Analytic Work in the Bridge World: Commentary on Paper by Françoise Davoine

This discussion considers the elements of mythos and story telling that frame the case material Françoise Davoine offers and analyzes. In this discussion, I highlight the role of nachtraglichkeit, the nonlinearity of time and temporality that shapes the key events in this clinical narrative. I consider the relational aspects of countertransference, enactment, and personal analysis that shape Davoine's analytic listening and the uncanny effects of historical trauma that enter both analyst and analysand. This discussion also considers the interlocking of speech effects and temporality, the role of unconscious dialogues across history and time, that arise unbidden in clinical work. The analyst's freedom to live imaginatively in a process somewhat outside her clinical management is viewed as a key to the freeing of processes of mourning and rehabilitation in the patient.     

Minds and Dialogues in Analytic Spaces—Negotiating Certainty and Uncertainty Reply to Commentary

This paper is a response to a critique by C. Brooks Brenneis of the written account of a clinical enactment that featured countertransference dissociative effects in treatment and in supervision. The response focuses on the need to analyze power in overlapping clinical dyads, the effect of transpersonal transmission of affect states and disavowed experience, and the relation of power dynamics to transference and to meaning making.     

Multiplicity as a Form of Enactment Commentary on Paper by Graham Bass

In this commentary I address the functions of gender and of bodily state as a way of managing memory, affect, and interactions. I consider the status of alters as narrative or as historical truths. Graham Bass's case illuminates problems and potentials of touch and the inevitability of intersubjectively constructed enactments.     

Assessment of Working Memory Capacity in Preschool Children Using the Missing Scan Task

The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility and validity of a modified version of Buschke's missing scan methodology, the Missing Scan Task (MST), to assess working memory capacity (WMC) and cognitive control processes in preschool children 3–6 years in age. Forty typically developing monolingual English‐speaking children between 36 and 84 months in age participated in the study. The children were tested on measures of WMC (MST), verbal and nonverbal memory (NEPSY Narrative Memory and Memory for Designs subtests), and language skills (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, fourth edition). Children showed increased working memory capacity scores with age, as measured by the MST, with significant differences between 3‐ and 5‐year‐olds and 3‐ and 6‐year‐olds. Significant correlations were also found between the MST and language and verbal and nonverbal memory scores. MST scores still remained significantly correlated with the other measures of memory even after age and global language were accounted for in a regression analysis, demonstrating that the MST captures unique variance related specifically to WMC and cognitive control processes used to retrieve and scan information in short‐term memory (STM). The results of this study demonstrate that the MST is a feasible and valid methodology for assessing WMC in preschool children as young 3 years of age. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Discussion of Slade “Imagining Fear”

This discussion addresses the importance of fear as a key feature of attachment, examining some of the implications of Slade’s argument both for clinical work and for understanding of developmental process. The discussion also is focused on the kinds of genetic and evolutionary theories most useful in thinking about interactive effects, namely epigenetics, the study of genes in context. Finally the discussion identifies relational theory, which focuses on fear as an implicit dimension of attachment. Bromberg’s work on dissociation is cited as an example of work in which fear plays a prominent role.     

Secondary Traumatic Stress in Social Science Researchers of Trauma-Exposed Populations

There is an expanding research database regarding secondary trauma exposure among helping professionals across disciplines and settings. However, there is limited research on the incidence of secondary traumatic stress in social science researchers studying traumatized populations. Various disciplines engage in this area of research, which exposes them to the details of aversive events, especially those engaging in qualitative research. This study explores the impact of such exposure by measuring indicators of secondary traumatic stress (STS), burnout (BO), and compassion satisfaction in a group of 104 researchers. Findings revealed high rates of exposure to traumatic material and a subset of researchers at risk for STS. Regression analyses revealed potential risk factors for STS and BO, and qualitative analysis was conducted to further explore the effects of this work on researchers from multiple disciplines.     

