Dream actors in the theatre of memory: Their role in the psychoanalytic process2

The author notes that neuropsychological research has discovered the existence of two long‐term memory systems, namely declarative or explicit memory, which is conscious and autobiographical, and non‐declarative or implicit memory, which is neither conscious nor verbalisable. It is suggested that pre‐verbal and pre‐symbolic experience in the child's primary relations is stored in implicit memory, where it constitutes an unconscious nucleus of the self which is not repressed and which influences the person's affective, emotional, cognitive and sexual life even as an adult. In the analytic relationship this unconscious part can emerge essentially through certain modes of communication (tone of voice, rhythm and prosody of the voice, and structure and tempo of speech), which could be called the ‘musical dimension’ of the transference, and through dream representations. Besides work on the transference, the critical component of the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis is stated to consist in work on dreams as pictographic and symbolic representations of implicit pre‐symbolic and pre‐verbal experiences. A case history is presented in which dream interpretation allowed some of a patient's early unconscious, non‐repressed experiences to be emotionally reconstructed and made thinkable even though they were not actually remembered.     

The motivational unconscious

Motives may be said to be unconscious in a variety of ways. They may be automatically and unconsciously elicited by consciously perceptible situational cues; they may be instigated by cues that are themselves excluded from conscious awareness, as expressions of implicit perception or memory; or the person may be consciously unaware of his or her actual motivational state. The paper reviews the evidence pertaining to all three aspects of unconscious motivation, with emphasis on conceptual and methodological questions that arise in the study of motives which are not accessible to phenomenal awareness or voluntary control but nonetheless influence the individual's experience, thought, and action.     

Coordination of multiple memory systems

On the basis of lesions of different brain areas, several neural systems appear to be important for processing information regarding different types of learning and memory. This paper examines the development of pharmacological and neurochemical approaches to multiple memory systems from past studies of modulation of memory formation. The findings suggest that peripheral neuroendocrine mechanisms that regulate memory processing may target their actions toward those neural systems most engaged in the processing of learning and memory. In addition, measurements of acetylcholine release in different memory systems reveals extensive interactions between memory systems, some cooperative and some competitive. These results imply that many neural systems, often characterized as relatively independent, may in fact interact extensively, blurring the dependencies of different memory tasks on specific neural systems.     

Post G20: The Challenge of Change,Implementing Evidence‐based Public Order Policing

In the wake of the 2011 ‘riots’, public order policing tactics in England and Wales have once again been brought into question. Yet, the riots came two years since police regulatory authorities in the UK called for fundamental reforms to the policing of public order. Questions are raised about why the change called for appears to have been so slow and what can be done to assist reform. This paper suggests that developing an evidence‐based policing approach within the field of public order policing to inform police decision‐making would provide the answers. By doing so, the paper addresses some of the possible barriers to implementing evidence‐based policing in public order and calls for police academic partnership to overcome these to make ‘change’ an ongoing reality. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Understanding Information Selection and Encoding from a Dynamic,Energy Saving,Evolved, Embodied,Embedded Perspective

This article uses the Dynamic Human Centric Communication Systems Theory to reconceptualize 4 selected attributes of attention from a human‐centric point of view. Information is defined with respect to its relationship in the environment to the human in terms of time and space. The 4 attributes considered are stability, imminence, motivational relevance, and task relevance. An experiment was conducted in which encoding was assessed using a signal detection analysis of a change detection task. Results supported the prediction that story and motivational relevance would have opposite effects on the encoding of stable information as a function of imminence. Differences in memory predictions made by traditional theoretical approaches and the DHCCST are discussed in light of the results of the experiment.     

