Another Inconvenient Truth and the Developmental Role for Psychology in a Threatened World*

There is a reciprocal relationship between the external lifeworlds that human individuals and communities inhabit (psychospheres) and the inner psychological landscape of conceptual coherence, cognitive strategies, identity, and meaning. In times of cultural turbulence, when basic assumptions about reality are challenged, there is often a corresponding challenge to psychological coherence on a cultural scale. The 21st century global context is increasingly incoherent, disrupting previously coherent psychospheres and provoking a global conceptual emergency with widespread mental distress. At the same time, climate change, the most dangerous of a cluster of global threats, requires urgent and coordinated action. It is likely that a more mature psychology will be required for this than is currently the global norm. The key to making the changes to necessary avoid global catastrophe humanely and effectively will be more psychological than technical. In the mid-20th century, humanistic psychology founders hoped humanistic psychology would provide theory and praxis for an emancipatory social movement that would avoid the catastrophe of nuclear holocaust. In the face of today's threats, the need for such a project is now more urgent than ever. In light of this, the author proposes the best and highest goals of psychological practice and training should be to address the challenge of creating a new culture or psychosphere that both cultivates and sustains a psychologically healthy humanity long enough to address the potential planetary catastrophe that looms at the same time that it addresses the pain of the inevitable psychological disruptions and the opportunity for transformative growth.     

SOME REFLECTIONS ON IAN MCEWAN'S ATONEMENT: ENACTMENT,GUILT, AND REPARATION

Recognizing that enactments have been discussed in psychoanalysis primarily as occurrences in the treatment setting, the author proposes a new application of the term enactments: that it may pertain to the actions of some individuals in their efforts to cope with bad things that they have done to others. That is, enactment can be a substitute‐for‐atonement mechanism. The author illustrates this view of enactment through a discussion of Ian McEwan's novel Atonement (2001), and in particular by examining the behavior and motivations of one of its central characters, Briony Tallis. Included are explorations of the relationships between enactment and guilt and between enactment and reparation.     

The Problem of Authorship and the Project of Chinese Philosophy: Zhuang Zhou and the <Emphasis Type="BoldItalic">Zhuangzi</Emphasis><Emphasis Type="Bold">between Sinology and Philosophy in the Western Academy</Emphasis>

This essay looks into a particular aspect of Sinological challenge to the modern project of Chinese philosophy within the Western academy through the lens of authorship, using the Zhuangzi 莊子 as a case study. It explores philosophical implications for texts whose authorship is in doubt and develops a new heuristic model of authorship and textuality, so that a more robust intellectual space for the philosophical discourse on Chinese classics can be carved out from the dominant historicist Sinological discourse. It argues that philosophical and Sinological approaches to Chinese classics have divergent scholarly objectives and follow different disciplinary norms. To clarify such divergence, it proposes a heuristic model to distinguish two sets of scholarly objects operative in Sinology and philosophy respectively, namely original text versus inherited text, historical author versus textual author, and authorial intent versus textual intent. These two sets of scholarly objects are related, at times overlapping but often irreducibly distinct, with the former in the pairs belonging to Sinologists and the latter to philosophers.     

带良好条件句的真理不动点理论

各种真理不动点理论的一个主要问题在于：它们通常缺乏像样的条件句。本文旨在提出两种新的想法去处理这个问题。在介绍克里普克的真理不动点理论之后,本文的作者探讨了对真理不动点理论的种种反对意见,并回答了其中的一部分。然后,作者说明了菲尔德的真理理论,并说明该理论如何在克里普克的真理不动点理论至上增加了条件句。不过,本文的作者争论说,菲尔德的条件句仍有许多不尽理想之处。为了弥补这些缺点,作者提出了两个想法：一个是在不动点理论至上增加亚当斯条件句,另一个则是在其上增加史多内克条件句。     

The “Perseverant” Personality: A Preattachment Perspective on the Etiology and Evolution of Binge/Purge Eating Disorders

The author integrates “psycho-digestive” metaphor with contemporary relational perspectives and developmental research to propose a way of thinking about the etiology and evolution of binge/purge eating disorders—including “purging anorexia,” bulimia, and “yo-yo” binge/dieting—and the personality organization that may underlie them. Focusing on the unifying, cyclical nature of these disorders, the author hypothesizes that an early-developing, fear-based form of somatopsychic perseveration may be set in motion from the beginning of life when a nursing infant is unable to achieve a psychic connection with a physically present and feeding (m)other. Without intervention, such a preattachment failure in (m)other/infant synchrony would inevitably impact all subsequent development. The author proposes that it may also lay the foundation for a uniquely intertwined somatopsychic personality organization—what she calls a “perseverant” personality—that fosters the development of binge/purge eating disorders. A perseverant personality is defined as a solitary and circular mode of being, thinking, and relating that is organized around a sustained physiological and psychological reliance on the feeding as a mode of thought-processing and affect regulation.     

