FINDING ROTHKOWITZ: THE JEWISH ROTHKO

While Mark Rothko's canvases are renowned for their rich, monumental expanses of colour, he has insisted that his paintings should be appreciated on more than an aesthetic level. “The people who weep before my pictures,” he commented in 1956, “are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them.” While various critics and scholars have recognized the importance of this remark, just what Rothko meant by “religious experience” has been highly contested. In this article I will argue that Rothko's Jewish identity—informed by his experiences in Russia and New York—influenced his understanding of “religious experience” in subtle but powerful ways. I will not attempt to spot a raft of Jewish symbols and references in Rothko's work, an endeavour that has yielded spurious results in previous studies. Instead, I will examine Rothko's sense of “religious experience” as an evolving concept in his thought and painting; a process which finds its culmination in the Rothko Chapel, a space informed but not defined by the artist's Jewishness.     

In Search of One's Past: An Identity Trip

The experience of being “cut off,” either emotionally or physically, from one's family of origin and extended families is an experience that at times confronts us all, be we the children of natural, adoptive, foster or divorced parents. The goal of this paper is to show that a person's identity is profoundly related to, and affected by, his sense of connection to his family of origin. This paper will take as its point of departure the author's story as a foster child and will describe his successful effort to get himself reconnected to his natural family. The story raises questions about the policies of foster-care agencies and, by implication, questions about adoptive agency policy. Finally, the paper may have something to say not only to family therapists and researchers but to all of us who wish to more fully “know” our parents and our extended families.     

Being “Done For” in Analysis: Commentary on Paper by Stuart A. Pizer

Stuart A. Pizer's fascinating article explores through a relational lens analytic impasse, and its manifestation through transference and countertransference love. How this love is demonstrated (or not) and the ways in which we provide for our patients will have profound effect on the process (and progress) of any treatment. But, too often, reluctance to “do for” our patients compromises our ability to provide what may be needed in any given moment. Perhaps an expansion of the “doer—done to” dyadic paradigm into a “doer—done for” model might allow more analytic leeway and more possibility of growth within our patients.     

“A Matter of Life and Death”: Kawabata on the Value of Art after the Atomic Bombings

This article explores the possible interpretations—and the implications of those interpretations—of a comment about the importance of art made by Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972), later the first Japanese Nobel laureate for literature: that “looking at old works of art is a matter of life and death.” (In 1949, Kawabata visited Hiroshima in his capacity as president of the Japan literary society P.E.N. to inspect the damage caused by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima that helped end World War II. On his way back to his home in Kamakura, he stopped in Kyoto. He came under severe criticism for “sightseeing” at such a time. This comment was his response.) The introduction explains why we should take him seriously as a commentator on art. The body of the article examines why our looking at art might be more, not less, important after the post‐War situation, the kinds of art Kawabata might have meant, why some possibilities are more likely than others, and how they differ in what they offer us and the value of art under conditions of trauma and mass trauma.     

Feeling at home in language

What do we learn about language from reading Wittgenstein'sPhilosophical Investigations? This question gains urgency from Wittgenstein's alleged animus against philosophical theorizing and his indirectness. Section 1 argues that Wittgenstein's goal is to prevent philosophical questioning about the foundations of language from the beginning. This conception of his aim is not in tension with Wittgenstein's use of the notion of community; “community interpretations” of his views betray a misguided commitment to the coherence of the idea that language might need grounding. Wittgenstein's goal is not to enjoin us not to step “outside of language-games”, but to show that we have insufficiently clear grasp of the terms we try to use to express the limits of intelligibility. Section 2 suggests that appreciating Wittgenstein's moral concerning the relation between language and philosophizing about it involves allowing him to teach us how to read his book. What makes readingPhilosophical Investigations possible is openness to learning how not to forget our lives in language.     

Reply to Reviews of Awakening the Dreamer: Clinical Journeys by Philip M. Bromberg

