Something Covered with an Old Blanket”: Nancy and Other Dead Mothers in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Oliver Twist</Emphasis>

In Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, Julia Kristeva outlines her theory of abjection as a simultaneous fascination and horror stemming from sensorial reminders of the subject’s primal, psychological relation to the mother. In this essay, I show how these psychological perspectives can potentially result in acts of physical violence, which I call the “abject response.” Applied to literature, a study of the abject response explains why sexually active female characters, such as Nancy, the prostitute, in Oliver Twist, suffer extreme acts of physical violence: not simply because they are sexual, as critics of Victorian domestic ideology most often argue, but rather because their particularly female bodies give them an agency which threatens to destroy the mastery of women on which Victorian male identity is based. Reading Oliver Twist through the lens of Kristeva reveals the ways in which Sikes, Nancy’s murderer, psychically links her sexuality to the fatal potential he perceives in her body. This threatening construction of women’s sexuality derives from an imbalanced focus in the male psyche on the repulsion aspect of abjection, a focus socially inscribed as a threatening power, which is used to justify violent usurpations of the feminine in masculine constructions of gender.     

Combining Employment and Breastfeeding: Utilizing a Work-Family Conflict Framework to Understand Obstacles and Solutions

Although authorities advocate breastfeeding as the ideal form of infant nutrition, breastfeeding rates remain low among employed mothers in the United States. Utilizing a work-family conflict framework, specific time-based, strain-based, and behavior-based conflicts that can occur for women combining breastfeeding and employment are explored. Research indicates that these conflicts often lead to decreased breastfeeding durations, which result in costs for employers, mothers, and infants. The review links workplace interventions (e.g. prenatal education, lactation programs, support systems, job flexibility, and child care) to the types of conflict (e.g. time, behavior, and strain-based) that each intervention can reduce. A previous version of this paper was presented in March of 2003 at the American Psychological Association’s Work, Stress, and Health Conference in Toronto, Canada.     

Children’s solutions of logical versus empirical problems: What’s missing and what develops?

This research examined the development of the ability to differentiate logical from empirical problems and the different ways in which children solve these problems. Thirty-two 4- and 5-year-olds, thirty-four 8- and 9-year-olds, and thirty-five 11- and 12-year-olds were given five questions regarding an imaginary character’s predictions as to where a ball would land after being dropped through a ‘tautology machine’. The questions examined encoding and recall of problems, children’s understanding of when evidence was necessary, and children’s evaluation of form and evidence. Data were analyzed in two ways: (1) by comparing differences across participants on component questions and (2) an individual analysis examining the consistency of responses to component questions across the problem set. Overall, the results indicated that: (1) sixth graders tended to differentiate logical from empirical problems while preschool and third grade children rarely did; (2) young children tend to ignore both the logical connective and the second half of problems-termed a ‘cut;’ (3) these cuts are less frequent when a problem is compatible with one empirical possibility; (4) cuts do not stem from encoding or recall errors, but seem to be the product of incomplete problem processing and (5) from third to sixth grade, children’s understanding of logical form increased as the rate of cuts decreased.     

Female Passion and the Matrix of Mother,Daughter, and Body: Vicissitudes of the Maternal Transference in the Working Through of Sexual Inhibitions

The maternal object is rarely seen as a girl's source of identification as a vibrant, sexually desirous woman. In this paper, I propose that the mother's capacity both to convey her own pride and pleasure in her female body, its sexual and procreative capacities, and to confer the privilege of passion on her daughter is requisite for a girl's full, pleasurable possession of her body and sexuality. Using observations from two analyses, I explore ways in which transformations of the negative transference manifestations of thwarted maternal sexuality and its pernicious expressions within the mother–daughter relationship paralleled recovery of a fuller capacity for sexual pleasure and agency. To offer clinical pathways toward development of female analysands' capacities for feminine pride and sexual passion, theories must allow for adaptive resolution of oedipal-period conflicts—resolution that can lead to a mature mutuality between mother and daughter.     

Bridging the Divide

Abstract

Women who consider themselves traditional or conservative in the context of religious practice often experience tremendous conflicts regarding the integration of same-sex emotional and sexual feelings with their religion and spirituality. Current religious teachings about homosexuality make this combination difficult as only heterosexual sexuality within marriage is permitted in most orthodox faiths. Further, the way that spirituality and sexuality are conceptualized as opposing dichotomous categories (e.g., body vs. soul) presents women with a framework where integration does not seem possible. Observant women who come to psychotherapy often experience tremendous distress, guilt, depression, and even suicidality due to the conflict between their sexual feelings and religious doctrine. Relieving the distress, and resolving the conflicts while honoring the emotional complexity of sexual feelings, spirituality, and religious orthodoxy can present tremendous dilemmas for the practitioner as well as the client. Using the example of psychotherapy of an Orthodox Jewish woman who integrated same-sex desire into her life, this article describes psychotherapy process and alternative ways of viewing spirituality and sexuality that permit possible resolutions for clients.     