Luna Yoga: A Wellness Program for Female Counselors and Counselors-in-Training to Foster Self-Awareness and Connection

Yoga has gained popularity as a way to relieve stress and maintain well-being. It may also be a helpful resource for counselors to learn effective self-care strategies to sustain personal wellness and professional competence. This pilot study examined the impact of Luna Yoga, a four-week program created specifically for women to enhance creativity, connection, and self-awareness, and facilitate a socially supportive environment unlike traditional yoga sessions. This pilot study employed a delayed treatment control group design to test the impact of the Luna Yoga intervention on reported levels of wellness, resulting in an increase in social wellness among female professional counselors and counselors-in-training.     

Psychosocial correlates of hiv-related sexual behavior in an inner city std clinic

Little is known about the relationship between smoking and meaning in life, although the association of meaninglessness with other addictive behaviours has been widely investigated. The aim of this study is to examine whether a relationship exists between meaning in life and intensity of smoking as measured by cigarettes smoked per day. The study population was 3506 current smokers from the Hungarostudy 2002 Hungarian representative cross-sectional survey. Age, educational level, marital status, subjective financial status, household income, coffee consumption, hazardous alcohol use, general well-being, anxiety, and depressive symptomatology were included in the analyses as covariates. On the bivariate level, life meaning was associated with smoking intensity in the total sample and among women (p < 0.001), while for males, only a tendency was found (p = 0.069). In the multivariate analyses, life meaning proved to be a significant negative predictor of smoking intensity for females (p = 0.005) even after controlling for the covariates, whereas in men, meaning in life completely lost its significance (p = 0.852). In the total sample, both meaning in life (p = 0.005) and its interaction with gender (p = 0.024) related to the dependent variable. Further research is needed to confirm these explorative findings concerning the protective role of life meaning against more intense smoking among women.     

Developmental and cross-situational stability in infant pigtailed macaque temperament

We assessed developmental stability and context generalizability of temperament in pigtailed macaques (Macaca nemestrina) from the University of Washington Infant Primate Research Lab. A principal components analysis condensed 6 behavioral measures into 2 components, interpreted as reactivity and boldness. Changes in these measures over the 1st 10 months of development showed a trend toward calmer and bolder behavior with age, with significant individual variation in the pattern of change. Boldness showed a quadratic pattern of change, whereas reactivity decreased linearly. We also studied the relationship between temperament and response to a novelty probe. The magnitude of the response to the novelty probe decreased slightly over time, and boldness and reactivity in a familiar setting did not predict these changes in response to novelty. In a 2nd principal components analysis, reactivity to novelty represented a distinct aspect of temperament. Our results demonstrate developmental changes and context dependency in macaque behavior.     

Relational benefits of relational aggression: adaptive and maladaptive associations with adolescent friendship quality

Two longitudinal studies examined associations between relational aggression and friendship quality during adolescence. In Study 1, 62 adolescents in Grades 6 (25.8%), 7 (32.3%), and 8 (41.9%) completed assessments of friendship affiliations, relational and overt aggression, and friendship quality at 2 time points, 1 year apart. Results using actor partner interdependence modeling indicated that high levels of relational aggression predicted increases in self-reported positive friendship quality 1 year later. In Study 2, 56 adolescents in Grades 9 (66.7%) and 10 (33.3%) attended a laboratory session with a friend in which their conversations were videotaped and coded for relationally aggressive talk. Target adolescents completed measures of positive and negative friendship quality during the laboratory session and during a follow-up phone call 6 months later. Analyses revealed that high levels of relationally aggressive talk at Time 1 predicted increases in negative friendship quality 6 months later. In addition, among adolescents involved in a reciprocal best friendship, high levels of observed relationally aggressive talk predicted increases in positive friendship quality over time. Taken together, these studies provide support for the idea that relational aggression may be associated with adaptive as well as maladaptive outcomes within the dyadic context of adolescent friendship.