Understanding ‘Unlikely (20% Likelihood)’ or ‘20% Likelihood (Unlikely)’ Outcomes: The Robustness of the Extremity Effect

Calls to communicate uncertainty using mixed, verbal‐numerical formats (‘unlikely [0–33%]’) have stemmed from research comparing mixed with solely verbal communications. Research using the new ‘which outcome’ approach to investigate understanding of verbal probability expressions suggests, however, that mixed formats might convey disadvantages compared with purely numerical communications. When asked to indicate an outcome that is ‘unlikely’, participants have been shown to often indicate outcomes with a value exceeding the maximum value shown, equivalent to a 0% probability —an ‘extremity effect’. Recognising the potential consequences of communication recipients expecting an ‘unlikely’ event to never occur, we extend the ‘which outcome’ work across four experiments, using verbal, numerical, and verbal‐numerical communication formats, as well as a previously unconsidered numerical‐verbal format. We examine how robust the effect is in the context of consequential outcomes and over non‐normal distributions. We also investigate whether participants are aware of the inconsistency in their responses from a traditional ‘how likely’ and ‘which outcome’ task. We replicate and extend previous findings, with preference for extreme outcomes (including above maximum values) observed in both verbal and verbal‐numerical formats. Our results suggest caution in blanket usage of recently recommended verbal‐numerical formats for the communication of uncertainty. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘Translation’ and ‘transformation’ in the analytic situation: Freud – Bion – Laplanche

Following a short introduction to the core theses of Jean Laplanche’s theory of a ‘general seduction’ the author presents the resultant clinical position of the analyst. In the same way that an adult sends ‘enigmatic messages’ to the child, it is the analyst’s task to reopen this primal situation so that the patient can find new ‘translations’ for these messages. Laplanche distinguishes between the function of the analytic frame – which represents and supports attachment – and the ‘sexual’– which is the repressed and constitutes the unconscious. Only the focus on this unconscious facilitates the deconstruction of ‘incorrect’ translations. Accordingly, the analyst, says Laplanche, should not take part in construction – this is a self‐construction of the patient – but only in reconstruction. The author compares this clinical model with Freud’s notions and the ‘transformation processes’ through the alpha function as described by Bion. She illustrates Laplanche’s model and the interpretation strategy with case material.     

Heidegger’s Destruktion of Theology: ‘Primordial Faith’ and ‘Recognition’ of the Messiah

Heidegger’s phenomenology of religious life offers important insights by engaging Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, where he distinguishes ‘Paul the Pharisee’ from ‘Paul the Christian’ in order to explicate the nature of faith in contrast to systematic theology. Neither certitude in God’s existence is primordial to Christian faith, according to Heidegger, nor is rabbinic nor theological disputation concerning God’s existence or God’s nature. Instead, what is essential to Heidegger’s phenomenology of religious life are: (1) faith as lived experience and (2) recognition of ‘the Christ’ (ho christos/ha ma?ía?). This ‘recognition’, however, requires phenomenological clarification and not philosophy of religion as traditionally construed.     

Mothers' Perceptions of Infants Labelled ‘Depressed’

Forty-four depressed and non-depressed mothers participated in a videotaped interaction with their own infant and then rated the videotape using the Infant Stereotyping Scale and the Interaction Rating Scale. In addition, one half of the mothers rated a videotape of an unfamiliar infant who was labelled psychologically ‘depressed’ and the other half rated a videotape of the same infant with no label given. Both the depressed and non-depressed mothers rated the ‘depressed’ labelled infant more negatively than the non-labelled infant on the attributes of physical potency, cognitive competence, sociability and difficult behaviour. Physical appearance was the only rating that was not biased by the ‘depressed’ label. Mothers' ratings of their own infants were more positive than their ratings of the non-labelled stimulus infant. Depressed mothers did not see their infants more negatively except on one rating. They rated the physical appearance of their own infant more negatively than non-depressed mothers.     

Neither ‘Good’ in Terms of ‘Better’ nor ‘Better’ in Terms of ‘Good’

In this paper, I argue against defining either of ‘good’ and ‘better’ in terms of the other. According to definitions of ‘good’ in terms of ‘better’, something is good if and only if it is better than some indifference point. Against this approach, I argue that the indifference point cannot be defined in terms of ‘better’ without ruling out some reasonable axiologies. Against defining ‘better’ in terms of ‘good’, I argue that this approach either cannot allow for the incorruptibility of intrinsic goodness or it breaks down in cases where both of the relata of ‘better’ are bad.     

