When Silence Speaks Louder Than Words: Explorations Into the Intrapsychic and Interpersonal Consequences of Social Ostracism

Respondents wrote 2 stories, 1 about a time they were given the silent treatment and 1 about a time they used the silent treatment on another. Content analyses indicated that targets who were unable to attribute the ostracism to a specific cause suffered greater threats to belongingness and self-esteem than those who understood the reasons for their treatment. Targets who felt that others were oblivious to their presence reported stronger threats to belongingness, self-esteem, and meaningful existence and were more likely to affiliate with others than were targets who generated alternative reasons for their treatment. People high in self-esteem were more likely than those low in self-esteem to (a) use ostracism as a means of terminating the relationship and (b) terminate relationships with their ostracizing partners. People low in self-esteem, conversely, were more likely to ostracize others in defense against criticism or rejection, ostracize others in general, and report being ostracized by others. Finally, perspective differences indicated that sources portrayed the ostracism as a useful interpersonal tactic that ultimately led to conflict resolution, whereas targets emphasized feelings of withdrawal and resentment.     

Representation and the Intrapsychic: Cartesian Barriers to Empathic Contact

This paper argues for a radical relational perspective that explicitly challenges the notion of the intrapsychic and the related Cartesian assumptions of representationalism. Conceptual tools derived from the school of embodied cognition provide an alternative theoretical language that depicts a new understanding of experience as an emergent and distributed phenomenon of a dialogic communicative system. Clinical vignettes illustrate how this new ontology of experience promotes a therapeutic ambience that dissolves the barriers to empathic contact imposed by the retention of representational modes of thought.     

Intrapsychic and interpersonal guilt: a critical review of the recent literature

Various authors hold that some emotions (i.e., moral emotions) have the function of orienting people toward ethical actions. In addition to embarrassment, shame and pride, the moral emotion of guilt is believed to affect humans’ behavior when they carry out transgressions that violate social and cultural standards. Over the past century, many studies (including controversial ones) have been conducted on guilt. In this study, we analyzed and summarized mainly the most recent literature on this emotion. On one side, the destructiveness of guilt is emphasized. It inflicts punishment and pain on individuals for their errors and can lead to psychopathology (e.g., depression). On the other side, it is described as a “friendly” emotion that motivates behavior adapted to social and cultural rules. How can this asymmetry be explained? Different existing views on guilt are presented and discussed, together with recent proposals, supported by research data. Finally, we discussed some systematic models that try to incorporate these different views in a single framework that could facilitate future researches.     

情境事件、关系取向与人际关系满意感的关系

该文采用问卷方法探讨了情境事件、情绪和关系取向与人际关系满意感的关系。研究结果显示,年龄、性别和职业均影响着人们对关系满意感两个维度的评价。消极事件直接影响个体对关系不满意维和满意维的评价,导致个体的不满意感产生,而积极事件则只能通过情绪间接的影响着个体对关系的评价。关系缘分观能够解释人际关系满意感。结论：情境事件和关系取向均影响着人们对自身人际关系满意感的评价。     

Reciprocal Interweaving: A Contribution to the Understanding of Adult Development

Gesell (1939) introduced the term reciprocal interweaving to describe the inconsistent expression of behavior common to the maturation process. Although the concept has been used to characterize development during infancy and childhood, it has not been applied to adult behavior. This article demonstrates that reciprocal interweaving can operate in adulthood and provides examples involving the learning of complex social skills in later life. The examples include personality change as a result of psychotherapy, the acquisition of sex-role behavior, and the effects of assertiveness training.     

Response to Layton: Considering the Sociopolitical Context of Dialectical Constructivism

What is commonly missing from psychoanalytic formulations, including my own, that Lynne Layton rightfully challenges us to correct is the locating of the possible dysfunctionality of the individual and the family within the context, not just of a brutally indifferent universe but also of an arguably brutally indifferent economic, political, and institutional environment. I differ with Layton in that I am more prepared to consider possible universals that bear on human experience and moral standards. For example, I would say that “reflection on the foundations of knowledge” trumps nonreflective fundamentalist thinking in capturing the best attitude to assume towards pursuit of truth. Also, the universality of the human tendency to deny death may underlie many diverse cultural belief systems. Nevertheless, Layton challenges us to reflect on how conventional psychoanalytic practices may collude with aspects of our own culture we would do well to try to combat, in ourselves and in our patients, through owning and proactively exercising our moral influence.     

