The emergence of an American middle school of psychoanalysis commentary on Karen Rosica's paper

In this paper we explore a few points emphasized by both Fairbairn and American Relational Theory related to conceptualizations of the new and old object and the implications for working in the analytic situation. Underlying much of our discussion is the belief that there are useful tensions between, on the one hand, Fairbairn's emphasis on our attachment to bad and old objects and refractory clinging to these bad objects in the face of receiving something new, and, on the other, a construal of a push or willingness toward integrating externality and newness of objects (e.g., Winnicott, 1969; Benjamin, 1988). American Relational models which explore complexities of interaction augment an understanding of Fairbairn's formulations of why we hold on to old objects. Fairbairn's theory also offers ways of understanding aspects of repetition, even, and sometimes especially, in trying to provide new experience.     

The non-mirroring mother and the missing paternal dimension in a case of narcissistic disturbance

SUMMARY

Heinz Kohut (1971, 1972, 1977), has developed an innovative framework for understanding the dynamics and genesis of disturbances in the sense of self — broadly speaking, the area of narcissistic disturbance. He has emphasized the failure of the primary objects (in his terms ‘selfobjects’) to be available as responsive mirroring figures who can also be idealized. The role of oedipal conflict is specifically de-emphasized. In this paper a patient is described for whom the factors noted by Kohut were relevant, but as well as these, issues related to a failure to negotiate the oedipal position and a denial of the primal scene were also crucial. These phenomena are not described in Kohut's writings. For this patient, the exclusion or foreclosure of the ‘paternal dimension’ (Chiland 1982) left her with a fundamental defect in psychic structure with profound ramifications. In addition various features of the transference pointed to a failure of early communication via projective identification and maternal containment, of the kind described by Bion (1962). This process is compared with that subsumed by Kohut's concept of mirroring.     

Frank in mind: a journey to self

Abstract

This paper describes two years’ intensive psychotherapy with an 11 year old boy I shall call Lou, who as a result of traumatic experiences in his early life, struggled to integrate a robust sense of self and in particular to find accord with a sense of himself as male. The impact of maternal depression, paternal gender dysphoria and domestic violence are discussed in relation to this young boy’s capacity to resolve the ordinary Oedipal challenge and find narcissistic value in a male body image to consolidate his gender identity. Concomitant difficulties with separation from his mother and aggression towards himself and others significantly impacted his ability to manage in a mainstream school environment and he was excluded at the time the therapy began. A clinical narrative is presented which illustrates Lou’s journey in psychotherapy, where he began to engage and allow links to be made. He sought to understand his position in a world that did not make sense to him, to face a hitherto ‘unthinkable’ past and to integrate disparate aspects of himself including a male gender identity. Notably Lou’s creation of ‘Frank’ constructed from dead, lost and reanimated objects is described and the actual and symbolic functions of this therapy object are discussed in relation to his internal development and the progress of the work. Parallels are drawn with Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, where the creature strives for psychological birth and understanding. Lou and I struggled in the paradox of the themes of his narrative; a male/female father; potency and castration; corruption and repair and how to be a boy, held and helped in part through the paternal function of a female therapist.     

Are uninvolved fathers really incompetent and unsatisfied? Testing the mediator role of father involvement from fathers’ perspectives

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between fathers’ involvement and maternal gatekeeping, gate-opening, and traditional paternal gender roles, as well as to evaluate fathers’ involvement as a mediating role in the relationship between maternal gate-opening, gatekeeping, traditional paternal gender roles, paternal competence, and marital satisfaction. Turkish fathers (N = 239) with a child aged 2–6 years were included in the study. They assessed maternal gatekeeping and gate-opening, their traditional gender roles, parenting competence, and marital satisfaction. Results indicated that fathers’ involvement is positively related to maternal gate-opening and negatively associated with traditional paternal gender roles; in addition, fathers’ involvement has a mediatory role between maternal gate-opening, traditional paternal gender roles and paternal competence and marital satisfaction. The results suggest that fathers who are involved in their children’s lives are more competent and have higher marital satisfaction.     

Does surgency moderate the relationship between parenting and children's aggression in middle childhood?

