Personal Construct Theory and Cognitive Science

Abstract

Warren (1990) claims to have formulated an argument “that personal construct psychology is not a cognitive psychology” (p. 379). Nonetheless, he presents very little in the way of logical demonstration or empirical evidence to support this conclusion. Moreover, the theoretical significance of the question posed in the title of his essay (“Is Personal Construct Psychology a Cognitive Psychology?”) is far from obvious. He asserts that “what is at dispute here is the proper characterization of a position” however, his listing several textbooks that refer to Kelly's theory as a “cognitive” approach to the study of personality does nothing at all to either clarify the specific implications of this question or explain its importance. Interestingly, in a recent introductory personality text by one of Kelly's former students (Phares, 1988), this theory is designated as a “phenomenological approach,” which is consistent with Warren's own notion that “he [Kelly] was more phenomenological than he himself believed” Kelly vigorously resisted all such attempts to classify his model in terms of the usual textbook categories (cf. Adams-Webber & Mancuso, 1983).     

Getting Started on the Road to Applying the Science of Learning

This article describes how Richard Mayer's academic career started on the road to applying the science of learning to education. It suggests four recommendations for getting started: (1) develop intellectual curiosity and core values—which for Mayer occurred because he grew up surrounded by supportive people; (2) find your question—which for Mayer concerns how to help people learn so they can apply what they have learned to new situations; (3) develop your professional skills—which for Mayer occurred because of his educational opportunities in public education culminating in graduate school at the University of Michigan; and (4) find an environment in which you can flourish—which for Mayer is the academic world culminating in landing at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An analysis with Bion: an interview with James Gooch. Interview by JoAnn Culbert-Koehn

In 1968 Wilfred Bion moved to Los Angeles, escaping the perils of fame in London. He lived in Los Angeles until a few months before his death in Oxford in 1979. He made a deep impact on psychoanalysis in Los Angeles through those he analysed and what he wrote. James Gooch, psychiatrist and founding president of the Psychoanalytic Center of California describes in detail the transformative experience of his analysis with Bion in an interview with JoAnn Culbert-Koehn, Jungian analyst. Dr. Gooch describes important differences between his analysis with Bion and his classical Freudian analysis during his analytic training.     

Alfred Schutz and Economics as a Social Science

Over the years, a number of interpreters with an interest in economics have given some attention the work of Alfred Schutz. As intimated in this literature, the orientation of his delimited thought on economics stemmed from contacts with the Austrian school during his Vienna years. Probably because of this connection, there exists among these interpreters an inclination uncritically to align Schutz with the Austrians' thought. What will be argued in this paper is that in adopting such an uncritical position, each of these readings fails adequately to situate Schutz's critique of economic analyses within the framework of his own social theory. It will become apparent that his treatment of economics turned out to be a mixture of defence and critique, and that his interpretation of the subject and the intellectual status he ascribed to it were considerably more ambivalent and ambiguous than has been noticed. In particular, Schutz expressed significant reservations about the highly circumscribed and artificial depictions of the world of human action that some economists espoused, especially within the confines of marginalist theory. When arraigned against the phenomenology of the life-world that he had developed, and against the "postulates" around which he had constructed his social theory, much of extant economics did not meet the requirements of a properly grounded social science.     

An Elder Sitting by the Fire: My Path to Jung

The author describes the importance of his mentors, his heritage, and early life in Johannesburg, South Africa and the effect that those formative years in a mining community (fueled by migrant labor) had on his embryonic psyche. Attending an Anglican school, he discovered the power of Christianity as a 10-year-old, holding vigil at night “over the body of Christ.” However, his first objective relationship with the psyche, the unconscious, occurred during the Second World War in the desert of Egypt before embarkation for Italy, with a second event occurring shortly after his return to South Africa, where he had been forced by circumstance to seek employment back on the mines. He explores how, despite the vicious and cruel apartheid policy above ground, all men were genuine brothers at the rock face; how the migrant labor rejoiced on reaching the surface after a shift with ritualistic thanks. He relocated to Natal where his relationship with the natural world developed, leading eventually to the founding of both the Dusi canoe marathon and the Wilderness Leadership School. On being employed by the Natal Parks Board he moved to Zululand, a true wilderness, in the early 1950s, where he was exposed to the rituals and beliefs of local tribes. He was impressed by their reliance on and their respect for the spiritual. A series of what he later understood were synchronistic events led him to both his mentors: a Jungian analyst and eventually to Jung himself.     

How Can That Be Me? Developmental Disruption in a Young Adult

A young adult who experiences a psychotic break is at high risk of feeling that his or her life and sense of Self before the de-compensation were fraudulent. This article describes a young man who suffered such a trauma and deeply felt this sense of fraudulence and covers how his treatment developed. We established a dual narrative: one that explicated the precursors to his break and one that showed how the life that he had previously held to be his personal story were both authentic. The capacity to integrate the two created a sense of wholeness that permitted him to re-establish himself in his everyday life.     