‘Feeling for’ and ‘feeling with’: developmental and neuroscientific perspectives on intersubjectivity and empathy

This paper discusses research by Beatrice Beebe, Bessel van der Kolk and others, exploring the interpersonal processes that underpin early relational trauma and how this contributes to adult psychopathology. An essential feature of early relational trauma, the infant's experience of being unable to evoke an empathic response from the caregiver and the feelings of shame this gives rise to, is discussed and its implications for psychotherapy are considered. The neuroscience that underpins two forms of empathy in the therapeutic relationship, of ‘feeling for’ and ‘feeling with’ the patient is discussed and explored in relation to the concordant and complementary countertransference. I argue that when therapists respond to the projection on to them of the abuser by an increasingly determined adherence to analytic technique, this may become a complementary countertransference identification with the abuser and an enactment of the abusive relationship.     

‘Ought Implies Can’: Not So Pragmatic After All

Those who want to deny the ‘ought implies can’ principle often turn to weakened views to explain ‘ought implies can’ phenomena. The two most common versions of such views are (a) that ‘ought’ presupposes ‘can’, and (b) that ‘ought’ conversationally implicates ‘can’. This paper will reject both views, and in doing so, present a case against any pragmatic view of ‘ought implies can’. Unlike much of the literature, I won't rely on counterexamples, but instead will argue that each of these views fails on its own terms. ‘Ought’ and ‘can’ do not obey the negation test for presupposition, and they do not obey the calculability or the cancelability tests for conversational implicature. I diagnose these failures as partly a result of the importance of the contrapositive of ‘ought implies can’. I end with a final argument emphasizing the role the principle plays in moral thinking, and the fact that no pragmatic account can do it justice.     

‘Can’ and the Consequence Argument

The consequence argument is a powerful incompatibilist argument for the conclusion that, if determinism is true, what one does is what one must do. A major point of controversy between classical compatibilists and incompatibilists has been over the use of ‘can’ in the consequence argument. Classical compatibilists, holding that abilities to act are dispositions, have argued that ‘can’ should be analyzed as a conditional. But such an analysis of ‘can’ puts compatibilists in a position to grant the premises of the argument while denying the conclusion. Incompatibilists remain unconvinced, and this corner of the debate over free will has reached a dialectical impasse. The present paper has two aims. First, to offer a new dialectical point of entry into this dispute on behalf of incompatibilists. By making use of Angelika Kratzer's influential semantic work on ‘can’ and ‘must’, I argue that incompatibilists are in a position to offer a plausible, positive treatment of ‘can’ that favors their view. Second, even if one does not think incompatibilism is thereby true (for as we shall see there are places to push back), the Kratzer semantics yields a number of important insights concerning the consequence argument that should be of broad interest. ¹      

Against Pogge's ‘Cosmopolitanism’

Thomas Pogge labels the idea that each person owes each other person equal respect and concern ‘ethical cosmopolitanism’ and correctly states that it is a ‘non‐starter’. He offers as an allegedly more convincing cosmopolitan alternative his ‘social justice cosmopolitanism’. I shall argue that this alternative fails for pretty much the same reasons that ‘ethical cosmopolitanism’ fails. In addition, I will show that Pogge's definition of cosmopolitanism is misleading, since it actually applies to ethical cosmopolitanism and not to social justice cosmopolitanism. This means that cosmopolitanism as defined by Pogge is wrong in the light of his own arguments and that Pogge is not even a cosmopolitan in the sense of his own definition. I will further show that he is also not a cosmopolitan if cosmopolitanism is defined as a philosophical position involving the claim that state borders have no fundamental moral significance.     

Peter Winch on ‘Aristotelian’ and ‘Socratic’ Reasoning

Peter Winch often returned to questions about the nature of logic. In the context of his work on Wittgenstein and political philosophy in the 1990s, Winch described a contrast between ‘Aristotelian’ and ‘Socratic’ reasoning. Aristotelian conceptions of reasoning, attributed to Frege and Russell, would see logic as a formal science and rationality as consistency with pre‐existent rules of inference. The Socratic conception, attributed to Wittgenstein, understands rational argument as a form of socially embedded dialogue that involves moral relationships and a dimension of depth. Rational persuasion may also involve use of persuasive images and examples.     

