Psychoanalysis and Epistemology: The Interrelation Between Clinical Work,Culture and Metapsychology

The paradigmatic theory of modern epistemology holds psychoanalysis in its scientific statute. Even if there is no explicit epistemology in the Freudian writings, it is undeniable that the genesis of psychoanalysis has a rigorous dialetic between theorization and clinical observation. Metapsychology is an organized and consistent set of concepts, capable of explaining and coordinating the analytical experience. It is through metapsychology that clinical work encounters the possibility of universalization, while metapsychology finds the possibility of fulfillment in clinical work. Clinical experience also confirms the interrelation between psychopathology and culture. Modern times have brought about new versions for psychopathological symptoms, which, in turn, have special effects on the narcisistic personalities and the manifestations of anxiety, giving place to different neurotic configurations.     

Contemporary Adolescence and the Crisis of Ideals

The end of the 20th century inaugurates the tele-techno-media dimension that gives place to subjective mutation of incalculable effects. These transformations crucially affect adolescents and youths, for this new dimension promotes a planetary enlargement of the non-family influences which act directly on idealness. Held between the illusionary temptation of the ideal-ego and the possibility of living the ego ideal, the adolescent suffers through the confrontation with this colossal identifying, fragmented and voracious mirror. The author then discusses what the psychoanalyst can do.     

Knowledge embedded in process: the self-organization of skilled noun learning

Young children's skilled generalization of newly learned nouns to new instances has become the battleground for two very different approaches to cognition. This debate is a proxy for a larger dispute in cognitive science and cognitive development: cognition as rule-like amodal propositions, on the one hand, or as embodied, modal, and dynamic processes on the other. After a brief consideration of this theoretical backdrop, we turn to the specific task set before us: an overview of the Attentional Learning Account (ALA) of children's novel noun generalizations, the constrained set of experimental results to be explained, and our explanation of them. We conclude with a consideration of what all of this implies for a theory of cognitive development.     

Institutional Evils,Culpable Complicity,and Duties to Engage in Moral Repair

Apology is arguably the central act of the reparative work required after wrongdoing. The analysis by Claudia Card (1940–2015) of complicity in collectively perpetrated evils moves one to ask whether apology ought to be requested of persons culpably complicit in institutional evils. To better appreciate the benefits of and barriers to apologies offered by culpably complicit wrongdoers, this article examines doctors’ complicity in a practice that meets Card's definition of an evil, namely, the non‐medically necessary, nonconsensual “normalizing” interventions performed on babies born with intersex anatomies. It argues that in this instance the complicity of doctors is culpable on Card's terms, and that their culpable complicity grounds rightful demands for them to apologize.     

Words can slow down category learning

Words have been shown to influence many cognitive tasks, including category learning. Most demonstrations of these effects have focused on instances in which words facilitate performance. One possibility is that words augment representations, predicting an across the-board benefit of words during category learning. We propose that words shift attention to dimensions that have been historically predictive in similar contexts. Under this account, there should be cases in which words are detrimental to performance. The results from two experiments show that words impair learning of object categories under some conditions. Experiment 1 shows that words hurt performance when learning to categorize by texture. Experiment 2 shows that words also hurt when learning to categorize by brightness, leading to selectively attending to shape when both shape and hue could be used to correctly categorize stimuli. We suggest that both the positive and negative effects of words have developmental origins in the history of word usage while learning categories. [corrected]     

Whose DAM account? Attentional learning explains Booth and Waxman

Booth and Waxman (Cognition 84 (2002) B11) have recently shown that linguistic cues to animacy affect children's novel name extensions. They argue that this demonstration contradicts two central tenets of our attentional learning account of object naming, which Booth and Waxman characterize as the "dumb attentional mechanism" or "DAM" account. In the present article, we show that the first of these tenets has never been a feature of the attentional learning account, and that the second tenet, which is central to our account, is not addressed by Booth and Waxman's findings. We suggest that the debate about the nature of children's language and cognition would profit from an increased awareness of the different levels of analysis at which different researchers are working.     

