Rankian Will

Otto Rank (1884–1939) served as Freud's closest partner in the psychoanalytic movement from 1906 to 1926. From 1923 on, Rank, initially with Ferenczi, focused on making analysis more therapeutic, emphasizing current experience in the session over historical exploration and interpretation. Rank settled on will as a missing factor, and wrote extensively about it after the break with Freud in 1926, when he moved to Paris. He emphasized the here-and-now, redefined “resistance” as a positive aspect of counter-will, and suggested a time limit for analysis. Ousted from analytic circles in 1930, he eventually moved to New York, continuing to treat patients and teach until his unexpected death at 55 in 1939. After decades of obscurity, Rank has gained readers and therapists whose orientation is interpersonal, client-centered, relational, humanistic, or existential. His influence on post-Freudian ego-psychology is finally being acknowledged as are his ideas about creativity, will, life-fear and death-fear, guilt, and ethics.     

The Rank–Ferenczi Relationship,as Seen from France

Seen from France, where Rank's “American” work is not well known, the Rank–Ferenczi relationship does not allow to state that the two learned colleagues were the best friends. Rank met Ferenczi in 1908, but their most valuable and fruitful working relationship is limited to the 1922–1924 time period. Their working relationship must be read in light of the unique transference links of each to Freud, and in light of the tormented history of the analytic movement, especially after the First World War. The sensible reader will not forget that after the fast extinction of their short collaboration they continued their own works in their own ways, Otto Rank in Paris and in America and Sándor Ferenczi in Budapest. No more friends, nor enemies, but both, in a different style, brave and creative analysts.     

Confusion of Wills: Otto Rank’s Contribution to an Understanding of Childism

Drawing from Elisabeth Young-Bruehl's psychological and psychodynamic study of prejudice as a starting point, this paper explores the phenomenon of childism—namely, the prejudice again children—from a Rankian psychodynamic perspective. Young-Bruehl argues that childism is comparable to prejudices such as anti-Semitism, sexism, and racism, and serves such purposes as the elimination of an individual's personhood, sexual exploitation, and the erasure of identity. Adding to Young-Bruehl's analysis of the social and psychological causes and effects of prejudice against children, this paper will examine the nature and dangers of childism explicit and implicit in the writings of Otto Rank. We will examine the development of creative will in child maturation—a development that childist forms of prejudice may obstruct, inhibit, and compromise. We will see that Young-Bruehl's foundational writing on childism echoes many of the observations and writings of Otto Rank in regard to the prejudice against children, and how such prejudice deeply diminishes, undermines, and fractures our unfolding lives and creative will in a shared world.     

The influence of response conflict on voluntary task switching: a novel test of the conflict monitoring model

The conflict monitoring model of cognitive control posits that response conflict triggers a top-down enhancement of a task’s representation in working memory. In the present study, we conducted a novel test of the conflict monitoring model using a voluntary task switching paradigm. We predicted that a task’s representation would be enhanced following events associated with high response conflict (i.e., incongruent trials and incorrect responses), leading participants to voluntarily choose to repeat that task more often after these events than after events associated with low response conflict (i.e., congruent trials and correct responses). In two experiments, performance following incongruent trials was consistent with the conflict monitoring model. However, performance following incorrect trials did not fit with the model’s predictions. These findings provide novel support for the conflict monitoring model while revealing new effects of incorrect trials that the model cannot explain.     

Grouping by achromatic color and surface segregation

The study explored the achromatic-color determinants of grouping of uniform surfaces. The stimuli were a set of separate uniform achromatic disks on either a uniform or a bipartite achromatic background. The participants rated the salience of grouping of these disks for different combinations of stimulus luminances. The results show that achromatic color similarity alone could not sufficiently explain the pattern of obtained factorial curves but this factor coupled with the factor of surface segregation could. Luminance contrast similarity per se was found to be unimportant for grouping.     

Judaism and Health: Reflections on an Emerging Scholarly Field

This paper surveys the field of Judaism and health. The authors trace the history of discourse on health and healing within Judaism, from the biblical and rabbinic eras to contemporary research and writing on Jewish bioethics, pastoral care, communal services, and aging, including congregational and community programming related to health and illness and the emergence of the Jewish healing movement. The work of the Kalsman Institute on Judaism and Health is described, focusing on efforts to unite these various threads into a scholarly field emphasizing basic and applied research on the instrumental functions of Jewish religious life for health and well-being.     

Surrogate Motherhood Revisited: Maternal Identity from a Jewish Perspective

A new bill regulating ovum donation in Israel is set to pass its second and third readings in the Israel Parliament in the upcoming months. The new law will expand the number of locally donated ova available, as previously Israeli women were prohibited from donating eggs unless they were undergoing fertility treatment. Parallel to this legislative initiative, there has been a change in rabbinical thinking over who is considered the mother in a case of surrogacy. Previously, the consensus has been that the birth mother is to be considered the mother, but over the last few years there has been a change in thinking and the genetic mother is now considered the mother. The purpose of this paper is to present the ethical and legal issues from a Jewish perspective in determining maternal identity. The dilemma also demonstrates some of the difficulties in applying Talmudic law to modern problems and the various methodologies used to overcome these issues.     

Maximal care considerations when treating patients with end-stage heart failure: ethical and procedural quandaries in management of the very sick

Deciding who should receive maximal technological treatment options and who should not represents an ethical, moral, psychological and medico-legal challenge for health care providers. Especially in patients with chronic heart failure, the ethical and medico-legal issues associated with providing maximal possible care or withholding the same are coming to the forefront. Procedures, such as cardiac transplantation, have strict criteria for adequate candidacy. These criteria for subsequent listing are based on clinical outcome data but also reflect the reality of organ shortage. Lack of compliance and non-adherence to lifestyle changes represent relative contraindications to heart transplant candidacy. Mechanical circulatory support therapy using ventricular assist devices is becoming a more prominent therapeutic option for patients with end-stage heart failure who are not candidates for transplantation, which also requires strict criteria to enable beneficial outcome for the patient. Physicians need to critically reflect that in many cases, the patient’s best interest might not always mean pursuing maximal technological options available. This article reflects on the multitude of critical issues that health care providers have to face while caring for patients with end-stage heart failure.     

Religious Influences on the Reproductive Health Decisions of HIV-Positive Latinas on the Border

The number of HIV-positive Latinas of child-bearing age living on the US–Mexico border is a growing concern. Little is known about how religious beliefs influence the reproductive health decisions of these women in light of disease demands and cultural and religious norms that support high fertility rates and childbearing. Such decisions may be further complicated by the stigma of HIV/AIDS and structural issues related to immigration status and trans-border lives. This paper analyzes extant literature and supports the need for further research so that policy makers and heath and social service providers can develop meaningful and comprehensive reproductive-health related interventions.     

Training and Education in Religion/Spirituality Within APA-Accredited Clinical Psychology Programs: 8 Years Later

This study was a follow up investigation of Brawer et al.’s (Prof Psychol Res Pr 33(2):203–206, 2002) survey of education and training of clinical psychologists in religion/spirituality. Directors of clinical training were surveyed to determine whether changes had occurred in the coverage of religion and spirituality through course work, research, supervision, and in the systematic coverage of the content area. Results indicated an increased coverage in the areas of supervision, dedicated courses, inclusion as part of another course, and research. There was no increase in systematic coverage, but significantly more programs provided at least some coverage. The current study also assesses other areas of incorporation as well as directors’ opinions regarding the importance of religion/spirituality in the field of psychology.