Constructing the truth From ‘Confusion of tongues’ to ‘Constructions in analysis’1

The author hypothesizes that the papers Freud wrote in the period 1934‐9 constitute a fi nal turning point in his work resulting from an attempt to work through, by means of self‐analysis, early traumatic elements reactivated by the conditions of his life in the 1930s. The author emphasizes that the ups and downs of Freud's relationship with Sándor Ferenczi and the mourning which followed his death in 1933 played an important role in this traumatic situation. He suggests that through these last works, Freud pursued a posthumous dialogue with Ferenczi. This working through led Freud, in Moses and monotheism, to an ultimate revision of his theory of trauma, a revision which the author examines in full, in the light of the works of the Egyptologist, Jan Assmann. A new analytical paradigm emerges: that of constructions in analysis developed in the article of the same name. The activity of construction appears as an alternative to the mutual analysis proposed by Ferenczi and is closely bound up with the notion of historical truth. In psychoanalysis, it would mean constructing a historical truth whose anchoring in the material truth of the past is essential, though it should not be confused with it.     

Delving into the ‘emotional storms’: A thematic analysis of psychoanalysts’ initial consultation reports

Psychoanalysts’ written reports on initial consultations are a window into the complexities of a crucial aspect of psychoanalytic work. However, systematic research in this area has largely focused on patients’ demographic factors or standardized measures. The present study looked at reports of all the consultations taking place at the London Clinic of Psychoanalysis over one calendar year (N = 100). The aim was to explore psychoanalysts’ different explicit styles of working and reporting as well as further understanding implicit processes used in thinking and writing about each particular consultation experience. A thematic analysis revealed a set of themes that related to a style of working and thinking about the consultation process as a dyadic experience, where the interaction, affective reactions and contact made between the two are the focus when thinking of making a recommendation for psychoanalysis. The majority of the reports had an open, exploratory quality. The writing of reports appears to give the analyst an opportunity to process the consultation experience and arrive at a more triangular position. Writing reports is a more valuable part of the consultation process than has formally been recognized and acknowledged. The limitations of this study as well as the relevance of these findings for future research are discussed.     

Working in the borderland: early relational trauma and Fordham's analysis of ‘K’

This paper outlines a view of early relational trauma as underlying borderline states of mind, and argues that Knox's 1999 paper on internal working models and the complex provides a basis for understanding such states of mind. The author argues that in addition to internal working models, the complex also embodies and contains primitive defences of the core self. He outlines how these apply on the objective, subjective, transference and archetypal levels, and in direct and reversed forms and applies this to the account of Fordham's analysis of his patient ‘K’, which ended in impasse. The paper explores the dynamic that emerged in that analysis and suggests that it could be helpfully accounted for in terms of the co‐construction and re‐construction of early relational trauma in the analytic relationship.     

From bastion to enactment: The ‘non‐dream’ in the theatre of analysis1

In this paper, the author's objective is to discuss models that express what occurs in the analytical situation. He demonstrates how early models relating to painting and sculpture, to history and archaeology, develop into other models that refer to the relationship between two people. He studies in depth the Barangers analytical eld with its obstructive bastions as a background to understanding what is currently valued as intersubjectivity in psychoanalysis. The container contained model and the phenomenon of recruitment are also discussed. The author uses clinical material to demonstrate how these models are linked to enactment, and a study of this concept provides evidence of the importance of the visual image, the dream and non‐dream, the affective pictogram, as privileged aspects for the understanding and evolution of thought in the analytical process. Its importance leads to a proposal of a model that uses the theatre as a metaphor for the analytical process. In this model, analyst and patient both participate as characters in the scenes, and simultaneously as their co–authors. The analyst should also be responsible for the direction of scenes, as well as acting as critic. His task is to prevent obstructive conspiracies (the non‐dream) and new meanings for the scenes, thus allowing the development of new scenes and plots, and the enlarging of the mental universe.     