The legal drug peddlers

The author questions the indiscriminate use of anti-depressant medication. Studies have shown that these medications are much more effective when combined with psychotherapy, but they are most often used without this adjunct. Blatant psychological issues are frequently completely ignored. Are some psychiatrists providing a placebo and ignoring the patient's basic problems?     

Stigmatization,Repair, or Undesirable Side Effect of Tolerance? Being Clear About What We Study and Target for Intervention

The terms prejudice and stigmatization tend to be overused and incorrectly applied to normal social control processes and to certain negative side effects of social tolerance. The author proposes that the evolutionary origins of social control stem from the need to repair disturbed relationships in a small group of kin-related individuals without engaging in stigmatization. This perspective results in a comprehensive classification of deviant conditions and their motivational implications. Dependent on type of deviance, situation, and culture, activation of the psychological mechanisms involved in repair may also result in stigmatization or tolerance. Practical implications for stigma prevention and reduction are discussed.     

Embracing Ritual Healing: The Case of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Sazuke</Emphasis> in Tenrikyo in Contemporary Taiwan

This paper will explore how the practice of ritual healing (sazuke) has played a prominent part in the propagation of a Japanese new religious movement (Tenrikyo) in Taiwan. The author firstly unravels the mystery of Tenrikyo’s healing ritual (sazuke) and its role in enabling Taiwanese followers’ potential to re-establish their relationship with the world. The author points out that sazuke is similar to Taiwanese folk therapy and fits into Taiwan’s multi-medical systems. The author also examines the features of Tenrikyo’s healing practice in Taiwan and discusses the evolution of sazuke from a non-institutionalised practice to a bureaucratised one. The author then advances to a more widely theoretical consideration by discussing how sazuke became a force that enabled Taiwanese people to respond to the changing world and how it facilitated peoples’ transformation when they were confronted by daily troubles and difficulties.     

Rediscovering James' Principles of Psychology

This paper is an introduction to a special issue celebrating the 125^th anniversary of William James' Principles of Psychology. The special issue demonstrates the continued relevance and insight offered by James. It reviews the articles in this issue and delineates three main themes: (1) he recognition of the inherent relationality of psychological phenomena, (2) a science of psychology ought to include biology and sociocultural phenomena (e.g. language); and (3) human consciousness is addressed as the flow of experience from the perspective one living it. It discusses each theme and briefly touches on how they continue to be developed in James' later work, which also provides innovative new directions for psychologists. Undergirding each of these contributions is James' admonition that psychological research is especially difficulty due to the complexity of psychological phenomena. As such, this paper also discusses challenges to doing psychological research that James raises and his ideas that can inform future endeavors.     

The Self as a Relational Structure A Dialogue with Multiple-Self Theory

This paper addresses the postmodern critique of unified-self theories that argues that the self is not unified but multiple, not a static entity but in constant flux, not a separate center of initiative but intersubjectively constituted. The author proposes that there are two kinds of division in self-experience: the dissociative divisions of multiple-self theory, and a division, akin to the divisions between Freud's structural agencies, between what are here termed the “intersubjective self” and “primary subjective experience.” In contrast to dissociated self-states, which occur in different moments in time, these two dimensions of self-experience occur simultaneously; indeed, what is most important about them is their relationship. The author suggests that it is this intrapsychic relationship, as it occurs in a given psychological moment, that determines the qualities of self-experience that are emphasized in unified-self theories: such qualities as cohesiveness versus fragmentation; authenticity vs. falseness; vitality versus depletion; optimal versus nonoptimal self-regulation; and agency versus feeling one is at the mercy of others. Furthermore, a major organizer of the intersubjective self is early identifications, especially “identifications with the other's response to the self.” The implications of these concepts for therapeutic action are discussed and illustrated with an extended account of an analytic case.     

Archetype X: Visible and Invisible Otherness

This article applies Jungian psychology to the film Get Out (2017), written and directed by Jordan Peele. It examines American culture, race, and racism issues through the conceptual lenses of complexes, archetypes, and personal myth. The movie is organized into a series of chapters exploring psychological, racial complexes: the complex of being the objectified other, the complex of not being other enough, and the complex of otherness and annihilation. The article then considers personal myth and the presence of invisible otherness in the lives of both Jung and Peele. The author places emphasis on the necessity and responsibility of the other as a disrupter and developer of personal and cultural individuation, and proposes the development of an archetype of otherness through the arts, Archetype X. The naming of this new archetype opens a way for the marginalized to begin to be seen, to create a home in which to place themselves and to belong.     

