Reader and story,viewer and film: On transference and interpretation2

Two sides in Freud's attitude towards literature and art are presented: Freud the sensitive listener, whose interest in art is a potential springboard for a rich interdisciplinary dialogue; and Freud the conquistador, whose wish for power in ‘invaded’ territories is related to troublesome aspects of ‘pathography’ and ‘applied analysis’. The unique contribution of psychoanalysis may not be discovering objectively the true unconscious content of works of art, but rather enriching the exploration of the potential transitional space evolving between artist, work of art and readers or viewers, enhancing our sensitivity to multiple meanings and complex emotional influences of art. This requires exploring our own subjective experiences of art, which may be described as transferences (when art is mostly perceived as a source of insight) or countertransferences (when artists and their work are basically experienced as troubled patients). Transference (broadly defined) and interpretation tend to intermingle, both in the clinical analytic encounter, and in any reading/viewing of art, be it by laymen, analysts or other scholars. Several examples from the psychoanalytic study of literature and film are given, and three pairs of contrasting interpretations are studied, concerning Kafka's The metamorphosis, Minghella's The English Patient and Polanski's Chinatown.     

Deprivation 2 3

The author describes her experience of setting up a therapeutic service for 'looked-after children' in a social services department, and the change of approach from a focus on individual therapy 8 to consultation and liaison with the network. The idea that children in the 'care system' suffer a triple deprivation when the 'double deprivation', as described by Henry (1974), is compounded by organizational difficulties, is explored. Material is presented of work with foster-parents which helped to prevent placement breakdown. The ways in which disturbing emotional states of clients are re-enacted within the organization are discussed. The author suggests that the paralysis in a social services system, which can lead to 'drift', resembles the 'collapse of strategy' of babies displaying a 'disorganized/disoriented' attachment response to a frightened or frightening mother. The need for a 'secure base' for social workers and their managers is stressed if they are to provide the same for their clients.     

The Indonesian Catholic Church 50 years after Vatican II: seven models of church life

The significance and influence of the Second Vatican Council in respect of the reform of the Catholic Church are no longer in dispute. The issue now at stake is how the Vatican II documents are understood and implemented in each church community. This article is the result of research on the significance and implementation of the Council's thinking in the Indonesian Catholic Church (ICC) in the past 50 years. It begins with observations on ICC's history and social context, then highlights the main use of conciliar documents in the reforms it has undertaken. Seven models of church life, illustrative of the implementation of Vatican II, are described. Although these models cannot comprehensively reveal all the realities of the ICC, they are seen as portraying it as it is today, at the point from which its future course may be worked out.     

Aging,Encoding Fluency,and Metacognitive Monitoring

ABSTRACT

Encoding fluency (how rapidly one generates a mediator for a new association) may be a cue used to judge one's own learning. To evaluate age differences in utilization of this cue, older and younger adults were instructed to use interactive imagery to study paired associates, pressing a button to indicate when an image had been formed for a given pair. A judgment of learning (JOL) was also made immediately after each pair had been studied. Hence, at least two cues pertaining to encoding fluency—whether an image had been formed (a diagnostic cue) and the latency of formation (a nondiagnostic one)—were available when making JOLs. Age equivalence was found in JOL accuracy, and JOLs for both age groups were positively related to imagery formation and were negatively related to the latency of image formation. Moreover, subjectively judged latency correlated higher with JOLs than actual (objective) latency, supporting the hypothesis that perceived fluency is a cue used in constructing JOLs.     

The effects of stimulus sequence on event related potentials: A comparison of visual and auditory sequences

The effect of stimulus sequence on the waveform of the scalp-recorded event-related potential (ERP) was studied in the auditory and visual modalities. The results indicate that the sequential effects are qualitatively similar in the two modalities; however, an interaction appeared between the modalities and the stimulus effects. The degree of sequential effect was a function of whether or not the stimulus eliciting the ERP was the counted (target) event. This finding is discussed in terms of an expectancy model, and the interaction is attributed to variations in short-term memory for past events as a function of the level of processing required for each.