Crafting your Career: How Career Competencies Relate to Career Success via Job Crafting

This study aimed to investigate whether career competencies could enhance an employee's subjective career success in terms of perceived employability and work–home balance via job crafting behaviors. Based on Job Demands‐Resources (JD‐R) Theory, we examined a potential motivational process in which career competencies, as a personal resource, would enhance career success through expansive job crafting. The results showed that job crafting mediated the positive relationship between career competencies and both internal and external perceived employability. In addition, job crafting mediated the positive relationship between career competencies and work–home enrichment. We expected a negative association between job crafting and work–home interference, yet our results indicated that career competencies are indirectly and positively related to work–home interference via job crafting. With our findings, we add to JD‐R Theory by (1) showing that career competencies may be considered a personal resource, (2) empirically examining the role of job crafting in motivational processes, and (3) showing that enhanced subjective career success can be an outcome of motivational processes. Organisations may use these findings to implement developmental HR practices aimed at increasing career competencies and job crafting.     

Constructing the collective unconscious

Abstract: Innovative attempts at collating Jungian analytical psychology with a range of ‘post‐modern’ theories have yielded significant results. This paper adopts an alternative strategy: a Lacanian vantage point on Jungian theory that eschews an attempt at reconciling Jung with post‐structuralism. A focused Lacanian gaze on Jung will establish an irreducible tension between Jung's view of archetypes as factors immanent to the psyche and a Lacanian critique that lays bare the contingent structures and mechanisms of their constitution, unveiling the supposed archetypes’a posteriori production through the efficacy of a discursive field. Theories of ideology developed in the wake of Lacan provide a powerful methodological tool allowing to bring this distinction into focus. An assembly of Lacan's fragmentary accounts of Jung will be supplemented with an approach to Jungian theory via ?i?ek's Lacan‐oriented theory of the signifying mechanism underpinning ‘ideology’. Accordingly, the Jungian archetype of the self, which is considered in some depth, can begin to be seen in a new light, namely as a ‘master signifier’, not only of Jung's academic edifice, but also —and initially—of the discursive strategies that establish his own subjectivity. A discussion of Jung's approach to mythology reveals how the ‘quilting point’ of his discourse comes to be coupled with a correlate in the Real, a non‐discursive ‘sublime object’ conferring upon archetypes their fascinating aura.     

Finding a home: Developmental and neurobiological perspectives on cultural models

This article looks at cultural models in the light of human development, and neurobiological findings in motivation, learning, and cognition. It is argued that at the individual level, the acquisition of cultural models relies on several innate, neurobiologically based motivational, learning, and cognitive systems. These are: (a) a primary motivation to form social bonds which is driven by affect; (b) highly specialized social learning circuits, involving, but not limited to, mirror neuron systems, that facilitate the encoding of social information through implicit, embodied, imitational learning processes; and (c) the formation of culturally based templates for behavior and cognition centered around structures, collectively known as the “default mode network,” which is essential to self‐understanding, autobiographical memory, social cognition, prospection, and theory‐of‐mind. Cultural models, it is argued, are acquired through innate motivational processes that tie the individual emotionally to a secure base of familiar people and customs. This instinctual desire for proximity to others facilitates the efficient, largely implicit, patterning of knowledge and expectations. Shared knowledge and expectations, in turn, create a common, mostly implicit or unconscious, experience of subjectivity within groups. This allows each individual to automatically and effortlessly interact with similarly enculturated others.     

Reconceptualizing Excitation Transfer as Motivational Activation Changes and a Test of the Television Program Context Effects

This study theorizes that activation and decay of dual motivational systems function as the mechanisms underlying excitation transfer theory. Following this reconceptualization, a physiological experiment simultaneously examines the influence of program valence and arousing content on subsequent ads. As predicted, sympathetic arousal (indicated by skin conductance) was greater during ads following arousing compared to calm programs, and in both conditions, it decreased across ad blocks. Cognitive effort was higher (indicated by slower heart rate) during ads following the positive arousing program and was lower (indicated by faster heart rate) following the negative arousing program. The recognition and free recall data generally support the prediction that, immediately following the program, they would be at the levels predicted by the motivational activation elicited by the program context.     