Mindless accuracy: on the ubiquity of content in nature

It is widely held in contemporary philosophy of mind that states with underived representational content are ipso facto psychological states. This view—the Content View—underlies a number of interesting philosophical projects, such as the attempt to pick out a psychological level of explanation, to demarcate genuinely psychological from non-psychological states, and to limn the class of states with phenomenal character. The most detailed and influential theories of underived representation in philosophy are the tracking theories developed by Fodor, Dretske, Millikan and others. Tracking theorists initially hoped to ‘naturalize’ underived representation by showing that although it is distinctively psychological it is not irreducibly so, yet they ended up developing theories of representation that by their own lights don’t pick out a distinctively psychological phenomenon at all. Burge (Origins of objectivity, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010) sets out to develop a theory of underived representation that does pick out a distinctively psychological phenomenon. His theory promises to vindicate the Content View and the various philosophical projects that depend on it. In this paper I argue that Burge’s theory dementalizes representation for the same reason tracking theories do: These theories hold that representations are states with underived accuracy conditions, yet such states are found in all sorts of mindless systems, like plants.     

Conceivability, rigidity and counterpossibles

Wright (In Gendler and Hawthorne (Eds.), Conceivability and possibility, 2002) rejects some dominant responses to Kripke’s modal argument against the mind-body identity theory, and instead he proposes a new response that draws on a certain understanding of counterpossibles. This paper offers some defensive remarks on behalf of Lewis’ objection to that argument, and it argues that Wright’s proposal fails to fully accommodate the conceivability intuitions, and that it is dialectically ineffective.     

Heidegger,technology and ecology

Abstract

This article investigates Heidegger’s views on technology, specifically focussing on whether it is possible to fit Heidegger’s ideas into an ecologically minded framework. The author concludes that the question of what we should do in the wake of the technological crisis we face is inappropriate in terms of Heidegger’s philosophy, since he proposes that we should first tackle the question “What should we think?”. The question whether Heidegger’s ideas on technology provide us with new paths of action, specifically in terms of ecological practice, is flawed.     

同性恋形成机制探析

尽管人们对同性恋越来越宽容,但它仍是一种反常规现象。让现有同性恋者放弃同恋行为来减少同性恋难度很大,也不人道。在同性恋形成机制的问题上,有生理机制说和社会心理机制说。本文倾向于社会心理机制说。尝试从同性恋的社会心理机制上把同性恋分为两个形成亚型,并说明了每个亚型形成的具体过程。     

Gandalf’s solution to the Newcomb problem

This article proposes a new theory of rational decision, distinct from both causal decision theory (CDT) and evidential decision theory (EDT). First, some intuitive counterexamples to CDT and EDT are presented. Then the motivation for the new theory is given: the correct theory of rational decision will resemble CDT in that it will not be sensitive to any comparisons of absolute levels of value across different states of nature, but only to comparisons of the differences in value between the available options within states of nature; however, the correct theory will also resemble EDT in that it will rely on conditional probabilities (not unconditional probabilities). The new theory gives a prominent role to the notion of a “benchmark” for each state of nature, by comparison with which the value of the available options in that state of nature are measured, and so it has been called the Benchmark Theory (BT). It is argued that BT gives the right verdict on the cases that seem to be counterexamples to CDT and EDT. Finally, some objections to BT are considered and answered.     

Psychological contracts and their implications for commitment: A feature-based approach

Two studies were conducted to examine the link between employee perceptions of the psychological contract and their affective and normative commitments to the organization. The authors adapt a new approach to the study of psychological contracts by developing a generalizable measure of contract features (e.g., scope; time frame). In Study 1 (N = 301), the authors predicted and found that employees’ perceptions of the contract’s features contributed beyond perceptions of contract type (i.e., transactional; relational) and fulfillment to the prediction of affective and normative commitment. In Study 2 (N = 147), the features measure was refined and results from the first study were largely replicated. In both studies, affective and normative commitment were greater when employees viewed the contract as broad, trust-based, equal, negotiated, tangible, and long-term, and weaker when they saw it as unequal, imposed, and short-term. We also found evidence for patterns of features that correspond to transactional and relational contracts, as well as to recently proposed balanced contracts and I-Deals. Implications for theory and the management of psychological contracts are discussed.     

The functioning of religions from a modern psychoanalytic perspective

This paper considers the personal psychological development which can take place in the adherents of certain religions, and compares it with the personal development which can take place in a psychoanalysis. The author argues that the preoccupations of different religions are very various, and to understand their functioning it is important to recognise the variety of their goals. Using the Kleinian notion of psychic ‘positions', and with the help of a neuro-scientific model, it becomes possible to conceptualise the psychological effectiveness of both psychoanalysis and the religions, and to relate them intelligibly. There continues, however, to be a radical difference between the ways in which psychoanalysis and the religions cause their psychological effects, which is best seen by considering the nature of their objects.