The violence of the ethical encounter: listening to the suffering subject as a speaking body

How does the clinical encounter work? To tackle this question, the present study centers on the paradigmatic clinical encounter, namely, psychoanalysis, paradigmatic in that it is structured by the encounter itself. Our question thus becomes: how does the clinical encounter work, when its only modality is speech? By reading Jacques Lacan and Emmanuel Levinas together, we better identify how speech sets up as subjects those who address one another and how this subjectivation touches the suffering body specifically. In this framework, a definition of the encounter is put to work: The encounter of a sufferer and a listener, that is, the clinical encounter, is the opening of an inter-human space beyond suffering. This conception of the encounter permits a specifying of the violence it avoids—respecting the transcendence of the other irreducibly other—but also the violence that it mobilizes—through a presumption of subjectivity imposed upon the other, by which the subjectivation at work in the encounter is, by definition, a subjection to the other. This outlines, then, an ethics of the clinical encounter: a relationship of man to man commanded by one sensing body to another, i.e. a minimal and therefore radical ethics that is structured as a sensible ethics between speaking bodies.     

The analytic group: A multifaceted approach to the treatment of adolescents

During adolescence the peer group plays a major role in facilitating developmental processes, since it not only serves as a replacement for childhood love-objects and attachments, but offers the adolescent allies in the struggle to separate and become emancipated from parents. For those adolescents who, because of interpersonal and intrapsychic difficulties, have no peer group or have chosen an inappropriate peer group, providing a therapeutic group can make it possible for development to proceed. This paper presents not only a theoretical basis for the utilization of groups of peers in the treatment of adolescents, but also an elaboration on the dynamic processes which make possible improvement of ego-functioning and resolution of core conflicts related to the past, as well as to this particular developmental phase.     

A commentary on the symposium: The use of history in the social sciences curriculum

The use of history in the social science curriculum leads to a deepened understanding of the respective disciplines of anthropology, education, sociology, political science, psychology, and history of science. The use of history in the social sciences also leads to extradisciplinary interests in history, philosophy, and literature. Some highlights from a symposium and from the recent literature are discussed.     

The origin of language: A scientific approach to the study of man

The Enlightenment regarded language as one of the most significant achievements of man. Consequently inquiries into the origin and development of language play a central role in eighteenth-century moral philosophy. This new science of man consciously adopts the method of analysis and synthesis used in the natural sciences of the time. In moral philosophy, analysis corresponds to the search for the basic principles of human nature. Synthesis is identified with the attempt to interpret all artificial achievements of man (arts, sciences and institutions) as the effect of these principles and of man's physical and social environment - an attempt known as theoretical history. The type of explanation envisaged by theoretical historians is based on the principle of causality. It consists in a genetic reconstruction of the social phenomenon under investigation. Inquiries into the origin of language follow this pattern of explanation. They form part of theoretical history and thus represent a major aspect of the eighteenth-century scientific study of man.     

A patient's transference to the analyst's supervisor: effect of the setting on the analytic process

A case is presented in which the patient's transference to the analyst's supervisor became evident just prior to the switch from clinic to private patient status. The patient experienced the supervisor as a restraining father figure who protected her from acting on her erotic wishes toward the analyst. Analysis of this led to the recall of previously repressed memories of sexual wishes toward her brother, and the sense of protection from these wishes that she had gotten from the presence of her father. The literature on transference involving the supervisory constellation and the training setting is reviewed, and the concepts of split and institutional transference are examined. Factors inhibiting the analysis of patients' fantasies about the analyst's status as trainee, including the presence of the supervisor and the institute, are discussed.     

Contemporary perspectives on the study of psychological climate: A commentary

At the individual level of analysis, we address how work environment perceptions (psychological climate) are conceptualized and measured with respect to three perspectives in the applied psychology literature: (1) social constructionist, (2) general psychological, and (3) multiple stakeholder. Similarities and differences between these perspectives regarding the hypothesized bases of work environment perceptions, factor models for capturing these perceptions, and the generality/specificity of psychological climate factors are discussed. A general framework for conceptualizing and measuring climate perceptions with respect to different referents, organizational levels, industries or sectors, and stakeholder groups is then presented. This framework is posited to include core, generalizable dimensions associated with each relevant stakeholder group. Finally, we recommend methods and discuss future research directions related to the aggregation of individual level climate perceptions to organizational levels.     

The interpretation of Libet's results on the timing of conscious events: a commentary

A commentary on articles by Klein, Pockett, and Trevena and Miller, in this issue, is given. Average shift in the point of subjective equality (PSE), calculated by Klein on Libet's data, and corresponding change in mean shift, calculated by Libet et al. (1983), may be "corrected," taking as a reference point the end of the minimum train duration. Values obtained, if significant, indicate a latency for conscious sensation of the skin stimulus of at least 230 ms. Pockett's main conclusions are favored, but her explanation of peripheral-lemniscal couplings is found to be unconvincing. Trevena and Miller's article unsuccessfully tries to rescue a dualist interactionist view. Libet's method of timing intentions is thoroughly criticized.     

A funny thing happened on the way to the journal: a commentary on Foucault's ethics and Stuart Murray's "Care of the self"

Stuart Murray's 'Care and the self: biotechnology, reproduction, and the good life' utilizes Foucault's "care of the self" to examine health domains in its title. The present author discusses three important articulations of concern with the Foucauldian concepts of care of the self that are absent in the work of Murray and others: first, the voluntarism and individualism inherent in ideas about care of the self; second, the absence of the interactional and relational; and, third, the perpetuation of the interpretation of Foucault's concept of governmentality, 'the conduct of conduct', as primarily coercive.     

The findings of the Dartmouth Atlas Project: a challenge to clinical and ethical excellence in end-of-life care

The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice Atlas Project found "staggering variations" in the quality and quantity of end-of-life care provided to Medicare patients with severe chronic illness across the United States. Particularly concerning is the finding that more care is provided to patients who live in "high-supply" areas, irrespective of the effectiveness of care, and that more care often equaled inappropriate care that increased patients' suffering at the end of life. Patients in "lower supply" areas typically received better, more appropriate levels of care and reported higher levels of satisfaction with the care they received.     

Marry who you love: Intergroup contact with gay people and another stigmatized minority is related to voting on the restriction of gay rights through threat

The study examined factors associated with discrimination against gay people in a public referendum aimed at the restriction of gay rights. We tested whether positive and negative intergroup contact with gay people and intergroup contact with another stigmatized minority, the Roma, were associated with how the heterosexual majority voted in the referendum (i.e., discrimination). We tested two mechanisms underlying the link between intergroup contact and discrimination—the mediation by intergroup threat and the mediation by outgroup attitudes. We found that negative contact with both gay people and the Roma was associated with a higher probability of gay discrimination while positive contact was associated with a lower probability of gay discrimination. Intergroup threat, not intergroup attitudes, mediated the link between intergroup contact and discrimination. In the case of contact with gay people, intergroup contact was linked to discrimination through threat from gay people. In the case of contact with Roma, intergroup contact was linked to discrimination through the generalization of threats from the Roma to gay people but not via the generalization of outgroup attitudes. Our research brings novel evidence that contact with one minority can affect discrimination against another minority in both positive and negative way and that perceived threat, but not attitudes, plays a key role in majority's decision to discriminate against gay people.