Cultural Differences in Physical Contact Between Hispanic and Anglo Mother–Infant Dyads Living in the United States

This is a study of differences in physical contact and tactile interpersonal behaviours between Hispanic and Anglo mothers and infants living in the United States. Infants were 9 months old and 52 mother–infant dyads, 26 Hispanic and 26 Anglo, were videotaped during free play without toys in a university laboratory playroom. Coders judged the interpersonal distance, physical contact and affectionate touch from the videotapes and mothers responded to a questionnaire about the importance of physical contact and affectionate touch in their relationship with their infant. From questionnaire data we found that Hispanic and Anglo mothers both touch their infants on a daily basis, although Hispanic mothers report touching more frequently, being more affectionate with their infants and having more skin-to-skin contact. From videotaped observations we found that there were no overall differences in mother–infant touch between the two cultures; however, the Hispanic mothers showed more close touch and more close and affectionate touch compared to Anglo mothers, who showed more distal touch. The results are discussed in terms of the role of touch in infant development and cultural differences in the evaluation of close physical contact and touch.     

On the nature of intuitive and delusional thought: Its implications in clinical work with psychotic patients

The author tries to differentiate intuitive imagination from delusional imagination and hypothesises that psychosis alters the system of intuitive thinking, which consequently cannot develop in a dynamic and selective way. Scholars of different disciplines, far removed from psychoanalysis, such as Einstein, Hadamard or Poincar, believe that intuitive thinking works in the unconscious by means of hidden processes, which permit a creative meeting of ideas. Thanks to Bion's work, psychoanalysts have begun to understand that waking thinking is unconsciously intertwined with dream‐work. The delusional construction is similar to a dreamlike sensorial production but, unlike a real dream, it remains in the waking memory and creates characters which live independently of the ‘dreamer's’ awareness. It is a dream that never ends. On the contrary, the real dream disappears when it has brought its communicative task to an end. In the analysis of psychotic patients it is very important to analyse the delusional imagination which dominates the personality and continuously transforms the mental state, twisting emotional truth. The delusional imagination is so deeply rooted in the patient's mental functioning that, even after systematic analysis, the delusional world, which had seemed to disappear, re‐emerges under new configurations. The psychotic core remains encapsulated; it produces unsteadiness and may induce further psychotic states in the patient. The author reports some analytic material of a patient, who, after a delusional episode treated with drugs, shows a vivid psychotic functioning. Some considerations are added on the nature of the psychotic state and on the therapeutic approach used to transform the delusional structure. This paper particularly deals with the difficulty in working through the psychotic episode and in ‘deconstructing’the delusional experience because of the terror connected with it. In the reported case, the analytic work changed the delusional construction into a more benign one characterised by phobic qualities. The analysis of the psychotic transference allowed the focus to be on the hidden work which had been continuously influencing the transferential picture of the analyst and the patient's psychic reality.     

Violence and Latin‐American preadolescents: A study of social brain function and cortisol levels

The present study investigated exposure to violence and its association with brain function and hair cortisol concentrations in Latin‐American preadolescents. Self‐reported victimization scores (JVQ‐R2), brain imaging (fMRI) indices for a social cognition task (the ‘eyes test’), and hair cortisol concentrations were investigated, for the first time, in this population. The eyes test is based on two conditions: attributing mental state or sex to pictures of pairs of eyes (Baron‐Cohen, Wheelwright, Hill, Raste, & Plumb, 2001). The results showed an association among higher victimization scores and (a) less activation of posterior temporoparietal right‐hemisphere areas, in the mental state condition only (including right temporal sulcus and fusiform gyrus); (b) higher functional connectivity indices for the Amygdala and Right Fusiform Gyrus (RFFG) pair of brain regions, also in the mental state condition only; (c) higher hair cortisol concentrations. The results suggest more exposure to violence is associated with significant differences in brain function and connectivity. A putative mechanism of less activation in posterior right‐hemisphere regions and of synchronized Amygdala: RFFG time series was identified in the mental state condition only. The results also suggest measurable effects of exposure to violence in hair cortisol concentrations, which contribute to the reliability of self‐reported scores by young adolescents. The findings are discussed in light of the effects of exposure to violence on brain function and on social‐cognitive development in the adolescent brain. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHcXq7Y9PBk     