Parenting and child temperament have both been linked to aggression among children. This study explores the moderating effects of children's surgency and sex and paternal/maternal parenting practices on aggressive behaviour in middle childhood. We analyse whether the moderating effects observed fit a Diathesis-Stress, Differential Susceptibility or Vantage Sensitivity model. Participants were 203 school children aged 7–8 years (M = 92.42 months, SD = 3.52) from southern Spain. Maternal inconsistency and coercion and paternal hostility and indulgence, had a direct effect on children's aggressive behaviour. The effects of maternal hostility and anticipatory problem solving on children's aggression were moderated by surgency (Diathesis-Stress), as was the effect of paternal coercion on aggression (Vantage Sensitivity). Children's sex was not found to moderate any effect. It therefore seems that not all children are equally sensitive to the influence of parenting on their aggression levels, and that this influence depends on their temperament.

Highlights

• This study explores the moderating effects of children's surgency and sex and paternal/maternal parenting practices on aggressive behavior.
• Children's surgency moderated the effect of maternal hostility and anticipatory problem solving on children's aggression, with both effects fitting a Diathesis-Stress model.
• Children's surgency moderated the effect of paternal coercion on children's aggression, with this effect fitting a Vantage Sensitivity model.

     

A Case Study: A Discussion of Depression,Ambivalence, Attachment,and Culture Portrayed in the Therapeutic Environment

ABSTRACT

This paper uses object relations theory to conceptualize and manage the complexities of a home-based case that was followed for a period of six months. It discusses maternal depression in relation to the caregiver role, self-harm, and self-determination. The client's ambivalence issues are addressed, with particular emphasis on transference and countertransference issues in the relationship and the use of transitional space and objects. Also discussed is the effect of maternal depression and ambivalence on mother-infant attachment, with the introduction of interaction-guidance as a treatment modality. An examination of cultural differences and the concomitant ethical implications that arose in the treatment process is provided. Finally, therapeutic implications and reflexivity are addressed.     

The Perverse Mother: Maternal Masochism in Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby

This essay suggests that despite the traditional viewpoint that it seemingly supplements patriarchy's consistent marginalization of maternal bodies, masochism, as formulated by Gilles Deleuze, offers the possibility of a maternal subjectivity beyond paternal domination. Deleuze's conception of masochism reveals an innovative way in which to view maternity as a tactical schema that operates through the perverse disavowal and resexualization of patriarchal law in order not only to destabilize its foundations, but to produce a maternal identity of the mother's own creation. This essay will use Ira Levin's horror novel Rosemary's Baby to contextualize an adaptation of Deleuze's theory in order to account for the relationship between mother and child, and the emergent subjectivity the dyad produces. Levin's novel seamlessly showcases how the maternal body is observed and optimized by reproductive technologies in order to produce not only a heteronormative ideal of maternity, but a child who will reflect paternal law. This essay argues that the titular character, Rosemary Woodhouse, establishes a masochistic contract with her son whereby she reconfigures his identity through a perverse disavowal of the Law of the Father, replacing it with maternal authority. Most important, her performance of masochism results in the marginalization of the father, and the emergence of a new maternal identity.     

The Nature of the Transference Between Anna Freud and Melanie Kleins: Learning from the Controversies

As we work through our theories, we rejoice in discovering the logic of concepts and their articulation in clinical experience. Such joy hides other movements, in which the only stakes are demands for love, sexual curiosity and the satisfaction of hate, transferred from infancy to others worlds, idealised or despised. When we participate in our psychoanalytical institutions, we feel pride or even vanity to be participating in the great historical movement of psychoanalysis. This conceals the working of transference in our institutional life; transference which is crudely sexual at its origins, and implies maternal, paternal or fraternal objects. This is its constraining power. We should be fully aware of this, as Strachey or Balint have already shown, in order to attenuate the violence of transference and stimulate our creativity. Anna Freud and Melanie Klein's controversies had a reality of their own. This reality was quickly forgotten and trapped in various conflicts, as those existing between Jones and Freud or between Glover and the rest of the British Psychoanalytical Society of his times. These re-elaborations gave rise to ideological elements, which have ever since pervaded the history of psychoanalytical theory, influencing psychoanalytical methods and clinics. It is important for us today to elucidate these ideologies in order to improve our achievements.     

W. R. D. FAIRBAIRN AND THE PROBLEM OF HOMOSEXUALITY: A STUDY IN PSYCHOANALYTIC PREJUDICE

W. R. D. Fairbairn believed that the psychoanalyst's motivations and theories must ultimately be rooted in a need to resolve personal conflicts. His self‐analytic and other records, now publicly available, indicate how his struggles with unacceptable sexual feelings and their symptomatic manifestations affected not only his theorizing, especially about sexuality, but also his clinical practice, as well as his personal and family life. Fairbairn's case affords a unique opportunity to document the effects of homophobia in a major psychoanalyst.     

