Renaissance Madonnas and the Fantasies of Freud

Through the work of Julia Kristeva, this paper challenges Freud's laws that everyone is always already gendered, that the mother is feminine and every infant masculine, and that one cannot love the same (gender). The figure of the Madonna, seen through the paintings of Giovanni Bellini, is used to theorize the time in the life of a child before Oedipus and to undo the conceptual knot with which Freud has bound the feminine to the maternal.     

Sexual and Aggressive Fantasies in Violent and Non-Violent Prison Inmates

It was hypothesized that violent inmates who refrain from disciplinary violations while in prison would express more fantasy aggression compared to violent inmates with discipline problems and to well disciplined, non-violent inmates. It was also hypothesized that sexual fantasies would be positively correlated with aggressive fantasies in the whole group. 65 inmates at a state prison, classified on the basis of criminal history and prison discipline, took a fantasy Questionnaire (FQ) and an Experimental TAT booklet (ETAT. The results did not support the first hypothesis, though the differences were in the predicted direction. The second hypothesis was fully supported.     

Grandiose Fantasies and Low Self-Esteem: An Experimental Study

Grandiose states of mind could be an ineffective way to cope with low self-esteem. In fact, it is possible that grandiose fantasies would tend to induce doubts about personal worth and decrease self-esteem. This study explored whether grandiose fantasies help to cope with low self-esteem. The self-reported occurrence and unpleasantness of intrusive thoughts regarding the sense of exclusion, humiliation, and low self-esteem in non-clinical individuals were assessed during self-induced grandiose fantasies and self-induced relaxation. The occurrence and unpleasantness of low self-esteem intrusions were significantly higher during grandiose fantasies, suggesting that grandiose fantasy is ineffective at combating low self-esteem.     

Content Analysis of Sexual Fantasies of Males and Females

Content analysis of the sexual fantasies of 87 community college and university students revealed no significant sex differences in the content of sexual fantasies. Both men and women preferred traditional and facilitative fantasies. Because this study was explorative, however, further research is required to validate the suggested scale and replicate these results.     

The Effect of Female Aggressiveness on Aggressive and Sexual Fantasies

Fifty-five fraternity and sorority members were made angry by a hostile female experimenter to investigate whether the sex of the anger-arousing individual has an effect on a connection between anger and sexuality found in earlier studies. Subjects wrote stories to two male-dominant (MD) and two female-dominant (FD) TAT pictures. Aroused groups responded to an aggressive arousal with increases in sexual motivation which replicates earlier findings. The results are discussed in terms of the cues presented by the experimenter and the possibility of two types of defensiveness: reduction of TAT imagery and increases in defensive scoring.     

Turning Fantasies About Positive and Negative Futures into Self-Improvement Goals

Contrasting fantasies about the future with reflections on reality that impedes fantasy realization creates a tight link between expectations of success and forming commitments to self-improvement goals. This effect applies to both fantasies about a positive future contrasted with impeding negative reality as well as fantasies about a negative future contrasted with impeding positive reality. In Study 1, with 63 student participants, contrasting positive fantasies about benefiting from a vocational training with negative reflections on reality impeding such benefits led to expectancy-dependent willingness to invest in the training, more so than indulging in the positive future and than dwelling on the negative reality. In Study 2, with 158 high school students from former East Berlin, contrasting negative, xenophobic fantasies about suffering from the influx of immigrants with positive reflections on reality impeding such suffering led to expectancy-dependent tolerance and willingness to integrate the immigrants. Findings are discussed in terms of how mental contrasting facilitates self-improvement and personal development by making people form expectancy-dependent goal commitments to approach positively-perceived as well as negatively-perceived futures.     

Rescue fantasies

The concept of "rescue fantasy" is examined as it has evolved since Freud introduced it in 1910. Originally designating the wish in certain men to rescue "fallen women," the term has more recently come to refer primarily to the therapist's conscious or unconscious aims with regard to his patient, particularly in the context of child analysis or therapy. The varying drive elements and defensive operations at work in this compromise formation are discussed, and some recent sociocultural influences and analogues are suggested.     

少拍点鬼神戏

近日,打开电视机,常见玉皇、狐仙、阎王、小鬼在活动.有人戏称,戏不够,鬼神凑.对此,观众啧有烦言.……     

Group Fantasies and Family Myths—Some Theoretical and Practical Aspects

Fantasies, when shared in groups, have special meaning and functions. These meaning and functions vary with the types of groups under study. In this paper, I consider families to be groups in which fantasies are typically shared and utilized. These family groups can. Be compared with other groups. Such comparison, I shall try to show, casts into relief the differing theoretical and therapeutic implications of different types of shared group fantasies.     

Primal Scene Fantasies and Cathexis of Self as Reflected in the Psychoanalytic Situation

Close parallels are pointed out between the Jewish and the psychoanalytic way of structuring central patterns in their respective thinking. The central power in existence is The Undescribable One or That which is undescribable. The primary task of enlighted man is to remember and hope. An arch is raised from the past into the future and the creation appears as a so-far unfinished process—the final answers will be given first with the return of the profet Elias and Messiah. Thus, the preliminary nature of all our attempts at solutions is underscored.     

Collectivizing Rescue Obligations in Bioethics

Bioethicists invoke a duty to rescue in a wide range of cases. Indeed, arguably, there exists an entire medical paradigm whereby vast numbers of medical encounters are treated as rescue cases. The intuitive power of the rescue paradigm is considerable, but much of this power stems from the problematic way that rescue cases are conceptualized—namely, as random, unanticipated, unavoidable, interpersonal events for which context is irrelevant and beneficence is the paramount value. In this article, I critique the basic assumptions of the rescue paradigm, reframe the ethical landscape in which rescue obligations are understood, and defend the necessity and value of a wider social and institutional view. Along the way, I move back and forth between ethical theory and a concrete case where the duty to rescue has been problematically applied: the purported duty to regularly return incidental findings and individual research results in genomic and genetic research.