, however, lay in his path. War, along with the complicated management of the royalties from Freud's writings, compromised the progress of what seemed to him to be 'a serious venture'. Besides Rodker, we meet numerous actors of the psychoanalytic movement: Anna Freud, Marie Bonaparte, Ernest Jones, James Strachey, all of whom had worked for the dissemination of Freud's writings. This paper shows how the English language gradually became the 'official norm' for psychoanalysts. According to the editors of the Standard Edition, at that time 'nothing new [was] being written' in German or in French. The failure of the Gesammelte Werke project signalled the end of an era in which psychoanalysis was mainly written about in German.