ROLE OF FIRST‐YEAR MATERNAL EMPLOYMENT AND PATERNAL INVOLVEMENT IN BEHAVIORAL AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT OF YOUNG CHILDREN

Drawing on economic models of child development and attachment relationship perspectives, this study examined the effect of maternal employment in the first year after childbirth on subsequent behavioral and cognitive development in low‐income children. Analyses of data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (N = 411) revealed that despite the accompanying family income gains, maternal employment in the first year after childbirth adversely affected caregiver‐reported internalizing and externalizing behavior problems of Hispanic, Black, and White children at ages 3 and 5 years. This study also examined how paternal participation in childcare might affect children's outcomes. Results indicate that greater paternal participation eased the adverse impacts of maternal employment on internalizing behavior problems. There was no evidence that maternal employment was associated with children's memory cognitive functioning or that paternal involvement moderated children's cognitive development. These findings suggest that when early intervention programs are designed to assist low‐income families, enhancing supports (e.g., paternal involvement or parental leave) for working mothers during their child's first year may be valuable for young children's healthy development.     

The role of fathers in children's emotion regulation development: A systematic review

This systematic review summarizes the results of 43 studies that explored the potential role of fathers in emotion regulation (ER) development in children. Following a tripartite model, this review investigates the paternal modelling of ER strategies, emotion-related paternal parenting practices, father–child emotional climate, and fathers' characteristics, by identifying 16 specific themes of paternal factors that could play a role in the child's ER development. Results show that while a large number of studies investigated father–child emotional climate and fathers' characteristics and their association with children's ER, the effects of paternal modelling and the father's emotion-related parenting practices on children's ER are still understudied. This review reveals that several factors—fathers' modelling of ER strategies; positive reactions and support in responding to their child's expression of emotions; better quality of the father–child relationship; higher father–child attachment security; and positive parenting in terms of sensitivity, engagement, and expressiveness—had significant associations with children's higher ER skills. Conversely, fathers' psychopathology and harsh parenting were associated with poorer ER skills in children.

Highlights

• This study summarized existing literature that explored the association between paternal factors and ER in children.
• The review showed some evidence supporting the paternal role in children's ER development.
• Fathers' role in the development of child's ER is most prominent in infancy and toddlerhood.
• Most paternal factors significantly associated with a child's ER reflected previous findings examining maternal factors.

     

Psychological maladjustment mediates the link between remembrances of parental rejection in childhood and loneliness in adulthood: A cross-cultural comparative study

Drawing stimulus from interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory, this multicultural study examined relations between men's versus women's remembrances of maternal and paternal acceptance-rejection in childhood and their current level of loneliness, as mediated by adults' self-reported psychological maladjustment. Adults (N = 899) from five nations (Iraq, Italy, the Netherlands, Pakistan, and the United States) responded to the Adult version of the Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire-short form for mothers and fathers, the Adult version of the Personality Assessment Questionnaire-short form, and the Interpersonal Acceptance-Rejection Loneliness Scale. Adults' remembrances of maternal and paternal rejection in childhood significantly and independently predicted feelings of loneliness but remembered paternal rejection was more strongly related to these feelings than were remembrances of maternal rejection. Psychological maladjustment fully mediated the effect of remembered maternal rejection but only partially mediated the effect of remembered paternal rejection on loneliness. There were no significant differences in these results across the five countries or genders. Overall, the results suggest that adults' remembrances of parental rejection in childhood—along with the theoretically expected development of psychological maladjustment—are likely to be associated panculturally with the experience of loneliness in adulthood.     

RECOVERING THE FATHER IN MIND AND FLESH: HISTORY,TRIADIC FUNCTIONING,AND DEVELOPMENTAL IMPLICATIONS

This paper aims to restore the father and paternal function to their rightful place alongside the mother and maternity in order to counter the prevailing matricentric, dyadic bias in psychoanalytic theory and technique. The author contends that both the symbolic and the actual, flesh‐and‐blood father are necessary to optimize his child's development. The paternal function inevitably operates in a triadic matrix; thirdness is always psychically in existence—with the father ever present in the mother's unconscious mind—and the paternal third is necessary to open up symbolic space. As an embodied other, the actual father, both as a separating agent and an attracting object, is called upon to recognize his child's otherness throughout the inescapable father–child rivalries, neglect, and desire.     