Taking Time to Incubate: The Moderating Role of ‘What You Do’ and ‘When You Do It’ on Creative Performance

We explore how the choices available to individuals planning multi‐task work can facilitate the incubation of ideas and enhance creative performance. Using opportunistic assimilation theory, we hypothesize that two considerations can determine the effectiveness of incubation and creative performance. First, we argue that having the discretion to switch tasks when needed, as well as the timing of this discretionary switch between tasks (i.e., earlier versus later in the work process on the main task) is important. Second, the scope of the intervening task (i.e., in the same knowledge domain as the main task versus in a different domain) can lead to more effective incubation and creativity. Results of a laboratory study indicate that participants who made a discretionary switch to an intervening task later in their work process on the main task benefited significantly more in terms of creative performance than those who chose to switch earlier in their work process or chose not to switch tasks. Additionally, participants who worked on an in‐domain intervening task exhibited significantly higher creativity on the main task than those who worked on an out‐of‐domain intervening task. Furthermore, focus of attention on the main task partially mediated these results.     

‘An Association for All’—Notions of the Meaning of Autistic Self‐Advocacy Politics within a Parent‐Dominated Autistic Movement

In this paper, we seek to explore the tensions between advocacy and self advocacy autistic movements in a Swedish context with a special focus on the meanings that enable the production of particular understandings of autism and the autistic subject. Drawing on articles written for the Swedish advocacy magazine Empowerment written for and by people with autism, the discourse analysis explores two competing discourses: a reformist and a radical. The reformist discourse underlines a goal of (political) representation expressed in Empowerment. It may be understood as an important part of producing a legitimate autistic political subject–positioned as a full member, with a full membership–within a parent‐dominated autistic advocacy movement. The reformist discourse can be viewed as a result of a negotiation, where full membership is conditioned on the parents' terms and granted on specific terms. These include working together (neuro‐inclusively), advocacy based on interest rather than identity/position as a specific target/member group, agreement upon a definition of autism as a disability (a deficit) a person has rather than an identity. In relation to this, an alternative legitimate autistic subject is produced through invoking the counter‐hegemonic radical discourse. Such a narrative produces the ‘Asperger’ or ‘Aspie’. Here, the ‘full membership’ refers to a sense of identification with sense of belonging to and being at home with other people with autism. It contains a certain amount of autistic solidarity within the group of adults with autism. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social Capital and Community Group Participation: Examining ‘Bridging’ and ‘Bonding’ in the Context of a Healthy Living Centre in the UK

Social capital has been widely advocated as a way of understanding and building community participation in the interest of health improvement. However, the concept as proposed by Putnam, has been criticised for presenting an overly romanticised account of complex community relations. This paper presents analysis from a qualitative evaluation of a Healthy Living Centre (HLC) in the North of England, to examine the utility of the concept of social capital in this context. We found the concepts of ‘bridging’ and ‘bonding’ social capital were useful – though not without limitations – in helping to make sense of the complexities and contradictions in participants’ experiences of community group participation. 'Bridging' helped provide an understanding of how the decline in shared social spaces such as local shops impacts on social relationships. 'Bonding' highlighted how community group membership can have positive and negative implications for individuals and the wider community. It was found that skilled group leadership was key to strengthening bridging capital. Politically, in the UK, community participation is seen as having an essential role in social change, for example, its centrality to the coalition government's idea of the ‘Big Society’. A micro‐examination of this HLC using the lens of social capital provides a valuable critical insight into community participation. It shows that this kind of initiative can be successful in building social capital, given conditions such as an appropriate setting and effective leadership. However, they cannot substitute for other kinds of investment in the physical infrastructure of a community. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The beat goes on: a commentary on Kelley's ‘Expanding the analysis of social orientations…’

Kelley's recent expansion of the analysis of social orientations is seen to be a logical extension of the interdependence concepts emanating from his extraordinary collaboration with the late John Thibaut. This expansion, extending the nomenclature of transitions lists to analysing the control of transition choices, is briefly summarized. The analysis holds much promise, which will be fully realized, however, only when valid assessments of the constituent components are available. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A task‐ and role‐based perspective on super‐recognizers: Commentary on ‘Super‐recognizers: From the lab to the world and back again’

This article provides a commentary on recent work by Ramon et al. (2019, British Journal of Psychology) on super‐recognizers. The commentary advocates a task‐ and role‐based approach to SR research and greater collaboration between researchers and the applied community.     

