Working at the frontier and the use of the analyst: Reflections on analytic survival2

Certain connotations of ‘working at the frontier’ for the practicing psychoanalyst and for psychoanalysis are discussed in terms of movement along spatial and temporal dimensions. I then selectively highlight three currently significant frontier areas: moving between psychoanalysis and psychotherapy; psychoanalysis under conditions of terror and social traumatization; and the pursuit of the definitive as against the elusive subject. I suggest ‘the use of the analyst’ as the theme that underlies and epitomizes analytic presence and activity at these frontiers. Psychoanalysts are ‘used’ in innumerable ways, but especially by surviving the destructiveness‐deliberate and unconscious, real and symbolic‐aimed at them. The psychoanalytic presence at these frontiers fashions and reaffirms its unique, life‐embracing stance out of chaotic formlessness.     

Corruption as a global hindrance to promoting ethics,integrity, and sustainable development in Tanzania: the role of the anti-corruption agency

Corruption is the single greatest challenge that erodes and defeats efforts made by many nations, especially in the developing world, towards sustainable development and towards the promotion and strengthening of democratic institutions and values. This article lays out international norms of ethics and integrity, reflected also in Tanzanian norms. It argues that strategic decision is imperative and a ‘Good Governance Architecture' is meant to provide a working solution to curb unethical behaviour, corruption, and the culture of impunity. This working solution – which involves economic and institutional reforms, prevention strategies, enforcement, political will, transparency, accountability, popular participation, the rule of law, and the democratic space – goes further towards the root cause of the problem than legal norms do.     

Refining our understanding of the VIA Classification: Reflections on papers by Han,Miller, and Snow

ABSTRACT

Han, Miller, and Snow have written three thoughtful critiques of the VIA Classification of Strengths and Virtues. In this response, I emphasize five points. First, I suggest the concept of practical wisdom may be understood in terms of three VIA strengths: prudence, judgment, and perspective. Second, recognizing that the VIA Classification is a structural model of individual traits, rather than a moral theory, can address some concerns about the model, including its failure to account for the unity of the virtues. Third, I review a three-virtue model that has emerged in recent research on the VIA strengths may provide essential elements for a taxonomy of virtue. Fourth, I raise several issues associated with the application of the VIA Classification to moral education. Finally, though the model demonstrates substantial generalizabilty across Westernized populations, research in traditional indigenous cultures remains insufficient. I conclude with a series of questions for future research.     

Study on a Christian Chinese sample: sense of self-worth,well-being and locus of control

The purpose of this study was to explore Chinese Christians’ sense of self-worth, well-being, locus of control and the correlations between these variables. One hundred and two Chinese Christians with a range of 18–40 years old were surveyed by the Scale of Self-worth, Chinese version of General Well-Being Scale and internal–external Locus of Control Scale. A control group of 134 Chinese non-Christians participated in the same survey. Christians scored lower on locus of control and higher on self-worth than the non-Christians. No significant general well-being difference was between the Christian and non-Christian samples. The correlations were significant between locus of control and self-worth/general well-being (negative) and between self-worth and general well-being (positive). Results suggest that Christians experience better self-worth and tend to be internals on locus of control.     

Some thoughts on the diffusion of psychoanalysis: the group dimension, ethics and the sense of identity

In this paper the author questions some of the ways in which psychoanalysis is passed on to the wider public, one of which is sometimes evocative of the sales promotion of a consumer product in contemporary society. This methodology does not give sufficiently deep prior thought to the eventual consequences of side effects. The detailed exposition of clinical cases, for example, raises sensitive ethical issues, even when anonymity is preserved. Although it is true that making information about Freud's theories more widely available may indeed encourage people to think about training as psychoanalysts, it is noticeable that this process is sometimes considered to be a form of training in itself. Some participants feel that acquiring a psychoanalytical vocabulary and reading clinical reports form a sufficient basis for practising thereafter as psychotherapists, both in institutional contexts and in private practice. The absence of group work on the part of the organizers might explain why closer study is not made of the methodologies of transmission and the different levels that it involves. This is sometimes due to the absence of a common object, formed within and by the group, and to the emergence of manic defences in the group.     

