Reply to Commentary

This commentary is a response to questions and discussion points raised by Peter Fonagy and Mary Target in “Playing with the Reality of Analytic Love.” It includes a discussion of the relationship between attachment and sexuality, in addition to issues concerning seductiveness, sadomasochism and therapeutic change.     

The “Rituals” of the Relational Perspective: Theoretical Shifts and Clinical Implications

This paper attempts a closer look at the theoretical foundations for some of the clinical shifts that underlie a relational psychoanalytic approach. It also posits that what unites relational writers who come from different psychoanalytic traditions—that is, Freudian, Kleinian, Object Relations, Self Psychology—has more to do with the kinds of questions asked than with the particular answers that are offered. Specifically these questions have to do with the epistemological basis for how we know what we know as analysts, the model of mind we employ to understand our patients, and the mode of therapeutic action that evolves from these two earlier shifts. Several clinical examples are offered.     

“The Queering of the Oedipus Complex”: A Response to Diane Elise and Noah S. Glassman

This is a response to discussions by Diane Elise and Noah S. Glassman. The response emphasizes how each of us has attempted, in a somewhat different way, to open up the historical concept of the Oedipus complex to a more contemporary appreciation of changing familial patterns and always evolving sexualities and erotic potentials.     

From Oedipus Complex to Oedipal Complexity: Reconfiguring (Pardon the Expression) the Negative Oedipus Complex and the Disowned Erotics of Disowned Sexualities

This paper proposes a contemporary rendering of the Oedipus Complex as key to understanding an individual’s unique erotic signature. Conceived in terms of its complexity as opposed to a fixed and rigid complex and ridded of its hetereonormative biases, Oedipal complexity becomes a royal road to unlocking erotic inhibitions and potentiating sensual expansiveness. The theory is rooted in a multiple self state model of mind with an emphasis on conflicting systems of early internalized object relations. Two extended clinical examples are offered in an attempt to further explicate this point of view.     

Inhibitory tagging at subsequently fixated locations: Generation of “inhibition of return” without saccade inhibition

In two experiments, an inhibitory tag was activated by a peripheral cue after which a saccade was made to either the cued or, with equal probability, the uncued location. Key press RTs were measured for detecting a target that then appeared, with equal probability, either at fixation or at an eccentric location. In Experiment 1, the peripheral cue onset 400 ms before the saccade instruction, and participants therefore were obliged to inhibit a saccade towards the cue. Detection was slower at the cued location whether it appeared at, or eccentric from, fixation. In Experiment 2, the peripheral cue onset after the instruction to make the saccade but before the eyes had moved. Inhibitory tagging was again observed for targets at fixation, but the effect was smaller than for eccentric targets. These findings confirm that withdrawal of attention from a cued location is not required to generate an inhibitory tag, and that the cued locus remains inhibited even if it is subsequently attended and a saccade made to fixate it. Moreover, saccade inhibition is not sufficient to account for inhibitory tagging, although it may also engender an independent inhibitory effect.     

A Virtual View of Managing Violence among British Escorts

It is no secret that men seeking to victimize women often select women who work as prostitutes. More is known about the violence experienced by women who work as street prostitutes than those who work indoor as escorts. This article reports two main types of violence reported by British escorts on an Internet site set up specifically for the escorts to share information with one another. Physical violence and electronic abuse are common experiences for those reporting on an Internet website. The focus of the article, however, is how women working as escorts experience these two types of violence in their work and the risk management strategies they employ to maintain their safety. To combat personal violence, women who work as escorts employ practical safety precautions before and during appointments as well as emotional labor during interactions with clients. However, with the changing nature of escorting brought about by the Internet, this article highlights a new threat to women working in escorting: electronic abuse for which there are few solutions at this point.     

Multimodal Rehabilitation: A Mind-Body Family-Based Intervention for Children and Adolescents Impaired by Medically Unexplained Symptoms. Part 2: Case Studies and Outcomes

In Part 2, we describe three cases implementing our mind-body, family-based, multimodal rehabilitation approach for treating children and adolescents presenting with medically unexplained symptoms. For each child and family, treatment interventions were selected and implemented, simultaneously or sequentially. In a cohort of 100 consecutively referred children, 56 suffered from, and were treated for, significant physical or chronic school absenteeism. Thirty-five of these children (63%) recovered fully, 10 (18%) had a relapsing course, 7 (12.5%) had chronic symptoms, and 4 (7%) were lost to follow-up. These outcomes suggest that mind-body multimodal rehabilitation is a successful, cost-effective model of treatment.     

The space between us: stereotype threat and distance in interracial contexts

Four studies investigate the role that stereotype threat plays in producing racial distancing behavior in an anticipated conversation paradigm. It was hypothesized that the threat of appearing racist may have the ironic effect of causing Whites to distance themselves from Black conversation partners. In Study 1, participants distanced themselves more from Black partners under conditions of threat, and this distance correlated with the activation of a "White racist" stereotype. In Study 2, it was demonstrated that Whites' interracial distancing behavior was not predicted by explicit or implicit prejudice. Study 3 provides evidence that conceiving of interracial interactions as opportunities to learn may attenuate the negative consequences of threat for Whites. Study 4 found that Whites have conscious access to their experience of stereotype threat and that this awareness may mediate the relationship between threat and distance. These results are discussed within a broader discourse of racial distancing and the possibility that certain identity threats may be as important as prejudice in determining the outcomes of interracial interactions.     

The effect of Stroop interference on the categorical perception of color

In two experiments, we examined the effects of Stroop interference on the categorical perception (CP; better cross-category than within-category discrimination) of color. Using a successive two-alternative forced choice recognition paradigm (deciding which of two stimuli was identical to a previously presented target), which combined to-be-remembered colors with congruent and incongruent Stroop words, we found that congruent color words facilitated CP, whereas incongruent color words reduced CP. However, this was the case only when Stroop interference was presented together with the target color, but not when Stroop stimuli were introduced at the test stage. This suggests that target name, but not test name generation, affects CP. Target name generation may be important for CP because it acts as a category prime, which, in turn, facilitates cross-category discrimination.