I reply here to reviews by three inspiring thinkers, Ethel Person, Susan Sands, and Allan Schore who, though uniquely different from one another in their conceptual frames of reference, share a sensibility as clinicians and creative scholars that has led them to engage and appreciate my work in depth while enriching it with their individual perspectives. Ethel Person's review is meaningful to me for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that we think very much alike about “how we are” with patients despite the diversity in our families of origin. Her thinking, which extends the boundaries established by any one school of thought, transcends doctrine, especially that of “technique.” I am equally grateful to Susan Sands, whose review stimulated a dialogue between us about the similarities and differences in our views of the analyst's personal role in enactments with severe trauma survivors and whether there is reason to distinguish between life-threatening and developmental trauma. My reply to Allan Schore's review satisfies a long-standing wish to engage with him in dialogue about what he refers to in his review as “a remarkable overlap between Bromberg's work in clinical psychoanalysis and my work in developmental neuropsychoanalysis, a deep resonance between his treatment model and my regulation theory” (this issue, p. 755). In my reply I comment from my own vantage point on how our shared commitment to an interpersonal and intersubjective perspective—my interpersonal/relational treatment model and his “Interpersonal Neurobiology” led us to arrive at overlapping views on developmental trauma, attachment, the dyadic regulation of states of consciousness, and dissociation.     

Meaning and Conversational Impropriety in Sceptical Contexts

According to “disjunctivist neo‐Mooreanism”—a position Duncan Pritchard develops in a recent book—it is possible to know the denials of radical sceptical hypotheses, even though it is conversationally inappropriate to claim such knowledge. In a recent paper, on the other hand, Pritchard expounds an “überhinge” strategy, according to which one cannot know the denials of sceptical hypotheses, as “hinge propositions” are necessarily groundless. The present article argues that neither strategy is entirely successful. For if a proposition can be known, it can also be claimed to be known. If the latter is not possible, this is not because certain propositions are either “intrinsically” conversationally inappropriate (as Pritchard claims in his book) or else “rationally groundless” (as Pritchard claims in his paper), but rather that we are dealing with something that merely presents us with the appearance of being an epistemic claim.     

COMPARISON AND HISTORY IN THE STUDY OF RELIGIOUS ETHICS: An Essay on Michael Cook's Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought1

Qur'an 3:104 speaks of “commanding right and forbidding wrong” as a constitutive feature of the Muslim community. Michael Cook's careful and comprehensive study provides a wealth of information about the ways Muslims in various contexts have understood this notion. Cook also makes a number of comparative observations, and suggests that “commanding” appears to be a uniquely Muslim practice. Scholars of religious ethics should read Cook's study with great appreciation. They will also have a number of questions about his comparative comments. In this article, I suggest that scholars of comparative ethics should think less about the “uniqueness” of the materials examined by Cook, and more about the ways groups of human beings discipline their members, thereby constituting and maintaining themselves as communities of virtue.     

Consciousness and Self in Animals: Some Reflections

In this essay I argue that many nonhuman animal beings are conscious and have some sense of self. Rather than ask whether they are conscious, I adopt an evolutionary perspective and ask why consciousness and a sense of self evolved—what are they good for? Comparative studies of animal cognition, ethological investigations that explore what it is like to be a certain animal, are useful for answering this question. Charles Darwin argued that the differences in cognitive abilities and emotions among animals are differences in degree rather than differences in kind, and his view cautions against the unyielding claim that humans, and perhaps other great apes and cetaceans, are the only species in which a sense of self‐awareness has evolved. I conclude that there are degrees of consciousness and self among animals and that it is likely that no animal has the same highly developed sense of self as that displayed by most humans. Many animals have a sense of “body‐ness” or “mine‐ness” but not a sense of “I‐ness.” Darwin's ideas about evolutionary continuity, together with empirical data (“science sense”) and common sense, will help us learn more about consciousness and self in animals. Answers to challenging questions about animal self‐awareness have wide‐ranging significance, because they are often used as the litmus test for determining and defending the sorts of treatments to which animals can be morally subjected.     

Utopian Vision: A Grand Solution for a Scholarly Dilemma

Reconciling the Zen‐like paradox on the back of every red penny—“out of many, one”—is not for the faint of heart. It is a diversity motto, and a lofty desire that the United States claims to covet. But can its citizens, undocumented or otherwise, even agree on what it is? Is not the desire to maintain a strong sense of community in conflict with a Noah's Ark conception of diversity? Using my personal experience in an intentional community determined to foster racial integration, I explore the complicated possibility of having it both ways. To do so, however, we must construct a notion of community, diversity, and The Good Life that will make us believe and work for this synthesis. Our reactions to the word “utopia” offer a glimpse of the challenges ahead.     

The Superego and the Two-System Model

The authors note that Freud's clinical struggle with the sadomasochism of his patients led directly to his theory of the superego, which in turn affected his ideas on sadomasochism. The authors use their dual-track model of two systems of self-regulation—the “closed,” sadomasochistic, omnipotent system and the “open,” competent, loving, reality-attuned system—to trace the origins, development, and functions of the “closed” and “open” superego. They suggest that the application of this model will help restore the importance of the superego in psychoanalytic theory and technique, and they provide clinical illustrations from the analysis of an older adult.     

