Reconsolidation reconsidered

Some of the considerations that led to a consolidation interpretation of retrograde amnesia (RA), which states that RA results from the disruption of memory processing and storage when neural activity is interrupted by a brain insult, are reviewed here. The time-dependent gradient of memory loss (i.e., new memories are more vulnerable to amnesia than old memories) that characterizes RA seemed to fit nicely with the notion of a cascade of cellular events occurring during the immediate post-acquisition period that would transform a labile representation into a more stable form (i.e., consolidate the memory). However, a variety of observations came to challenge the storage-disruption model, and among these was the finding of amnesia for old but reactivated memories. A recent study by Nader, Schafe, and LeDoux (2000) provides an important analytic extension of the work on “reconsolidation” by showing that inhibition of protein synthesis in the lateral and basal nuclei of the amygdala immediately following the reactivation of old memory will induce retrograde amnesia. We offer a retrieval-oriented conceptualization to account for the temporal gradient and the “reconsolidation” phenomena.     

Anonymity reconsidered

This paper questions the concept of the therapist's anonymity and offers as an alternative the concept of an anonymity/self-disclosure dimension along which the therapist can position himself depending on several criteria. These criteria pertain both to characteristics of the therapist, the patient, and the material to be disclosed.     

Nostalgia reconsidered

Nostalgia is standardly assumed to be directed towards the past, to involve some salient feeling of the irretrievability of the past, and to be directed towards the memory of an event. In this paper I argue that none of these standard assumptions hold. I use a time-traveller example to demonstrate that nostalgia is not essentially past-directed. Once nostalgia is prised from the objective past, we can examine the other purported conditions, making space for the conclusion that the felt irretrievability of the past is not the necessary feature of nostalgia that we assumed it to be. I then argue that the notion that nostalgia is directed towards the memory of an event is misguided. Finally, I distinguish two routes to nostalgia and, with this distinction in place, argue that nostalgia is neither essentially time nor place directed. Nostalgia is simply change-directed.     

Representation-hunger reconsidered

According to a standard representationalist view cognitive capacities depend on internal content-carrying states. Recent alternatives to this view have been met with the reaction that they have, at best, limited scope, because a large range of cognitive phenomena—those involving absent and abstract features—require representational explanations. Here we challenge the idea that the consideration of cognition regarding the absent and the abstract can move the debate about representationalism along. Whether or not cognition involving the absent and the abstract requires the positing of representations depends upon whether more basic forms of cognition require the positing of representations.     

Congruence reconsidered

Carl Rogers' definitions of congruence are discussed. Four specific requirements are identified for the concept and practice of therapeutic congruence. Drawing on examples from practice, the interface between congruence and the other necessary and sufficient conditions of change is examined.     

Mindfulness reconsidered

Mindfulness has recently become a popular addition to the range of methods available to counsellors and psychotherapists, especially in the field of stress reduction but is the method being over-sold? This article reviews the origins of mindfulness, attempts a balanced review of what mindfulness is and is not good for, looks at the question of whether the meaning of the term has mutated or suffered dilution as its popularity has grown and considers what that popularity and possible mutation tell us about the current state of thinking in the psychotherapy field. In the process, it puts the usefulness and nature of mindfulness in a new perspective, challenging a number of commonly held contemporary views on the subject.     

Sabellianism reconsidered

Sabellianism, the doctrine that the Persons of the Trinity are roles that a single divine being plays either simultaneously or successively, is commonly thought to entail that the Father is the Son. I argue that there is at least one version of Sabellianism that does not have this result and meets the requirements for a minimally decent doctrine of the Trinity insofar as it affirms that each Person of the Trinity is God and that the Trinity of Persons is God while maintaining monotheism without undermining the distinctness of Persons. I am grateful for comments by participants at the Society of Christian Philosophers 2000 meeting and University of San Diego Philosophy colloquium at which earlier versions of this paper were read, and by anonymous referees for this journal.     

Psychoanalysis, psychoanalysis appropriated, psychoanalysis applied

The assumptions which predominate in the reading of psychoanalytic theory differ from those involved in listening to the patient in the psychoanalytic process. A weakness of much applied psychoanalysis is that these two sets of assumptions are confused and theoretical certainty is substituted for clinical exploration. This difference in assumptions is illustrated by the different assumptions about the signifier in two poems. In Freud's work on Leonardo, both attitudes toward the signifier are present, but the clinical aspect is located in Freud's method, not in his historical construction. The problems of maintaining a similar clinical stance in applied psychoanalysis are explored, and Freud's tendency toward historical certainty is speculatively considered as an instance of the parallelism phenomenon.     

Sensory storage reconsidered

Memory & Cognition - Models of sensory storage appear to incorporate three features: capacity in excess of short-term memory, rapid decay of information, and an unprocessed trace as the storage...     

Pandemic psychoanalysis

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - Our clinical practice is contextualized by a co-participant trauma constituted by a confluence of upheavals–pandemic, politics, an epistemological...     

Initiating psychoanalysis

This paper explores the coincidence of two substantial difficulties: where gross external interruptions to the psychotherapy (caused by the psychotherapist's miscarriage and subsequent pregnancy) paralleled circumstances of violence and abandonment in the patient's childhood and adulthood.

When two such difficulties coincide and are added to by time constraints, the question of what can be salvaged from the treatment arises. Two risks are discussed: that of withdrawing into a purely supportive, potentially collusive mode of treatment and, second, the risk of challenging the patient's denial (of damage to the therapist as well as evidence of any other damage) in a manically reparative, intrusive, way that is more to do with the therapist's wishes to avoid her guilt at letting the patient down.