The tendency of drivers to pass other vehicles

The purpose of this study was to assess the speed differential threshold—if there is one—at which drivers decide to pass a lead vehicle. Drivers in a simulator encountered vehicles in front that were programmed to travel at speeds that were similar, slightly below, or even slightly above the drivers’ own speed. The study involved a total of 152 such passing opportunities. In almost all of the encounters with slower vehicles (traveling at speeds slower than 3 km/h of the driver) they passed them, and in two thirds of the encounters when the lead vehicles were moving at their speed they passed them too. Most surprising was that in 50% of the encounters drivers passed the lead vehicle when it was traveling faster than their average speed. In these situations drivers actually increased their own speed substantially to accomplish the passing maneuver, despite the fact that not passing the lead vehicle would not have caused any delays. The tendency to pass appears to be related to the drivers’ own speed variability: the more variable the driver’s speed the more likely he or she was to pass the vehicle ahead even when its speed was greater than their average speed. The results are interpreted in terms of (a) driver aggression, and (b) association of car following with added effort, attention overload, or risk. The latter explanation implies that the tendency to pass vehicles may be reduced with the introduction of in-vehicle technologies such as adaptive cruise control.     

Role of Psychologists in Academic Medicine

With an interdisciplinary approach to understanding human psychosocial development and behavior, psychologists in academic medical settings have much to offer in the areas of administration, research, teaching, and service, including in the realm of organizational systems and behavior within medical schools. In these ways, psychologists can play a large role in the fulfillment of the mission of academic medicine and enhance psychology’s stature in the medical school organization. Two case studies are presented that exemplify the varied roles and responsibilities of psychologists in a medical school. To be successful within medical schools, the following generalizable principles are offered: (1) “add value” to the medical school by demonstrating the diverse and relatively unique abilities of psychologists; (2) be flexible and adaptive to the different requirements of medical academic settings; (3) make a concerted effort to work well with medical students, residents, and physicians who may not be well-versed in certain aspects such as rigorous research methodology and statistics; and (4) find a “good match” between one’s strengths, the needs of the medical setting, and the attributes of the M.D. leader. With such an approach, remarkable accomplishments can be made.     

HIV infection--psychological coping and political reality

The authors warn against a trivialization of the AIDS problem and against the call for state control. Since sexuality is ultimately uncontrollable, they plead instead for the greater clarification of the conflicts which those who are infected with HIV and those who are not infected experience in dealing with each other. The continuing mystification of these conflicts would result in mutual jeopardy through acting-out.     

Everyday cognitive failures and memory problems in Parkinson's patients without dementia

There is growing evidence that Parkinson’s disease patients without dementia exhibit cognitive deficits in some executive, memory and selective attention tasks. However, the impact of these deficits on their everyday cognitive functioning remains largely unknown. This issue was explored using self-report questionnaires. Twenty-four Parkinson’s patients and 24 age-matched controls rated how frequently they make particular cognitive errors, such as forgetting what they were about to say. In addition, a partner or significant other also rated each participant’s propensity for making cognitive errors. Rather than simply rating themselves as making more of all types of errors, these results indicate that PD patients make more of specific types of error. Further analysis suggests that some of these errors are related to attentional processes (being more distractible) whereas others are related to retrieval processes (being unable to recall important details from the previous day).     

Conceptualizing Patient Barriers to Nonadherence with Homework Assignments

Nonadherence with homework assignments and, by implication, “barriers” to homework assignments are a frequent occurrence in the practice of standard cognitive therapy (Beck, A.T., Rush, A.J., Shaw, B.F., Emery, G. (1979). Cognitive therapy of depression. New York: The Guilford Press). The clinical examples in this article illustrate some of the ways in which environmental, patient, task, and therapist factors can serve as barriers to homework completion. Although these classes of barriers may be discussed independently, they are actually overlapping processes and are more helpful when discussed in tandem. This article illustrates how the therapist’s ability to conceptualize can serve as the context for making sense of the patient’s perceived ability to undertake an activity, the patient’s beliefs about the specific task, and how our ability to use the conceptualization to anticipate barriers is part of evaluating our own therapeutic skills. Several clinical case examples are discussed.     