From Many into One: Attention,Energy, and the Containing of Multitudes

This paper is an effort to describe and express and the tension between the observing mind and the “wisdom mind,” which has its taproots in the deep and unformulated experience of connectedness. Nominally about the process of writing as a psychoanalyst, it is more like my personal “Credo” in relation to the work of psychoanalysis, the work of writing, and the work of living with contradictions—life. In it I try to bring together disparate reflections, to illustrate in the writing itself the process of making “many into one.” Because so much of this essay relates to themes in Mannie Ghent's work, including his work on surrender and his “Credo,” it seemed to be appropriate to offer it to readers of this issue dedicated to his memory.     

A Lesson on Courage: Monks, Martyrs, and Muslims—but Strangers No Longer in Algeria

This article uses the work of Heinz Kohut and Julia Kristeva to reflect upon and interpret the experience of nine Trappist monks—especially Brother Christian—in Algeria in the mid-1990s who shared an incredible bond of faith with the Muslim villagers living around the monastery in Tibhirine. Specifically, I examine how an understanding of Kohut’s nuclear self and Kristeva’s stranger may assist us in transforming resistance concerning interfaith dialog in seminary classes and faith communities alike when we bring these two ideas into conversation around the religious and community experiences of the monks and the villagers. I argue that if individuals are able to “make peace” or establish rapport with the stranger within they will exemplify the kind of narcissistic balance Kohut describes in his theory of a nuclear self that allows for a demonstration of courage in the face of difficulty.     

“Be True to Your School”: An Open Letter to Students and Practitioners of Human Science Research

This editorial discusses some of the challenges that we face in striving toward being shepherds of our discipline, as well as toward “being original.” The question is how to make an original contribution to the field while following in the footsteps of one's forbearers. Many researchers (and even research mentors) have a desire to carve out their own place in the field, and doing so often means emphasizing what is new and different about their approach. Shepherding, however, means bearing the weight together, participating in the spirit of a “we phenomenon,” or more simply, being a team player. As psychologists climbing our individual career ladders while working together toward a common goal, the challenge is being true to yourself and to your “school” of fellow researchers. This means being faithful and acknowledging toward the community, including one's peers, one's former mentors, and the seminal thinkers whose work inspires one's own. When writing up research, we therefore should to be attuned to the possibility of communicating our pedigree more faithfully—a challenge that calls upon us to remember the ground from which we, ourselves, spring forth.     

Toward a distinctive community psychology: An ecological metaphor for the conduct of community research and the nature of training

In conclusion, I have attempted today to cast the current status of the field of community psychology within the framework of partial paradigm acquisition—to slightly revise Ray Lorion's phrase, of promises kept, and promises still to keep—and have outlined one fledgling perspective which, I hope, will stimulate discussion and debate about the field's future. In focusing on the conceptual connections among community research, the research relationship with citizens, and the training of community psychologists, I have put my money on the unfinished business of integrating the historical values of the field with its research and training efforts. If, when conducting our work, be it as Director of a CMHC, research scientist, social activist, or mental health practitioner, we “see,” we have a world view that focuses on the community-embeddedness of our programs and the persons they are designed to serve, if we develop a perspective that centers on the creation and expansion of resources for our community, and if our actions for the quick fix are embedded in a vision about the long haul, then we can, by both wordand deed, assert both the distinctiveness of community psychology and further the aspirations underlying the creation of our field. Let me close by sharing with you the only paradigm joke I know. Fortunately, it's on target for my purpose here today. René Descartes is attending a cocktail party and is approached by a waiter. Would you care for a cocktail, Mr. Descartes?, the waiter says. “I think not,” says Descartes, and promptly disappears. For Descartes, paradigm premises held consequences for ensuing behavior. Let us remember Descartes.     