Clinical Relevance of Social Character and Social Unconscious

The author discusses his recollection of Erich Fromm's views on psychoanalytic work with patients, including the author's treatment of a patient. The remembrance involves Fromm's clinical thinking on social character and the social unconscious, and its relevance to present-day clinical work. The author presents, in detail, his treatment of a 37-year old successful woman which addresses certain of today's clinical views on gender differences that resonate and differ with Fromm's thinking on the treatment of the marketing personality.     

Rational Action Entails Rational Desire: A Critical Review of Searle's Rationality in Action1

Abstract

In this paper I contest Searle's thesis that desire-independent reasons for action – ‘reasons that are binding on a rational agent, regardless of desires and dispositions in his motivational set’ – are inherent in the concept of rationality. Following Searle's procedure, I first address his argument that altruistic reasons for action inhere in the concept of rationality, and then examine his argument for his more general thesis. I conclude that a viable theory of rational action would be centered, not on the concept of desire-independent reasons, but rather on the concept of rational desire.     

Categorial Indeterminacy,Generality and Logical Form in Wittgenstein's Tractatus

Many commentators have attempted to say, more clearly than Wittgenstein did in his Tractatus logico‐philosophicus, what sort of things the ‘simple objects’ spoken of in that book are. A minority approach, but in my view the correct one, is to reject all such attempts as misplaced. The Tractarian notion of an object is categorially indeterminate: in contrast with both Frege's and Russell's practice, it is not the logician's task to give a specific categorial account of the internal structure of elementary propositions or atomic facts, nor, correlatively, to give an account of the forms of simple objects. The few commentators who have hitherto maintained this view have mainly devoted themselves to establishing that this was Wittgenstein's intention, and do not much address the question why Wittgenstein held that it is not the logician's business to say what the objects are. The present paper means to fill this lacuna by placing this view in the context of the Tractatus's treatment of logic generally, and in particular by connecting it with Wittgenstein's treatment of generality and with his reaction to Russell's approach to logical form.     

The Thesis of Vague Objects and Unger's Problem of the Many

Abstract

Peter Unger argues that his puzzle of the problem of the many leaves us with having to accept either countless embedded objects of the same kind or a Parmenidean rejection of distinct entities. This dilemma can be avoided if objects truly have vague boundaries. It is metaphysically impossible for an entity with a vague boundary to be embedded within an entity of the same kind. A cloud's parts (that is, cloud stuff) cannot be clearly embedded within the vague boundary region of another cloud, for the latter region is defined as possessing neither cloud-stuff nor non-cloud-stuff. Likewise, there cannot be a cloud with a vague boundary embedded in the middle of another cloud because there would then have to be a population of water droplets dense enough to compose part of the larger cloud which was nevertheless insufficient in density to compose part of the embedded cloud.     

Kant and the Conventionality of Simultaneity

In his Third Analogy of Experience, Kant argues that a universal system of mutual causal interaction-at-a-distance is presupposed in the very construction of experience, and thereby also can be assumed to hold of objects of experience qua appearances. This implies in turn a notion of objective simultaneity. I discuss whether Kant's project is rendered wholly obsolete by the relativity and conventionality of simultaneity as it is now understood under the theory of relativity. I conclude that, while major parts of his project are indeed obsolete, there may still be useful insights into time-awareness to be gleaned from his work.     

Parent Characteristics as Antecedents of Maternal Gatekeeping and Fathering Behavior

The present study examined the role of prebirth parent characteristics as predictors of maternal gatekeeping (mothers' attempts to encourage or discourage fathers' interaction with their infant) and fathering behavior. Parents' idealization of their relationships within their families of origin, beliefs about the roles of fathers, and personality attributes (negative emotionality and communion) were assessed before their infant's birth. At 3.5 months postpartum, maternal gatekeeping behaviors (negative control, facilitation) and fathers' involvement and competence with their infants were assessed during observation of triadic play and child care. Results suggest reciprocal relations between maternal gatekeeping and fathering behavior. Furthermore, greater paternal communion was associated with greater paternal competence during play, whereas greater maternal communion was associated with lower paternal competence during child care. Greater maternal communion and greater maternal idealization related to fathers' lower relative involvement during play. As for maternal gatekeeping behavior, high negative emotionality in 1 parent was only accompanied by high levels of inhibitory maternal gatekeeping when the other parent had less progressive beliefs about the father's role. The implications of these findings for clinicians and practitioners are discussed.