The Revision and Expansion of Self‐Theory through Preparedness

The present paper examines the psychological pathways by which accumulating experiences of possible self‐revision ultimately lead to revision of the core selves that define a broader personal narrative. In so doing, we expand the notion of naïve ‘self‐theories’ by identifying self‐serving attributions and possible selves as critical components that extend or undermine the core self‐theories of a unique personal narrative written (and revised) over a lifetime. Ultimately, we advance preparedness as the motivational force that drives the road from possible to core self‐revision over time.     

Insight, working through, and practice: the role of procedural knowledge

A conception of insight is proposed, based on a systems and information-processing framework and using current neuroscience concepts, as an integration of information that results in a new symbolization of experience with a significant change in self-image and a transformation of non-declarative procedural knowledge into declarative knowledge. Since procedural memory and knowledge, seen to include emotional and relationship issues, is slow to change, durable emotional and behavioral change often requires repeated practice, a need not explicitly addressed in standard psychoanalytic technique. Working through is thus seen as also encompassing nondynamic factors. The application of these ideas to therapeutic technique suggests possible therapeutic interventions beyond interpretation. An illustrative clinical vignette is presented.     

Task Importance Effects on Prospective Memory Strategy Use

Mnemonic strategies generally improve prospective memory (PM) performance. However, little is known about why people use such strategies. In the Motivational‐Cognitive Prospective Memory model, task importance is thought to influence performance via multiple mechanisms, including increased strategy use. Our main purpose was to test this mechanism: higher PM task importance was hypothesized to cause greater strategy use. We also tested whether importance would specifically increase the use of more effective (external) strategies. Participants reported their strategy use for two hypothetical PM tasks. As predicted, they listed more strategies for more important tasks. This result demonstrates one mechanism for motivational effects in early phases of the task. We found weaker support for the prediction that participants would selectively increase their use of better strategies for more important tasks. This finding supports a relatively pessimistic view of meta‐memory in PM, at least when it comes to modulating one's use of dependable strategies. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Long-term effects of testing on the recall of nontested materials

The isolation paradigm is a staple in the study of distinctiveness and memory. Isolated items are better remembered than non-isolated controls, and the standard interpretation of this effect is that subjective experience of salience recruits extraordinary processing to the isolated item. This interpretation is at odds with data showing an isolation effect when the isolate is not perceived as salient (e.g., von Restorff, 1933). All available research on the early isolation effect has tested memory after a relatively short retention interval. Perhaps the effect of salience on memory in the isolation paradigm would be revealed following longer retention intervals. The experiment reported here examines the effect of isolation following a 48-hour retention interval when the isolate evokes an experience of salience compared to when the isolate does not evoke that reaction. The isolation effect was substantial after the 48-hour delay but equally so for early and late isolation. Salience appears to have nothing to do with the memory processes even at the longer retention intervals.     

Self-criticism and unconscious grandiosity: transference-countertransference dimensions

The problems posed in understanding and working through the patient's layers of self-criticism are challenging for both patient and analyst. In particular, this paper explores some countertransference phenomena related to underlying grandiosity embedded in self-criticism. For patients who are self-critical, analyzing grandiose elements may create further grounds for self-reproach or open up new modes of self-experience and freedom. The paper tries to focus on how the analyst's experience of the patient's self-criticism often shifts over the course of analytic work. It is important for the analyst to not be crippled by a fear of considering the relevance of underlying grandiosity in relation to self-reproach. Understanding this dimension of self-reproach can help elucidate why it is so durable and refractory to interpretation. The patient has a stake in holding on to this self-punishment because it perpetuates self-regulatory fantasies. These fantasies sometimes relate to the feeling that the patient will be more successful or better loved by holding on to aspects of self-reproach. Sometimes these fantasies are based in competitive or dominant strategies related to winning out or retaliating over parents or siblings.     