Max Wertheimer's university career in Germany

Summary This paper presents archival and related material bearing on the German university career of Max Wertheimer. It is shown that many factors interacted to shape that career. What drew Wertheimer to psychological science was its potential philosophical relevance, as expounded by his mentors Christian von Ehrenfels and Carl Stumpf. Once his career had begun, however, he faced the challenge of maintaining intellectual independence in a system where patronage counted, and also the problem of producing systematic philosophical work as well as empirical research in psychology at appropriate points in his career. These difficulties, compounded by Wertheimer's highly personal style of thinking and writing, appear to have been at least as inhibiting to Wertheimer's career as was Anti-Semitism. Thanks to unusual circumstances created in part by Kurt Riezler at the University of Frankfurt, Wertheimer became full professor there in 1929 — only to be forced into exile in 1933, on obviously anti-Semitic grounds.Portions of this paper were originally presented in an invited commentary at the symposium documented in this issue. Grateful acknowledgements are due to Professor Viktor Sarris and the other symposium participants for their assistance. Research for the paper was funded in part by NSF grnat No. SES-8511230.     

Emmanuel Levinas and the New Science of Judaism

This article addresses Emmanuel Levinas's re‐conceptualization of Jewish identity by examining his response to a question he himself poses: “In which sense do we need a Jewish science?” First, I attend to Levinas's critique of modern science of Judaism, particularly as it was understood in the critical approaches of the nineteenth‐century school of thought, Wissenschaft des Judentums. Next, I detail Levinas's own constructive proposal that would, in his words, “enlarge the science of Judaism.” He retrieved classical textual sources that modern Judaism had neglected, while at the same time he enlarged Judaism's relevance beyond a historical community by turning to phenomenology as a rigorous science. Finally, I conclude with some reflections on the broader implications of this new science of Judaism for Jewish ethics and identity in a post‐war period.     

A child of a Lesser God

This paper describes work with a man who was severely disabled physically. It taught me the profound emotional effects of such disability; but the effects of his feeling that he had not been loved because of his disability seemed even more important and farreaching. Everything was much worse because of the development stage at which it had all occurred. It is important to make known the use which he made of analytical psychotherapy, for others like him could be helped.

I refer to some of the psychoanalytical literature which proved relevant to my work with this patient, give a report of his case, and describe the incidence of his sessions. After describing the beginning stage, I write selectively of work around the two main themes which can be identified: one, when he seemed locked in the closed system which constituted his inner world (Fairbairn 1958) from which he could gain relief only by sabotaging himself and the therapy; the other, when little by little the system began to open and gradually some investment in life began to emerge. There is then a brief account of the ending planned to a known date. The paper ends with some reflections on the work.     

Counseling Implications of Genetic Research: A Dialogue With Thomas Bouchard

Thomas Bouchard is a leading researcher of identical twins reared apart. In this interview he describes the major themes in the Minnesota twin research. Although the genetic influence is central, he also pleads for the impact of environmental factors in optimal human development. Included in the interview are the surprises he has experienced, his current focus, and his plans for the future research.     

Negotiating the Boundaries of Science and Religion: The Case of Henry Margenau

The life of Henry Margenau (1901–1997) offers a case study in the complexity of the science-religion relation. As a physicist-philosopher at Yale University, he pursued a public program of "amalgamating religion with science." He drew upon his authority as a physicist and a tradition of philosophical idealism to advocate a "reciprocity" between the two spheres. He argued that a "new modesty" and "metaphysical attitude" among scientists created new opportunities for collaboration. At the same time, his view of faith and his sense of the religiousness of science created troubling ambiguities. In the end, Margenau embodied the ambivalent relation between science and religion while revealing the limits of renegotiating the boundaries.     

On not being able to enter Noah's Ark

The paper describes the psychoanalytic psychotherapy of a patient who had originally been referred at the age of 15 because of his social isolation. In fact, he suffered from high-functioning Asperger's syndrome and lived in an almost delusional world populated by a number of imaginary companions, which he used to counteract a deep void and sense of deadliness within him. After five years of therapy, the patient was able to move on, allowing him to be successful in his academic studies, and to abandon his imaginary friends. This paper focuses on a subsequent phase of the therapy when the patient, as a young man, began to show an interest in and attraction to the world of intimate relationships. The paper is grounded in Meltzerian theory, especially his ideas about the role of beauty in the mother–child relationship, and about the world of intimate links as opposed to conventional ones.     