‘BACK TO THE ROUGH GROUND!’ WITTGENSTEINIAN REFLECTIONS ON RATIONALITY AND REASON

Wittgenstein does not talk much explicitly about reason as a general concept, but this paper aims to sketch some thoughts which might fit his later outlook and which are suggested by his approach to language. The need for some notions in the area of ‘reason’ and ‘rationality’ are rooted in our ability to engage in discursive and persuasive linguistic exchanges. But because such exchanges can (as Wittgenstein emphasises) be so various, we should expect the notions to come in many versions, shaped by history and culture. Awareness of this variety, and of the distinctive elements of our own Western European history, may provide some defence against the temptation of conceptions, such as that of ‘perfect rationality’, which operate in unhelpfully simplified and idealised terms.     

The ‘healthy’ family*

The importance of concepts and hypotheses about ‘healthy’ families for family therapists is stressed. A number of different approaches to defining ‘health’ is described. Concepts and hypotheses of family therapists from different schools are integrated into a more encompassing theory, thereby focusing on statements with respect to personality, cognition, behaviour, communication, relationship, role, family system and network. It is noted that family therapy literature lacks information about ‘healthy’ families. Moreover, nearly all statements are non-scientific and normative as they are not founded on empirical research.     

On G.E. Moore’S ‘Proof of an External World’

A new reading of G.E. Moore's ‘Proof of an External World’ is offered, on which the Proof is understood as a unique and essential part of an anti‐sceptical strategy that Moore worked out early in his career and developed in various forms, from 1909 until his death in 1958. I begin by ignoring the Proof and by developing a reading of Moore's broader response to scepticism. The bulk of the article is then devoted to understanding what role the Proof plays in Moore's strategy, and how that role is played.     

‘Merit’, ‘Preferential’or ‘Diversity-Based’Selection: Effect of Information Frame and Informant Gender on the Public's Views on Preferential Treatment in Selection

The study examined (1) the public's reactions to the philosophical justifications for merit vs. preferential selection, and (2) the effect of information frame (i.e. ‘merit’, ‘preferential’and ‘diversity’frames) and informant gender on people's views on preferential selection. Results show that in general the public supported merit selection and opposed the preferential practice and that their reactions to the justifications for a selection practice determined the level of support for (or opposition to) that practice. In addition, people's support for merit selection was weakened under the preferential-frame-female-informant condition; their opposition to preferential selection was also reduced when a male informant advocated the advantages of the preferential practice by using the term diversity-based selection instead of preferential selection. Results were discussed in the context of the social influence literature.     

‘Radical Interpretation’ and the Assessment of Decision‐Making Capacity

The assessment of patients' decision‐making capacity (DMC) has become an important area of clinical practice, and since it provides the gateway for a consideration of non‐consensual treatment, has major ethical implications. Tests of DMC such as under the Mental Capacity Act (2005) for England and Wales aim at supporting autonomy and reducing unwarranted paternalism by being ‘procedural’, focusing on how the person arrived at a treatment decision. In practice, it is difficult, especially in problematic or borderline cases, to avoid a consideration of beliefs and values; that is, of the substantive content of ideas rather than simple ‘cognitive’ or procedural abilities. However, little attention has been paid to how beliefs and values might be assessed in the clinical context and what kind of ‘objectivity’ is possible. We argue that key aspects of Donald Davidson's ideas of ‘Radical Interpretation’ and the ‘Principle of Charity’ provide useful guidance as to how clinicians might approach the question of whether an apparent disturbance in a person's thinking about beliefs or values undermines their DMC. A case example is provided, and a number of implications for clinical practice are discussed.     