Projective identification,containment and sojourn in the psyche: Clinical notes on a specific type of transference-countertransference interaction

Abstract

This paper suggests that the interplay between transference and countertransference is considered to be a valuable channel of communication. The author puts an emphasis on the containing function of the analyst. The patient strives for an experience of an object (analyst) that tolerates and copes with the patient's projections. There are some moments when analysts feel themselves to be invaded, controlled or abused by their patient's products. As Bion has postulated, this situation takes the form of a sojourn in the analyst's psyche. Clinical vignettes are given to provide support for the ways in which the analyst contains and elaborates the projections of the patients in his or her own mind and the therapeutic role that these processes have.     

Narrating survival and change in Guatemala and South Africa: the politics of representation and a liberatory community psychology

Peace accords and international interventions have contributed to the suspension of armed conflict and the censuring of repressive regimes in many parts of the world. Some governments and their opposition parties have agreed to the establishment of commissions or other bodies designed to create historical records of the violations of human rights and foster conditions that facilitate reparatory and reconciliatory processes. This paper explores selected roles that community psychologists have played in this process of remembering the past and constructing new identities towards creating a more just future. With reference to two community groups (in Guatemala and South Africa) we show how efforts to speak out about one's own experiences of political and military repression involve complex representational politics that go beyond the simple binary opposition of silencing versus giving voice. The Guatemalan group consisted of Mayan Ixil women who, together with the first author, used participatory action research and the PhotoVoice technique to produce a book about their past and present struggles. The South African group, working within the ambit of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and in collaboration with the third author and others, explored ways of speaking about their roles in apartheid and post-apartheid society. Although both these initiatives can be seen as moments in on-going struggles to overcome externally-imposed repressive practices that censor the voices of marginalized communities, they also serve to dispel overly romanticized notions of univocal communities now liberated to express themselves in an unmediated and unequivocal fashion. The paper discusses how each group of women instead entered into subtly nuanced relationships with community psychologists involving a continual interplay between the authenticity of their self-representational accounts and the requirements of the discursive technologies into which they were being inducted and the material conditions within their sites of struggle. In both cases the group's agenda also evolved over time, so that what emerged was not so much a particular account of themselves, or even the development of a particular voice for speaking about themselves, but an unfolding process—for the groups and for the community psychologists who accompanied them—of becoming active players in the postmodern, mediated world of self-representational politics and social struggle.     

The ‘uncanny’, the sacred and the narcissism of culture: The development of the ego and the progress of civilization1

The report by a member of the Brazilian parliament that the rejection of physical deformity is natural and instinctive, and the Muslim reaction to the publication in the Western press of cartoons considered to be offensive to their religion, serve as an introduction to the examination of conflicts in human relations. The two episodes may be classified as representing the sense of the ‘uncanny’, attributed by Freud to the narcissism that remained from primitive cultures, in which the shadow cast by the body and the mirrored reflection of the latter probably generated the idea of soul‐which would be the narcissistic phenomenon causing the illusion of immortality. The presence of this illusion as a support for the beliefs of present‐day civilized peoples makes clear the inopportune influence of primitive mental states in areas where more developed ones should prevail. The persistence of the omnipotent thinking derived from these states provides the possibility of drawing a parallel between the development of the ego‐evolution from narcissism to object relation‐and the progress of civilization. In this context, the majority of social conflicts can be attributed to the deficient object relation resulting from the strength of primary narcissism, which generates a tendency to reject that which is different and to facilitate the emergence of destructive aggressiveness. The progress of civilization would then occur by means of a development of the ego compatible with object relations that lead to a drastic reduction in destructiveness.     

Storytellers and Scenario Spinners: Some Reflections on Religion and Science in Light of a Pragmatic, Evolutionary Theory of Knowledge

Asserting that both scientists and religious thinkers are involved in telling stories about the past and spinning scenarios about the future, I first compare and contrast the purposes of scientific and religious storytelling. Then, in light of some recent work on brain and language evolution, I offer a possible story about how humans might have become storytellers. Finally, I discuss how religious stories might be evaluated pragmatically and even scientifically by developing Lakatosian-type research programs.     

Understanding Freud's conflicted view of the object‐relatedness of sexuality and its implications for contemporary psychoanalysis: A re‐examination of Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality

Through a re‐examination of Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), this paper reveals a fundamental tension in Freud's thinking on the nature of the individual and of his sexuality. In this text Freud portrays the individual and sexuality as inherently object‐related and at the same time as inherently independent of such relatedness. The way in which Freud presents these contradictory ideas suggests that he was not merely undecided on object‐relatedness and sexuality but rather that the contradiction was integral to this thinking. The paper offers an explanation of the meaning of this contradiction, of why it has been neglected in the analytic literature, and of some implications for contemporary psychoanalysis and its approach to sexuality.     