Gender stereotypes as situation–behavior profiles

Recent research suggests that social perceivers’ dispositional inferences are influenced by information about the ways others’ behavior varies stably across situations. We extend this research to stereotypes. Specifically, we examined peoples’ preconceptions about the situation–behavior profiles that social groups are likely to display, as well as the implications of such preconceptions for behavioral judgments. Focusing on gender stereotypes, in Study 1 we found that perceivers’ expectations about men’s and women’s assertiveness are qualified by situational information. Study 2 revealed that perceivers’ beliefs about the mentalistic attributes (e.g., goals, beliefs, motivations) that characterize men and women mediated the relationship between target gender and perceivers’ expectations about situation–behavior patterns. Study 3 explored how such contextualized stereotypes affect on-line judgments of targets’ behavior, showing that perceivers judge a given behavior’s assertiveness based not only on target gender but also on situation type.     

On the assessment of the test–retest of Riding’s CSA: A commentary on Peterson, Deary, and Austin

Peterson, Deary, and Austin (2003) considered the reliability of the Cognitive Styles Analysis (CSA) (Riding, 1991). The CSA seeks to assess an individual’s position on each of two fundamental style dimensions – the Wholist-Analytic and the Verbal-Imagery dimensions. It presents a series of simple cognitive tasks, which the subjects may choose to process according to their preferred style. Performance on these test items is in terms of response times. The CSA comprises 40 items to assess the Wholist-Analytic and 48 for the Verbal-Imagery and typically takes 15–20 min to complete. It is intended to be suitable for a wide age and ability range, and applicable to a variety of contexts and cultures.The most important characteristic of any test of cognitive style is its temporal stability. Studies which attempt to establish test validity without definitive evidence of test reliability are lacking a basic foundation. Riding has not published any statistical data on the test–retest reliability of the CSA.Peterson et al. (2003) and Peterson (2003) claim to have carried out the primary evaluation of the CSA’s reliability. However we were the first to publish accurate test–retest reliability data on Riding’s CSA (Redmond, Mullally, & Parkinson, 2002).This brief report addresses the issue as to who initially established the unreliability of the CSA in the first place and why Peterson, Deary and Austin’s claims are misleading and unsubstantiated.     

A contribution to the development of a psychoanalytical methodology for research into language: A systematic study of narration as an expression of sexuality

Systematic research on language has a solid starting point in Freudian hypotheses on sexuality. This theory is the semantic ground for categorising narrations and providing a basis for the research method. The author places his research in the frame of the systematisation of the Freudian theory of substitute formations in the preconscious. He affirms that these formations are influenced in a particular way by each variant of sexuality. The author proposes an inventory (in Freudian terms) of those variants of sexuality, and he affirms that they can be detected in the discourse. Five universal scenes having the status of a canon, with specific features for each of the ways in which sexuality is manifested, make up narrations. The author describes the features of each narration and provides some examples. He also examines problems related to the use of the method (the coexistence of different variants of sexuality in a single fragment of a narration and the successive steps in the use of the method). The author briefly considers some other problems: the analysis of defences, the study of words and theoretical research. Finally, he examines the validity and reliability of the method.     

Guided saccades modulate face- and body-sensitive activation in the occipitotemporal cortex during social perception

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has identified distinct brain regions in ventral occipitotemporal cortex (VOTC) and lateral occipitotemporal cortex (LOTC) that are differentially activated by pictures of faces and bodies. Recent work from our laboratory has shown that the strong LOTC activation evoked by bodies in which the face is occluded is attenuated when the occlusion is removed. We hypothesized that this attenuation may occur because subjects preferentially fixate upon faces when present in the scene. Here, we experimentally manipulated subjects’ fixations while they viewed a static picture of a character whose face, hand, and torso were continuously visible throughout each run. The subject’s saccades and fixations were guided by a small fixation cross that made discrete jumps to a new location every 500 ms. Subjects were instructed to follow the fixation cross and make a button press whenever it changed size. In a series of blocks, the fixation cross shifted from locations on the face, on the hand, and to locations on a background image of a phase-scrambled face. In a second study, the fixation cross moved similarly, but the hand locations were changed to locations along the character’s body or torso. A localizer task was used to identify face- and body-sensitive regions of LOTC. Body-sensitive regions were strongly activated when the subjects’ saccades were guided over the character’s torso relative to when the saccades were guided over the character’s face. Little to no activity occurred in the body-sensitive region of LOTC when the subjects’ saccades were guided over the character’s hand. The localizer task was unable to differentiate body-sensitive regions in lateral VOTC from face-sensitive regions, or body-sensitive regions in medial VOTC from flower-sensitive regions. Guided saccades over the body strongly activated both lateral and medial VOTC. These results provide new insights into the function of body-sensitive visual areas in both LOTC and VOTC, and illustrate the potential confounding influence of uncontrolled eye movements for neuroimaging studies of social perception.     

