The analyst's postgraduate development--rereading Freud and working theory through

The authors believe that important aspects of a psychoanalyst's development can only be accomplished after the completion of training, that potential resistances to learning are not uncommon, and that the first five to ten postgraduate years are critical. A crucial acquisition of this developmental educational phase is a "theoretical identity," a personal theoretical synthesis which requires working through incompletely resolved transferences to Freud, to personal mentors and institutes, and to theory itself. The authors use the example of their own working through experiences while participating in a postgraduate Freud study group and show how a concurrent deepening of their theoretical identities contributed to their maturation as analysts and analytic teachers.     

ABSTRACTS OF LITERATURE

This paper attempts to formulate dynamics based on clinical material from family sessions rather than based on individual reconstruction. It is believed that the identified adolescent patient regresses with narcissistic symptoms because, in the struggle for independence, he upsets the family equilibrium. The parents emerge from their adolescence with low self-esteem and the need for the support of external objects. The adolescent's separateness from the family recreates the problem for the parents and prevents his individual growth as well as his separation from the family.     

Processing order in visual perception

Initial increases in the availability of items for report following tachistoscopic presentation of centrally-fixated rows of seven random letters were directly evaluated by measuring report accuracy following exposure durations of 10, 20, 40, 80 and 160 ms. A partial-report technique was used, and each presentation of a letter row was immediately followed by the presentation of a masking stimulus. Each of 10 subjects received 840 trials which reflected 24 trials for each exposure-duration by position-probed combination. The letters at both ends of a row became available for report prior to the centre letters. In addition, report of the left-most letter was consistently better than report of the right-most letter, and report of the centre item at fixation improved at a more rapid rate with increased exposure duration than report of the other centre letters. This pattern of results provides support for certain components of several different previous proposals concerning the order in which individual items from multi-element displays become available for report.     

Resume evaluations and cosmetics use: When more is not better

Physical appearance is an integral component of self-presentation in all social situations, including that of applying for a job. This project investigated the relationship between employment evaluations of women and one aspect of their appearance under the individual's control—the use of varying degrees of cosmetics. Cosmetics use was found to be positively correlated with perceived attractiveness, femininity, and sexiness. Based on resume evaluations, however, cosmetics use had a negative effect on the expected performance of female applicants for a gender-typed (secretary) position, but no effect on the expected performance of female applicants for a nongender-typed (accountant) position. Makeup thus appears to strengthen sex role stereotypes associated with traditionally feminine jobs.We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Merle Norman Cosmetics and John B. Wheat, photographer, for their assistance in preparing the stimulus pictures. Partial support for writing this paper was provided by a Spurgeon Bell Fellowship to the second author. A previous version of this paper was presented at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Dallas, Texas, August 1983.     

ABSTRACTS OF LITERATURE

This is an essay on a technique in family therapy in which it is felt that there is a direct relationship between the maladaptive response to the death of a loved person and the fixity of symbiotic relationships within the family. The patient's symptom is a defense against the grief. Use of empathy by the therapist in resolving the grief helps to change the symptomatology.     

A CROSS-CULTURAL INVESTIGATION OF INFORMATION PROCESSING1

Recherche interculturell sur le traitement de l'information. — Cette expérience fait partie d'une série d'études sur les processus cognitifs des membres de la tribu des Kpelles du Liberia : elle porte plus particulièrement sur Pestimation des quantités. A 240 sujets (120 Kpelles et 120 Américains) on a présenté, à l'aide d'un tachistoscope, des plages de points avec des durées variées d'exposition. Les plages diffèrent par le nombre (de 3 à 10) et la disposition, structurée ou aléatoire, des points. La performance des sujets américains est en général supérieure à celle des Kpelles. l'analyse montre que l'avantage global des américains est dû à : — 1) leur plus grande exactitude pour les plages qui comportent plus de points; — 2) leur plus grande exactitude relative pour des durées brèves de présentation; — 3) l'utilisation plus grande de la redondance inhérente aux plages structurées. Les AA, pensent pouvoir mettre ces résultats en relation avec les apprentissages différentiels dont chaque groupe culturel a pu faire l'expérience dans son milieu propre. Ils proposent une stratégic générale pour mener des recherches expérimentales interculturelles.