The effects of type of instruction,animacy cues,and dimensionality of objects on the shape bias in 3‐ to 6‐year‐old children

Robust evidence exists for the shape bias, or children's tendency to extend novel names and categorize objects more readily on the basis of shape than on other object features. However, issues remain about the conditions that affect the shape bias and its importance as a linguistic device. In this research, we examined how type of instruction (common noun naming, proper noun naming, same kind, and goes with), animacy of objects (animate, inanimate), and dimensionality of objects (two‐dimensional, three‐dimensional) affect the shape bias in 3‐ to 6‐year‐old children. Overall, all children showed strong use of the shape bias with categorization (same kind, goes with) instructions, the former in line with the shape‐as‐cue theory. Additionally, the shape bias was quite robust in the inanimate condition, regardless of type of instruction or dimensionality of objects. However, in the animate condition, a proper noun naming instruction coupled with an animate object cue reduced the shape bias across both two‐ and three‐dimensional objects. Implications of these findings are presented.

Highlights

• This study assessed the “shape bias,” a linguistic strategy young children routinely use when confronted with the task of extending a novel name from one object to another.
• Novel name extension and categorization tasks were used in this study.
• Shape bias was affected by the type of instructions, animacy of objects, and dimensionality of objects.

     

Fordham, feeling, and countertransference: reflections on defences of the self

This is a paper about the difficulties we as analysts get into when we find that a patient has activated something in our unconscious which we cannot resolve in our work with them. Fordham described at the end of his life, in a number of papers, his difficulties and discomfort at not being able to resolve an impasse with one of his patients. From the conversations we had about this situation I knew this caused them both a lot of pain. After Fordham's death his former patient consulted me. Arising from these consultations I describe how I have understood the impasse to have arisen between Fordham and his patient. This paper links character and clinical interests, personality and impasse, developmental failures and defences of the self. It is a personal statement in which I have struggled to represent the meaning in the pain these two men suffered during their analytic engagement, which lasted more than ten years. The theme of fathers and sons was central to the problem.     

Religion,Health, and the Psychology of Religion: How the Research on Religion and Health Helps Us Understand Religion

An increasing replication of studies find a correlation between religious belief and practice and mental and physical health and longevity. This paper discusses some of the implications of this research for the ways in which religion might understood psychologically. Most interpretations of this data focus on the presence of one or more mediating variables. This paper argues that the presence of these mediating factors helps us understand more precisely some of the ways in which religion actually does impact on human life and in what the psychological uniqueness of religion actually consists.     

Reflections on the Process of Creating Paintings: Reclaiming the Sacred and the Future in a World That Seems to Be Dying

In this paper, I want to reflect on the process involved in being a pastoral theologian who is also a painter and creative artist. I hope that reflecting on the process of creating paintings might be helpful for thinking about God and God's role as Creator with the whole created order. I will leave the reader to make the specific connections.     

Why it is difficult to see the anima as a helpful object: critique and clinical relevance of the theory of archetypes

This paper is divided into three parts. The first deals briefly with more general aspects of the theory of archetypes (as conceived by Jung); the second examines the anima archetype in rather more detail, because it is, apart from the self, the main archetype in Jung's thought; and the third discusses the clinical repercussions of the anima theory and of the theory of the archetypes in general. The various references to Jung himself and certain circumstances of his life are included here on the assumption that personal problems in his biography contributed decisively to the constitution of his theory, so that deeper insights accure if they are taken into account.     

The relevance of attachment theory to a contemporary Jungian view of the internal world: internal working models, implicit memory and internal objects

In this paper I examine the various meanings of the term 'internal object' and the differences between various theoretical models for the formation of internal objects. I suggest that the idea in attachment theory of 'internal working models' emphasizes the internal world as one consisting of unconscious internalized patterns of emotional relationships. The term 'internal object' lacks this clarity and the different meanings it carries within differing theoretical frameworks are a source of confusion. I describe the role implicit memory plays in the formation of 'internal working model's and suggest that these offer us an alternative explanation for unconscious fantasy and for object relationships to that of instinctual drives. This model is then brought to bear on contemporary Jungian concepts of the internal world, with a suggestion that, seen in this light, Jung's formulation of the concept of the complex has many features in common with the 'internal working model' of attachment theory.