A Behavior Analytic Interpretation of the Therapeutic Relationship

The paper examines, from a behavior analytic perspective, the mechanisms through which change occurs within the context of the therapeutic relationship in individual psychotherapy. The analysis focuses upon the therapist’s shaping of the client’s behavior through subtle nonverbal cues and explicit verbal analyses. In the relationship, therapists modify behavior that has created difficulties for the client in the natural environment, and clinical change is dependent upon the extent to which those in the natural environment will reinforce functionally similar response classes. Ferster’s distinction between natural and arbitrary reinforcement and Skinner’s distinction between contingency-shaped and rule-governed behavior are also used to describe the manner through which change occurs. The goal of the paper is to stimulate behavior therapists to look more closely at the therapeutic relationship as a mechanism of clinical change and to help those of other perspectives see how their effectiveness within the relationship can be understood using the principles of learning.

     

Identity,Individuation and Substance

The paper takes off from the problem of finding a proper content for the relation of identity as it holds or fails to hold among ordinary things or substances. The necessary conditions of identity are familiar, the sufficient conditions less so. The search is for conditions at once better usable than the Leibnizian Identity of Indiscernibles (independently suspect) and strong enough to underwrite all the formal properties of the relation. It is contended that the key to this problem rests at the level of metaphysics and epistemology alike with a sortalist position. Sortalism is the position which insists that, if the question is whether a and b are the same, it has to be asked what are they? Any sufficiently specific answer to that question will bring with it a principle of activity or functioning and a mode of behaviour characteristic of some particular kind of thing by reference to which questions of persistence or non‐persistence through change can be adjudicated. These contentions are illustrated by reference to familiar examples such as the human zygote, the Ship of Theseus and Shoemaker's Brown‐Brownson. The first example is hostage for a mass of unproblematical cases. The problems presented by the second and third sort of examples arise chiefly (it is claimed) from an incompleteness in our conceptions of the relevant sort—the what the thing in question is. That incompleteness need not prevent us from knowing perfectly well which thing we are referring to. In the concluding section, sortalism is defended against various accusations of anthropocentrism. The paper touches on the interpretation of Heraclitus, Leibniz's theory of clear indistinct ideas, the difficulties of David Lewis's ‘perdurantist’ or stroboscopic view of persistence, four‐dimensionalism, and the relation of personal identity both to experiential memory and to the particular bodily physiognomy of a subject. At some points—as in connection with the so‐called Only a and b rule—the paper corrects, supplements or extends certain theses or formulations proposed in the author's Sameness and Substance Renewed (2001).     

Testing psychological theories about inference making

Two contrasting views about elaborative inferences in text comprehension are that they occur as the text is read and that they are deferred until they are made necessary by a question about the inferable information. This paper develops these views in greater detail and examines some of their consequences. The model of memory performance underlying the first of these theories has two quite different interpretations: the standard one and one in which inferable information, whether it is implicit or explicit in a text, is not encoded into memory for content. Two experiments are reported. The results are not consistent with the most straightforward interpretation of the claim that inferences are always deferred. However, that theory can be modified so that it makes the same predictions as its rivals. The various interpretations of the formal model underlying all three accounts of inference making can be distinguished only in terms of parsimony, explanatory adequacy, and their ability to handle results from other experimental paradigms, such as sentence verification.     

Relevant Alternatives,Perceptual Knowledge and Discrimination

This paper examines the relationship between perceptual knowledge and discrimination in the light of the so‐called ‘relevant alternatives’ intuition. It begins by outlining an intuitive relevant alternatives account of perceptual knowledge which incorporates the insight that there is a close connection between perceptual knowledge and the possession of relevant discriminatory abilities. It is argued, however, that in order to resolve certain problems that face this view, it is essential to recognise an important distinction between favouring and discriminating epistemic support that is often overlooked in the literature. This distinction complicates the story regarding how an alternative becomes relevant, and in doing so weakens the connection between perceptual knowledge and discrimination. The theory that results, however—what I term a ‘two‐tiered’ relevant alternatives theory of perceptual knowledge—accommodates many of our intuitions about perceptual knowledge and so avoids the revisionism of some recent proposals in the epistemological literature.