Frequency of Interpersonal Trauma Types,Avoidant Attachment,Self-Compassion,and Interpersonal Competence: A Model of Persisting Posttraumatic Symptoms

Given limited knowledge about how psychosocial factors interact to modulate posttraumatic stress symptoms, this study evaluated an integrative model proposing that experiencing more interpersonal trauma types (e.g., abuse, assault, rape, etc.) leads to greater avoidant attachment and lower self-compassion, which limits the development and use of effective interpersonal skills. In turn, lower levels of self-compassion and interpersonal competence perpetuate posttraumatic symptoms. Anonymous trauma-experienced adults (n = 132) completed self-report measures in an online study hyperlinked on trauma support websites. Data were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling, which provided support for the hypothesized model. Specifically, higher frequency of interpersonal trauma types experienced was linked to higher avoidant attachment and lower self-compassion, which in turn were associated with lower interpersonal competence, which correlated with greater posttraumatic stress symptoms. Although cross-sectional data cannot address directionality of associations, this study’s findings emphasize the potential utility of future longitudinal research designed to examine possible causal relationships among these specific psychosocial factors. For example, study findings suggest that those who experience more types of interpersonal trauma and who are characterized by avoidant attachment and lower self-compassion and interpersonal competence may be the most susceptible to experiencing severe posttraumatic symptoms. However, findings also suggest that efforts to increase self-compassion and interpersonal skills may help reduce symptoms.     

Pina Bausch and the Interweaving of Trauma,Memory, and Creative Transformation: Commentary on Papers by Sarah Mendelsohn and Deborah Dowd

In her “dance-theater” (Tanztheater), Pina Bausch famously instructed her dancers with almost no language, encouraging her dancers to feel their way into the dance, to get in touch with their deepest vulnerabilities. In their papers, Sarah Mendelsohn and Deborah Dowd share with us, their audience, ways in which they, too, struggled to get in touch with their most vulnerable selves. Caught in an unending present with their challenging, traumatized patients, their struggle to locate themselves, and their own vulnerabilities in their patients, to experience the shame of their own childhood trauma, allowed for enlivened creative movement and profound psychic change.     

The Paradoxical Consequences of Interpersonal Goals: Relationships,Distress, and the Self

People often try to manage the impressions others have of them so others will have high regard for them. What are the consequences of chronically having self-image goals in ongoing relationships? A program of research examining the effects of self-image goals and contrasting them with compassionate goals focused on supporting others is described. Results from two longitudinal studies indicated that self-image goals have negative effects on relationships, and paradoxically decrease the regard others have for the self, self-esteem, and mental health. In contrast, compassionate goals focused on promoting the well-being of others have positive effects on relationships, and paradoxically increase others’ regard, self-esteem and mental health. Discussion considers why self-image goals persist if they have clear negative consequences, and why people do not shift to more constructive compassionate goals in light of their benefits.     

Affect,epistemology, and the perceptual-ecological perspective: Interpersonal processes and affordances in psychotherapy

Burrell recently presented an approach to epistemology in psychotherapy called the motor-evolutionary metatheory. This approach to therapeutic learning and knowledge is driven by the information-processing approach to cognition. It is characterized by an acceptance of the doctrine of the impoverishment of sense data, an information-processing theory of knowledge, and indirect realism. A viable yet contrasting perspective, derived from the pioneering work of James J. Gibson, is developed here. The resulting perceptual-ecological metatheory is characterized by the doctrine of information inherent in sense data, a perceptually based epistemic theory, and direct realism. It also includes the central theory of affordances, which is extended to encompass social relations and affect. The perceptual-ecological metatheory links these phenomena in a coherent way. Implications for reconceptualizing the psychotherapeutic process are explored.     

An Interpersonal Analysis of Adult Attachment Style: Circumplex Descriptions, Recalled Developmental Experiences, Self-Representations, and Interpersonal Functioning in Adulthood

Previous research suggests that the structure of adult attachment is dimensional, but the specific dimensions remain unclear. Given its relational nature, studies should examine attachment structure in association with conceptually related interpersonal constructs. The interpersonal model ( Kiesler, 1996 ) provides an integrative framework to examine this structure and associations between dimensions of attachment security (i.e., Anxiety and Avoidance) and: 1) the dimensions of the interpersonal circumplex, 2) the five‐factor model of personality, 3) recollections of mothers and fathers, and 4) current self‐processes and adult social functioning. In two samples of undergraduates, the Anxiety and Avoidance dimensions were associated with a hostile‐submissive interpersonal style. Canonical correlation analyses revealed that dimensions representing combinations of Anxiety and Avoidance, and roughly corresponding to the dimensions from Secure (i.e., low Anxiety and Avoidance) to Fearful (i.e., high Anxiety and Avoidance) attachment and from Preoccupied (i.e., high Anxiety and low Avoidance) to Dismissive (i.e., low Anxiety and high Avoidance) attachment related to the interpersonal constructs. The Secure to Fearful dimension (i.e., overall attachment security) seemed to share relatively more variance with the interpersonal constructs. These dimensions were associated with theoretically consistent characteristics, recollections of early experiences with parents, self‐representations, and social functioning.