“If a girl doesn't say ‘no’…”: young men,rape and claims of ‘insufficient knowledge’

Most psychological theories of rape tend to stress factors internal to both rapists and their victims in accounting for the phenomenon. Unlike such theories, social psychological and feminist accounts have drawn attention to social and cultural factors as productive of rape, and have criticized psychological accounts on the grounds that they often serve, paradoxically, to cement pre‐existing ‘common‐sense’. In this paper we examine the ways in which young Australian men draw upon widely culturally shared accounts, or interpretative repertoires, of rape to exculpate rapists. In particular, we discuss the reliance placed on a ‘lay’ version of Tannen's 1992 ‘miscommunication model’ of (acquaintance) rape and detail the use of this account—the claim that rape is a consequence of men's ‘not knowing’—as a device to accomplish exculpation. Implications of our methods for capturing young people's understanding of sexual coercion, rape and consent, and for the design of ‘rape prevention’ programmes, are discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘Yes,we have bananas!’1

This paper takes as its starting point ‘identifying markers of Latin American psychoanalysis’. The authors see this theme as a compromise between two diverging approaches. On one hand, the conference at which the content was presented provided the opportunity for Latin American psychoanalytical thinking to be discussed and, as a reward to the best papers, to be published. On the other, both the conference and the reward are more indicative of the observer's biases than of the object's peculiarities. The authors consider that the conference mistakenly focused on the search for minor differences (secondary identifi cations) instead of looking for invariances (identities). Considering that uncertainty, pluralism and complexity are issues relevant to the whole of psychoanalysis in its current stage of development as a scientifi c discipline, the authors think that treating these elements as ‘identifying markers of Latin American psychoanalysis’ is evidence of prejudice brought about by a coloniser‐colonised relationship. To develop their argument, the authors discuss a paper on editorial criteria by Tuckett as a clinical case, and use an episode of Brazilian history as further illustration. They address issues such as conformity to cultural patterns; the search for certainties and proofs; the domination of some groups over others; and editorial power‐more specifi cally, its infl uence on the acceptance or rejection of scientifi c ideas. These issues have distracted attention away from the fundamentals of psychoanalysis by introducing other, extraneous aims. Publication plays a key role in feeding a possibly vicious circle wherein only a small proportion of scientifi c contributions manages to reach a wide audience‐exactly those contributions that conform to established patterns. The act of publication turns that portion into offi cial knowledge, while unpublished ideas become increasingly excluded.     

Winnicott's invitation to ‘further games of Jung‐analysis’

Winnicott signs off his celebrated review of Jung's (1963) autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections with the warning that translation of ‘erreichten’ as ‘attained’ (implying assimilation) rather than as ‘reached to’, could ‘queer the pitch for further games of Jung‐analysis’. This subtly underscores his view that Jung—who he described earlier as ‘mentally split’ and lacking ‘a self with which to know’—remained essentially dissociated. However, Winnicott, whilst immersed in this work on Jung, wrote a letter to Michael Fordham describing himself as suffering ‘a lifelong malady’ of ‘dissociation’. But this he now reported repaired through a ‘splitting headache’ dream of destruction, dreamt ‘for Jung, and for some of my patients, as well as for myself’ (Winnicott 1989, p. 228). Winnicott's recurrent concern during his last decade was with ‘reaching to’—that quintessential Winnicottian term—some reparative experience that could address such difficulties in constellating a ‘unit self’. This is correlated with his engagement with Jung and tracked through his contemporaneous clinical work, particularly ‘Fear of Breakdown’ (1963). Themes first introduced by Sedgwick (2008) and developed by the author's earlier ‘Winnicott on Jung; destruction, creativity and the unrepressed unconscious’ (2011) are given further consideration.     

The sandwich model: The ‘music and dance’ of therapeutic action

My premise is that a ‘layered’ approach is necessary to understand the process of exchanges that result in therapeutic change. I imagine these processes occurring in three layers – although the number of domains in which change is taking place is actually infinite – such as in a sandwich. The top layer, or top slice of bread of the sandwich, represents a broad view of the change process; it is non‐linear and includes the feature of uncertainty, a general principle of dynamic systems theory. The middle layer, or the meat of the sandwich, is explained by theories that are immediately and clinically useful to a therapist, such as psychoanalytic theories. These are primarily linear theories and use language and symbols to ‘tell a story of what happened’. The bottom layer, or bottom slice of bread of the sandwich, is the micro‐process; this layer includes the moment‐to‐moment patterns of coordinated rhythms that both communicate meaning and provide the essential scaffold for all higher‐level change processes. The micro‐process also requires a non‐linear theory to make sense of its variability and emergent properties. Taking a bite out of the sandwich will include a ‘polysemic bundle of communicative behaviors’ (Harrison and Tronick, 2011). I will illustrate the ‘sandwich model’ with the clinical case of the analytic treatment of a 5 year‐old boy.