The ‘Holy Mother’ and the shadow: revisiting Jung's work on the quaternity

Through a series of clinical vignettes, this paper considers the impact of religious belief, specifically Roman Catholicism, on the psyche and development of mind; in particular, there will be a focus on the influences of the conflation of maternal beliefs with a Catholic belief system when the loss or absence of the father is a primary factor. Further, it will be shown in case examples that split off aspects of the personal shadow such as conflicted and aggressive emotions related to mother and father can conflate with the collective numinous and religious aspects of the ‘dark side’ of the God‐representation and result in ‘religious’ persecutory symptoms. This has a debilitating effect on the emerging personality, leaving it prone to fears, anxieties and psychotic pockets of experience when there is a numinous persecutory shadow in the background that affects and limits the individual's development. The implications and findings drawn from the clinical vignettes are used to consider the impact of an interrelationship and conflation between aspects of the psyche and religious beliefs. Jung's work on the Trinity and the ‘problem of the fourth’ (Jung 1942/1948/1991) is also reconsidered in relation to the role of the feminine, the maternal and the ‘reality of matter’. A diagram of the multiple levels of the quaternity is used to elaborate and expand on Jung's concept. © 2013, The Society of Analytical Psychology     

On the use of the term ‘frequency’ in applied behavior analysis

There exists a terminological problem in applied behavior analysis: the term frequency has been used as a synonym for both rate (the number of responses per time) and count (the number of responses). To guide decisions about the use and meaning of frequency, we surveyed the usage of frequency in contemporary behavior‐analytic journals and textbooks and found that the predominant usage of frequency was as count, not rate. Thus, we encourage behavior analysts to use frequency as a synonym for count.     

In search of the ‘Aha!’ experience: Elucidating the emotionality of insight problem‐solving

Although the experience of insight has long been noted, the essence of the ‘Aha!’ experience, reflecting a sudden change in the brain that accompanies an insight solution, remains largely unknown. This work aimed to uncover the mystery of the ‘Aha!’ experience through three studies. In Study 1, participants were required to solve a set of verbal insight problems and then subjectively report their affective experience when solving the problem. The participants were found to have experienced many types of emotions, with happiness the most frequently reported one. Multidimensional scaling was employed in Study 2 to simplify the dimensions of these reported emotions. The results showed that these different types of emotions could be clearly placed in two‐dimensional space and that components constituting the ‘Aha!’ experience mainly reflected positive emotion and approached cognition. To validate previous findings, in Study 3, participants were asked to select the most appropriate emotional item describing their feelings at the time the problem was solved. The results of this study replicated the multidimensional construct consisting of approached cognition and positive affect. These three studies provide the first direct evidence of the essence of the ‘Aha!’ experience. The potential significance of the findings was discussed.     

A Conversation Analysis of the ‘Acquiescence’ of People with Learning Disabilities

Contrary to received wisdom, ‘acquiescence bias’ in the responses of people with learning disabilities to questioning is not a simple phenomenon, and certainly not one to be laid at the door solely of people with learning disabilities themselves. Rather, it is probably an artefact of the conversational organization of interviews as tests. Analysis of Quality of Life assessment interviews show, we argue, that there is probably no uniform ‘acquiescent’ motivation which accounts for all inconsistencies and agreements that might be produced under such circumstances. Rather, the interview's logic produces a range of pseudo-acquiescent responses in the face of interviewers reformulations, and their pursuit of plausible and acceptable answers. There is also evidence of ‘anti-acquiescence’, in which respondents resist pressure to change their answers. We conclude that the traditional notion of submissive, willing-to-please acquiescence is probably unsustainable on current evidence, and ought to be replaced by a more respectful account of the linguistic and interpersonal competence of people with learning disabilities.     

‘The newspaper reader’: On the meaning of concrete objects in a psychoanalytic treatment1

The author investigates the meaning of concrete objects in the psychoanalytic treatment of a severely disturbed patient for the development of his inner world and the analytic process. She includes a survey of relevant theoretical concepts with an emphasis on Winnicott and Bion. It is shown that the objects served basic defensive functions both within the analytic relationship and for the precarious intrapsychic state of the patient. The author describes the technical dealing that led to a structural change. From the comparison of the initial dream and a later dream, Mr N's inner development from total inclusion in the object to triadic reality of separated, repaired objects becomes discernible. The author shows how this progress was facilitated by his use of concrete objects as links between his psychotic and non‐psychotic parts, as well as by the specifi c way the analyst handled the paradoxical transference‐ countertransference. She also illustrates the thesis that the developmental steps described are crucial for the capability to digest psychic pain by symbolization instead of discharging it in a destructive‐violent way.