Erich Fromm als Psychotherapeut

Erich Fromm (1900?C1980) was a co-founder of the Frankfurt Psychoanalytic Institute and the William Alanson White Institute in New York and finally he founded a training institute of his own in Mexico. However, he never intended to create a therapeutic school of his own. Furthermore, he published hardly anything about the so-called psychoanalytic techniques. All the more informative is the report of Ruth Lesser about her supervisions with Fromm. She describes how Fromm reacted to the presented cases, what kind of a role repression, resistance, transference and countertransference play in the therapeutic relationship and how strongly interested he was in the socially shaped unconscious intentions of the patient. The straightforwardness of the intervention style of Fromm is impressively described both in his empathy and in his confrontation with the unconscious reality. In the last part of the article Fromm??s understanding of the psychoanalytic situation is reflected and the characteristics of his psychoanalytic treatment method are outlined.     

The near-death experience of a nonverbal person with congenital quadriplegia

This article describes the near-death experience (NDE) a 39-year-old man born with severe spastic quadriplegia had when he was two and one-half years old. Nonverbal because of cerebral palsy, the man was able to communicate about his experience after he heard a therapist talking to another person about NDEs. The man experienced a fairly typical NDE and has had seven subsequent out-of-body experiences, the latter hypothesized as temporary relief from his physical pain resulting from muscular spasticity.     

FROM DNA TO DEAN

Abstract. In this broadly intellectual autobiographical essay, Arthur Peacocke describes how his educational background at Oxford led him eventually to physicochemical studies on DNA and other biological macromolecules and how biological complexity and the general problems it evokes have remained a recurring theme in his thought. He also describes how, although coming from a relatively non ecclesiastical background, this interest has nevertheless been intertwined with the larger questions to which the Christian faith seeks to respond. He outlines how he has been able to reconcile these two strands in his existence-even to becoming a priest-scientist and eventually the Dean of chapel of a Cambridge college. He reflects on the trends in the relation of religion and science over the last four decades and points to some hopeful developments in the relation between the two communities-and to some unanswered questions.     

Reported use of a Japanese accent to promote fluency

This report describes a case study of a young adult man who reportedly adopted an imitation of a Japanese accent as a means of eliminating symptoms of stuttering. Prolonged unfilled pauses and altered stress patterns were key features of his deviant speech pattern. Following an extensive evaluation of his communication skills and case history, it was determined that his unusual speech pattern may have resulted from an identification with a small peer group of Japanese exchange students with whom he felt comfortable. This identity (including his accent) may have provided him with self-confidence he lacked as a teenager, thus enabling him to communicate with more assurance and confidence. It was conclude he was neither a stutterer nor a clutterer.     

Portrait of a creatively gifted child facing cancer

Creativity can be demonstrated in various ways. The following case study describes how one creatively gifted boy applied creative skills from one dimension of his life to a totally new one. When cancer halted his musical career, he chose to channel his abilities into a new challenge: controlling pain and writing. The results demonstrated a heroism that opens new avenues to our consideration of what constitutes creativity in human lives.     

A lifelong attempt to understand and assess personality

The author recounts the story of his life and career in clinical psychology from 1917 to 2003. He offers hypotheses about parts of his personal life that may have predisposed him to develop a special interest in assessing personality, discusses formative influences on his particular approach to the topic, and describes the settings in which and some of the colleagues with whom he participated in some principal pieces of research on this aspect of psychology.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Doctor Anonymous</Emphasis>: Creating Contexts for Homosexuality as Mental Illness

In this essay, the author describes how he faced institutionalized homophobia during his psychiatric training, and how he later wrote a play inspired by the life of a gay psychiatrist. Despite Freud’s supportive stance, homosexuality aroused the antipathy of American organized psychiatry and psychoanalysis and came to be listed as an illness in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). Dr. John E. Fryer outed himself as “Dr. H Anonymous” at a 1972 meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, and the next year homosexuality was removed from the DSM. The 2014 play Doctor Anonymous offers a fictionalized account of this watershed moment in the history of the gay rights movement. The author discusses his own psychotherapeutic work with gay male patients, including those who had previously been treated with conversion therapy, and explores how the play mirrors his own life experience and the experience of his patients.     

United we stand,divided we fall: the early Nietzsche on the struggle for organisation

According to Nietzsche, both modern individuals and societies are pathologically fragmented. In this paper, I examine how he proposes we combat this affliction in his Untimely Meditations. I argue that he advocates a dual struggle involving both instrumental domination and eradication. On these grounds, I claim the following: 1. pace a growing number of commentators, we cannot categorise the species of conflict he endorses in the Untimely Meditations as agonistic; and 2. this conflict is better understood as analogous to the species of struggle that Schopenhauer describes in his account of purposive organisation.