Psychotic withdrawal and the overthrow of psychic reality1

The author attempts to distinguish between the world of fantasy and the imagination (which fuels our capacity to ‘dream’) from a withdrawal into fantasy. In this withdrawal, the foundations of which are laid in childhood, a dissociation from psychic reality starts and from it the delusional world arises and constitutes the adult illness. During therapies of adult patients who have experienced a psychotic state, it is often possible to reconstruct the state of infantile withdrawal and understand how their dissociation from reality was ignored or unknowingly encouraged by their parents. Children destined to develop psychosis enter into the dissociated world not just as a defence against anguish or loneliness, but also for the pleasure of experiencing a delusional self‐suffi ciency and a gratifying omnipotence in which anything is possible. Mental workings that take place in the withdrawal do not follow the rules governing normal psychic functioning. Those fantasies cannot be either repressed or ‘dreamed’ in order to be transformed into thoughts. These psychopathological structures, which develop early and autonomously, have to be understood during analytical therapy in their origins and ‘deconstructed’ in order to help the patient to escape from their dominion. By means of clinical examples, the author tries to shed light on the possible ways of reaching patients in their psychotic shelters, thereby helping them to re‐emerge into a psychic reality.     

Psychological empowerment, job satisfaction and performance among Filipino service workers

The present study surveyed 954 employees and their supervisors to determine the relationship of empowerment with job satisfaction and performance in five different service sectors: hotels, food service, banking, call centers, and airlines. Psychological empowerment was positively correlated with both job satisfaction and performance. Although intrinsic motivation was associated with higher levels of empowerment and job satisfaction, contrary to hypothesis, intrinsic motivation did not moderate the relationship between empowerment and job satisfaction and performance. Men reported greater empowerment than women even when job level and performance were controlled for. Cross-industry analyses indicated differences in empowerment across different types of service sectors with employees in call centers reporting less empowerment compared to employees in hotel, airlines, food establishments, and banks.     

Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD): attachment styles and parental bonding

The attachment styles and parental bonding by 64 patients (M age = 43.2 yr., SD = 13.3) with Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD) were compared with those of 64 patients (M age = 42.2 yr., SD = 13.5) with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and 126 Healthy participants (M age = 42.2 yr., SD = 12.1). Analysis of scores on the Attachment Style Questionnaire indicated insecure attachment in both the patient and control groups. The Parental Bonding scores indicated perceptions of Affectionless Control by parents in both patient groups. In particular, the mean Father-Protection subscale scores were significantly higher for in the GERD group than in the Healthy and IBD groups.     

THE DREAM'S NAVEL BETWEEN CHAOS AND THOUGHT3

The authors begin by drawing attention to the problem of the transition from the biological to the psychic, noting that Freud himself, with his background in the neurosciences, grappled with it throughout his career. Certain recent paradigms more commonly applied to the natural sciences, such as in particular chaos and complexity theory, can in their view prove fruitful in psychoanalysis too, and it is shown how these notions are inherent in some of Freud's conceptions. The unconscious is stated to operate like a neural network, performing the kind of parallel processing used in the computing of highly complex situations, whereas the conscious mind is sequential. Dreams, in the authors' opinion, are organisers of the mind, imparting order to the turbulence of the underlying wishes and unconscious fantasies and structuring them through the dream work. Through dreams, the structured linearity of conscious thought can emerge out of the non‐linear chaos of the drives. The dream's navel can be seen as the chaotic link, or interface, between the unconscious wish, which constitutes an attractor, and the conscious thought. The attractor may be visualised as having an hourglass or clepsydra shape, the narrow section being the dream's navel, and, being the same at any scale of observation, has the property of fractality.