Intertheoretical Identity And Ontological Reductions

I argue that there are good reasons to assume that Quine’s theory of reference and ontology is incompatible with reductive statements – such as ‘Heat is molecular motion’ or ‘Rabbits are conglomerations of cells’. Apparently, reductive statements imply certain intertheoretical identities, yet Quine’s theory of reference and ontology seems incompatible with intertheoretical identities. I argued that treating, for the sake of reconciliation, reductive statements along the lines of Quine’s theory of an ontological reduction (which does not imply intertheoretical identity) fails. Then I discussed two alternative strategies on behalf of Quine to handle reductive statements: the Holistic Strategy (which appeals to Quine’s notion of an all-encompassing background theory) and the Individuative Strategy (which draws on Quine’s notion of an apparatus of individuation). I argue that the Individuative Strategy promises to succeed. However, the Individuative Strategy obliges to revising Quine’s theory of an ontological reduction – a revision that, as I argue, can and should be implemented.     

Children's understanding of directed motion events in an imitation choice task

We investigated children’s understanding of directed motion events using an imitation choice paradigm. A total of 34 children (mean age 33 months) watched a model act out an event containing a manner of motion (hopping or sliding), a motion path (up or down a ramp), and a goal (in or on a bowl). On the children’s apparatus, the locations of the goal objects were different from the model so that the children needed to choose whether to imitate the path or the goal of the model’s event. Children’s choice of which component to imitate, therefore, reflects how they prioritize these event components. Most children showed no bias to imitate the goal of the event and, instead, preferred to imitate the model’s path at the expense of the model’s goal. However, children who spontaneously played with the goal objects during a free play session showed a diminished path preference, choosing to imitate path and goal components equally often. We suggest that children’s prioritization of information within an event depends on how that information is structured within the event itself.     

Adapting Homework for an Older Adult Client With Cognitive Impairment

There is growing evidence that psychosocial treatments incorporating behavioral intervention strategies can be effective in the treatment of depression in older adults with cognitive impairment. However, less work with such cases has focused on the use of cognitive interventions in tandem with these behavioral intervention strategies. This case study describes how cognitive behavioral intervention strategies and related homework assignments were tailored and integrated to successfully treat depressive symptoms in an older African American diagnosed with probable Alzheimer’s disease. Examples of the homework strategies utilized are introduced by phase of treatment. We also discuss ways to overcome barriers to homework completion as well as methods to incorporate the client’s sociocultural context and personal history into homework.     

Tomboyism or Lesbianism? Beyond Sex/Gender/Sexual Conflation

To illuminate questions of sex/gender/sexual conflation the researcher focused on the relationship between reported tomboyism and lesbianism. Narratives of childhood and adolescence were collected from 32 women who were grouped into four gender/sexual status combinations: “lesbian/bisexual butch,” “straight butch,” “lesbian/bisexual femme,” and “straight femme.” The effects of participants’ sexual and gendered statuses on their retrospective accounts of two aspects of tomboyism—“choosing masculinity” and “rejecting femininity”—were examined. Chi square and qualitative analyses suggest that stage in the life cycle, gender, and sexual status influence distinct mergings and separations of sex, gender, and sexuality in women’s retrospective reports. The researcher concludes that attention to sex, gender, and sexuality as both distinct and connected clarifies the relationship between tomboyism and lesbianism.Part of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in Atlanta, Georgia in 2003. Interview data for this study were originally collected for an unpublished dissertation (Carr, 2002).     

Personality from a realist’s perspective: Personality traits, criminal behaviors, and the externalizing spectrum

Reviews ways in which the author’s program of research has been influenced by Tellegen’s (1991) conceptualization of personality traits as both real and biologically based entities. Analyses of longitudinal-epidemiological data on personality and criminal behavior indicate that personality measures and measures of criminal behavior can be conceived of as indicators of a latent, stable propensity to act in an unconstrained manner. In addition, an unconstrained personality style, substance dependence, and antisocial behavior can be modeled as indicators of a highly heritable propensity towards “externalizing” or acting-out behaviors, with environmental factors playing a key role in determining the specific way in which this general, heritable externalizing propensity is expressed. Such research outlines the value of concepts from personality psychology in understanding consequential behaviors in the population at large.