THEOLOGIANS OF SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION: A PROPOSAL FOR READING RENÉ GIRARD THROUGH THE LENSES OF HANS URS VON BALTHASAR AND JOHN CASSIAN

This essay contends that René Girard is not a philosopher or a scientist whose ideas are open to theological appropriation. Instead, contrary to his assertions otherwise, the Girard corpus ought to be read as if it were articulating a form of theology whose primary intellectual home can ultimately be found on a theological map. As the field of Girardian theology grows, it becomes more evident that we need some theological lenses for examining the theology already lying waiting—sometimes inchoately, sometimes not—in Girard's texts, and also for examining how theologians use and misuse his texts. If we can see that he is already doing theology then a theological critique becomes plausible and valid in principle, and indeed becomes an internal critique. Applying good interpretive lenses will provide some rigorous criteria for analyzing the degree to which Girardian theologians are following the internal logic of Girard's thought in their appropriations of it. The interpretive lenses I propose using on Girard are first the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar (d. 1988) and then the theology of John Cassian (d. circa 435). These two theologians provide us with lenses that help us see that Girard is fundamentally a Catholic theologian involved in resisting the speculative re‐writing of Christianity by proponents of “false gnosis” and that he belongs within the category of theologians who advocate spiritual transformation and “true gnosis.”     

The local problem of God’s hiddenness: a critique of van Inwagen’s criterion of philosophical success

In regards to the problem of evil, van Inwagen thinks there are two arguments from evil which require different defenses. These are the global argument from evil—that there exists evil in general, and the local argument from evil—that there exists some particular atrocious evil X. However, van Inwagen fails to consider whether the problem of God’s hiddenness also has a “local” version: whether there is in fact a “local” argument from God’s hiddenness which would be undefeated by his general defense of God’s hiddenness. This paper will argue that van Inwagen’s present account contains no implicit response to the “local” argument from God’s hiddenness, and, worse, the “local” argument brings to the fore crucial inconsistencies in van Inwagen’s account. These inconsistencies concern van Inwagen’s criterion for philosophical success—his methodological use of an “ideal audience” in an ideal debate—and a crucial premise in his argument: namely, that people who do not believe in God are culpably deceiving themselves regarding the manifest presence of God. These considerations will be a platform for my arguing that the failures of van Inwagen’s account amount to his ignoring the extra-rational, concrete aspect of grasping “spiritual propositions”—propositions which, in order to be affirmed, require the full self-understanding which precipitates out of the mind, body, and will of a particular existing individual.     

Conceptualizing Genetic Counseling as Psychotherapy in the Era of Genomic Medicine

Discussions about genetic contributions to medical illness have become increasingly commonplace. Physicians and other health-care providers in all quarters of medicine, from oncology to psychiatry, routinely field questions about the genetic basis of the medical conditions they treat. Communication about genetic testing and risk also enter into these conversations, as knowledge about genetics is increasingly expected of all medical specialists. Attendant to this evolving medical landscape is some uncertainty regarding the future of the genetic counseling profession, with the potential for both increases and decreases in demand for genetic counselors being possible outcomes. This emerging uncertainty provides the opportunity to explicitly conceptualize the potentially distinct value and contributions of the genetic counselor over and above education about genetics and risk that may be provided by other health professionals. In this paper we suggest conceptualizing genetic counseling as a highly circumscribed form of psychotherapy in which effective communication of genetic information is a central therapeutic goal. While such an approach is by no means new—in 1979 Seymour Kessler explicitly described genetic counseling as a “kind of psychotherapeutic encounter,” an “interaction with a psychotherapeutic potential”—we expand on his view, and provide research evidence in support of our position. We review available evidence from process and outcome studies showing that genetic counseling is a therapeutic encounter that cannot be reduced to one where the counselor performs a simple “conduit for information” function, without losing effectiveness. We then discuss potential barriers that may have impeded greater uptake of a psychotherapeutic model of practice, and close by discussing implications for practice.     

Conscious intention and human action: Review of the rise and fall of the readiness potential and Libet’s clock

Is consciousness—the subjective awareness of the sensations, perceptions, beliefs, desires, and intentions of mental life—a genuine cause of human action or a mere impotent epiphenomenon accompanying the brain’s physical activity but utterly incapable of making anything actually happen? This article will review the history and current status of experiments and commentary related to Libet’s influential paper (Brain 106:623–664, 1983) whose conclusion “that cerebral initiation even of a spontaneous voluntary act …can and usually does begin unconsciously” has had a huge effect on debate about the efficacy of conscious intentions. Early (up to 2008) and more recent (2008 on) experiments replicating and criticizing Libet’s conclusions and especially his methods will be discussed, focusing especially on recent observations that the readiness potential (RP) may only be an “artifact of averaging” and that, when intention is measured using “tone probes,” the onset of intention is found much earlier and often before the onset of the RP. Based on these findings, Libet’s methodology was flawed and his results are no longer valid reasons for rejecting Fodor’s “good old commonsense belief/desire psychology” that “my wanting is causally responsible for my reaching.”.