Psychoanalytic Couple Therapy: Classical Style

In this essay, the core concepts of psychoanalysis are set forth as the context for the application of classical psychoanalytic theory to the practice of couple therapy. Infantile sexuality and aggression are shown to have a powerful role in the interpersonal lives of family members. The repetition compulsion structures marital interaction and intergenerational dynamics. The intrapsychic emphasis of classical ego-psychology is viewed in the interpersonal arena, and the author suggests adding to the Oedipus and Narcissus myths a myth that resonates with this shift in emphasis. In introducing the “Pygmalion–Galatea process,” the author captures the universal attempt to change the psychic dynamics of the other or others. This ultimately mutual process begins with the infant's mirroring of its caretakers—which includes language acquisition. Much of human interaction is fueled by subsequent attempts to create others in our own images of them and by their reactive compliance or resistance to that dynamic. Three case illustrations are presented to show how these phenomena manifest themselves in marital interaction and in dreams.     

A novel automatic procedure for measuring ocular counterrolling: A computeranalytical method to determine the eye’s roll angle while subjects work on perceptual tasks

In investigations of the perception of space, the consideration of ocular counterrolling-the movement of the eye around its visual axis in response to body movement-is crucially important. The angle of this movement must be known in order for one to determine the precise retinal coordinates of a distal object. Following transformation, this stimulus serves as a reliable cue for visual direction. The otolith organs provide information about body tilt and are responsible for ocular counterrolling. A novel, noninvasive method to measure ocular counterrolling, based on the cross-correlation of digitized video pictures of the eyes, is presented. The resolution attained was ≤ 0.1°. The computer analysis is fully automatic and fast, and it can be performed while subjects work on perceptual tasks. No direct access to the eyeballs is required. Data from 4 subjects showing the counterrolling profile in various body positions are presented.     

Expertise, Democracy, and Applied Ethics

Is expertise in applied ethics compatible with individual autonomy and democratic self-governance? This depends on whether a ‘tracking condition’ is satisfied for expert claims about issues in applied ethics. This condition requires that, when expert deliberations are properly conducted they ‘track’ the courses of reasoning that the experts’ clients would themselves have undertaken if they had (perhaps subject to certain conditions) considered the matters for themselves. Pluralism of the kind thematised by Isaiah Berlin and Stuart Hampshire suggests that the tracking condition typically will not be satisfied and, hence, that whatever experts are praticising in applied ethics they are doing it contrary to democratic principles of autonomy and self-government. The implications of this result are sketched and some standard objections briefly considered.