The alchemy of training

Abstract: Training in Zurich has its own special character but also is marked by the very fact that it is in Zurich. Zurich radiates its own distinct energy and carries a specific historical significance in the world of analytical psychology. This, like all things with psychic energy, has a spectrum of meaning. This spectrum, as well as the ‘spirit’ of the place, will be critically examined, taking into account the ‘blessings’ and ‘curses’ of such genius loci. Training in Zurich is experientially based and is first and foremost an initiation: an initiation into symbolic life, or rather life where symbol plays an important role. Training is understood to involve a transformation of one's self, much like the 8^th century alchemist Morienus Romanus understood the opus as a ‘human transformation system’. It is not merely an education. The requirement of ‘immersion’ is core to the experience of becoming an analyst in Zurich and this sets up a valuable discomfort between rational intellectual learning and intuitive experience, between knowing and not‐knowing. How does this dis‐serve the making of an analyst? What is implicit in this immersion and its discomfort? Does it have a role in today's emphasis on clinical and empirical training? Does Zurich still offer something unique and valuable in the world of training, or is it passé? From these questions, the dichotomy of what is ‘urgent’ and ‘essential’ in training will be examined.     

Anxious and nonanxious children's recall of a repeated or unique event

The current study examined 4- and 5-year-olds' memory for an event that was experienced once or was the first in a sequence of four similar events. The event was private swimming lessons for beginners that, because of natural variation in fear of water, were experienced as stressful for some children and not stressful for others. Consistent with much previous research, there was evidence that repeat-event children remembered less than did single-event children. There was some evidence for a beneficial influence of stress on resistance to suggestions. No other effects of stress were found in either the single- or repeat-event children. Implications for the debate on the influence of stress on memory and for children's testimony are discussed.     

Error and bias in comparative judgment: on being both better and worse than we think we are

People believe that they are better than others on easy tasks and worse than others on difficult tasks. In previous attempts to explain these better-than-average and worse-than-average effects, researchers have invoked bias and motivation as causes. In this article, the authors develop a more parsimonious account, the differential information explanation, in which it is assumed only that people typically have better information about themselves than they do about others. When one's own performance is exceptional (either good or bad), it is often reasonable to assume others' will be less so. Consequently, people estimate the performance of others as less extreme (more regressive) than their own. The result is that people believe they are above average on easy tasks and below average on difficult tasks. These effects are exacerbated when people have accurate information about their performances, increasing the natural discrepancy between knowledge of the self and knowledge of others. The effects are attenuated when people obtain accurate information about the performances of others.     

Pizza and pop and the student identity: the role of referent group norms in healthy and unhealthy eating

Using the Theory of Planned Behavior (I. Ajzen, 1985, 1991) and referent group (student) norms and identification (D. J. Terry & M. A. Hogg, 1996), the authors longitudinally predicted healthy eating intentions and behavior in a sample of 137 university students. Specifically, attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived control predicted intentions at Time 1, which predicted self-reported behavior at Time 2. There was also a link between intentions and observed behavior at Time 2. Beyond the planned behavior variables, referent group norms for university students' eating behavior interacted with participants' identification as students to predict healthy eating intentions. The authors discussed implications for researcher's conceptualization of normative influence and for interventions into this group's eating behavior.     

Correlates of Maternal and Paternal Adjustment to Chronic Childhood Disease

This study investigated the correlates of psychosocial adjustment in mothers and fathers of children with chronic disease. Participants were 20 mothers and 15 fathers of children with cystic fibrosis, 11 mothers and 9 fathers of children with muscular dystrophy, 18 mothers and 9 fathers of children with asthma, 13 mothers and 8 fathers of children with Type 1 diabetes and 19 mothers and 11 fathers of healthy children. Questionnaires relating to the variables of interest were used. Poorer levels of adjustment were associated with lower levels of social support and family cohesion for mothers and coping by understanding the child’s medical situation, more family life events and lower family cohesion for fathers. These findings suggest that the correlates associated with maternal and paternal psychological adjustment to chronic childhood disease differ. These differences are important to consider when providing care to children with chronic disease and their families.     

Motivational antecedent beliefs of endurance, strength, and flexibility activities

Research into the correlates of physical activity has focused almost exclusively on physical activity as an omnibus construct. Health Canada and the American College of Sports Medicine, however, advocate physical activity in terms of performing regular endurance, strength, and flexibility activities. The purpose of this study was to investigate the absolute and relative contributions of behavioral, normative, and control beliefs associated with endurance, strength, and flexibility activities within a theory of planned behavior (TPB) structure. Participants were 185 undergraduates who completed measures of the TPB and a 2-week follow-up of endurance, strength, and flexibility behavior. Results using structural equation modeling and Hotelling's t-tests for dependent correlations identified different motivational antecedents for each type of physical activity (p < .05). Endurance behavior was influenced exclusively by behavioral beliefs, flexibility behavior was influenced by normative and control beliefs, and strength behavior was influenced by key behavioral, normative, and control beliefs. The different motivational profiles for each physical activity allude to the importance of tailoring interventions by physical activity type.     

The role of attention and relatedness in emotionally enhanced memory

Examining the positive and negative pictures separately revealed that emotionally enhanced memory (EEM) for positive pictures was mediated by attention, with no significant influence of emotional arousal, whereas the reverse was true of negative pictures. Consistent with this finding, in Experiment 2 EEM for negative pictures was found even when task emphasis was manipulated so that equivalent attention was allocated to negative and neutral pictures. The results show that attention and semantic relatedness contribute to EEM, with the extent varying with emotional valence. Negative emotion can influence memory independently of these 2 factors.     

Reflections on Ethics in Journal Publications

This paper addresses a number of ethical issues that arise in the context of journal publishing. These include both issues for the researcher and issues for the editors and editorial board members of journals.     

The eyes or the mouth? Feature salience and unfamiliar face processing in Williams syndrome and autism

Using traditional face perception paradigms the current study explores unfamiliar face processing in two neurodevelopmental disorders. Previous research indicates that autism and Williams syndrome (WS) are both associated with atypical face processing strategies. The current research involves these groups in an exploration of feature salience for processing the eye and mouth regions of unfamiliar faces. The tasks specifically probe unfamiliar face matching by using (a) upper or lower face features, (b) the Thatcher illusion, and (c) featural and configural face modifications to the eye and mouth regions. Across tasks, individuals with WS mirror the typical pattern of performance, with greater accuracy for matching faces using the upper than using the lower features, susceptibility to the Thatcher illusion, and greater detection of eye than mouth modifications. Participants with autism show a generalized performance decrement alongside atypicalities, deficits for utilizing the eye region, and configural face cues to match unfamiliar faces. The results are discussed in terms of feature salience, structural encoding, and the phenotypes typically associated with these neurodevelopmental disorders.