Perversion: a clinical possibility

Abstract

Clinical work with perverse patients presents numerous difficulties to psychoanalysis, be that due to the characteristics typical of the perverse structure, which is founded on the mechanism of disavowal, or to the inefficiency of neutrality and free association in this kind of practice. A study of existing literature on the subject and a thorough examination of their own clinical findings led the authors to propose a different kind of strategy for dealing with transference that would make clinical work with these patients plausible and indicate options for the paralyzing position that is imposed on the analyst by the perverse patient in order to derange the analytic process. By proposing an alternative for the “semblance subject-supposed-knowledge,” the authors defend the idea that clinical work with perverse patients is possible, resulting in a subject less captive of the phantasmagoric scene.

Drummond S et al. Perversion: eine klinische Möglichkeit

Klinische Arbeit mit perversen Patienten bildet zahlreiche Schwierigkeiten für die Psychoanalyse, sei es wegen der Eigenart der perversen Struktur, welche durch den Mechanismus der Verleugnung begründet wird oder sei es wegen der Ineffektivität der Neutralität und freien Assoziation bei dieser Art von Praxis. Ein Studium der vorhandenen Literatur über das Thema und eine gründliche Überprüfung eigener klinischer Befunde führte die Autoren dazu, eine unterschiedliche Art von Strategie des Umgangs mit Übertragung vorzuschlagen. Das würde klinische Arbeit mit diesen Patienten plausibel machen und auf Optionen für die paralysierende Position hinweisen, die dem Analytiker durch den perversen Patienten aufgebürdet wird, um den analytischen Prozess zu stören. Ein Alternative für das “semblance subject-supposed knowledge” vorschlagend, verteidigen die Autoren die Idee, daß klinische Arbeit mit perversen Patienten möglich ist, mit dem Ergebnis eines Subjekts, welches weniger durch die phantasmagorische Szene gefesselt ist.

Drummond S et al. perversión: una posibilidad clínica.

El trabajo clínico con pacientes perversos presenta numerosas dificultades para el psicoanálisis, puede ser debido a las características típicas de la estructura perversa, fundamentado en le mecanismo de repudio, o debido a la ineficacia de la neutralidad y asociación libre en este tipo de práctica. Un estudio de la literatura existente sobre el tema y un examen completo de los hallazgos clínicos, llevó a los autores a proponer un tipo diferente de estrategia para el manejo de la transferencia, que pudiera hacer posible el trabajo clínico con estos pacientes, también indicar opciones para la situación de paralización que estos pacientes imponen al analista para desorganizar el proceso analítico. Con la proposición de una alternativa para la “semblance-subject-supposed knowledge(apariencia del sujeto-supuesto saber),” el autor defiende la idea de que el trabajo clínico con pacientes perversos es posible, resultando un asunto menos cautivo de la escena fantasmagórica.     

Evaluating skills correlated with discriminated responding in multiple schedule arrangements

One potential solution for excessively high‐rate functional communication responses (FCR) is to establish stimulus control of the FCR through a multiple schedule. However, several studies have demonstrated difficulty with establishing discriminated responding across multiple schedule components. The primary aim of the current study was to evaluate how participants’ skills related to color discrimination may be related to the emergence of discriminated responding in a multiple schedule with colors as the schedule‐correlated stimuli. Three secondary aims of the current study were to evaluate: a) varied multiple schedule arrangements, b) if topographically dissimilar stimuli facilitated the emergence of discriminated responding, and c) if employing different colored stimuli across multiple schedule arrangements reduced the likelihood that discriminated responding emerged simultaneously across varied arrangements. Nine participants’ ability to match, select, tact, and respond intraverbally to colors was assessed, and 1 of 2 evaluations of multiple schedule arrangements were conducted. Results indicated that participants’ ability to select and tact colors was strongly correlated with the efficacy of standard multiple schedule arrangements. Additionally, multiple schedule arrangements employing topographically dissimilar stimuli were observed to be equally as effective as standard arrangements and the inclusion of different colored stimuli across arrangements did not reduce the likelihood that discriminated responding emerged simultaneously across all conditions, when it was observed to emerge at all.     

So,Doctor, Now,What Do I Do?<Superscript>*</Superscript>

This paper proposes a discussion about acting on the therapeutic relationship using the notions of playing and the “use of an object” formulated by Winnicott; the formulations of Ferenczi as the concepts of introjection and the “ability to feel with”, as well as the concept of cartography from Deleuze and Guattari. It discusses how to manage the meeting with individuals who confront the analyst with sudden questions, gestures and actions. I propose that the management of the acting considers that there is a call for a conversation in which “doing” is in question, and in which the playful dimension of activities without rules is employed as a necessary option.