The conceptualisation of the psychical in psychoanalysis

This article aims to clarify the psychoanalytic conceptualisation of the psychical, which includes a discussion of the relationship between consciousness and the unconscious. The unconscious is conceived of as being on the border between the so-called 'ego's conscious intending' and a rudimentary body-ego experiencing. Phenomenological ideas on the essence of consciousness are used in order to help delineate the crucial differences between consciousness and the unconscious. Only consciousness is characterised by an awareness of itself, that is; self-consciousness. Furthermore, consciousness is characterised by an intentional, synthesising capacity, whereas the functioning of the unconscious, in its most radical form, is the opposite ofthe intentionality of consciousness. It is argued that the unconscious pre-supposes certain pre-sexual processes, in the form of a body-ego's formation of continuity, coherence and wholeness. The body-ego belongs to the sphere of consciousness/self-consciousness, even if self-consciousness is only given implicitly in the body-ego and not as a fully fledged ego cogito . Attention is drawn to neglected issues in psychoanalytic theorising, namely self-consciousness and the constitution of existence. The importance of this neglected area for the psychoanalytic process is illustrated with clinical examples.     

Age‐related changes in the control of episodic retrieval: an ERP study of recognition memory in children and adults

We examined developmental aspects of the ability to monitor the temporal context of an item’s previous occurrence while event‐related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. In a continuous recognition task, children between 10 and 12 years and young adults watched a stream of pictures repeated with a lag of 10–15 intervening items and indicated recurrences. In a second run, these already familiar pictures were repeated as non‐targets along with new pictures, while subjects were instructed to indicate only recurrences within the run. Young adults were able to maintain high performance levels in both tasks, whereas children had longer response times and committed a large number of false alarms to non‐targets. ERPs in both age groups showed similar parietal old/new effects for target repetitions within runs. In addition, adults’ ERPs showed similar old/new effects at frontal electrodes for repetitions and non‐targets, presumably reflecting assessments of familiarity, whereas for children repeated relative to first presentations were associated with more negative‐going waveforms at anterior frontal recording sites. Together, these results suggest a continuing maturation of the brain networks assessing novelty or familiarity. Recollection as indexed by parietal old/new effects appeared similar between young adults and children, but the development of controlled episodic retrieval, resulting in recollection of non‐target information, appears to continue well into adolescence.     

Constituted Simples?

Many philosophers maintain that artworks, such as statues, are constituted by other material objects, such as lumps of marble. I give an argument against this view, an argument which appeals to mereological simples.

‘Pure Time Preference’: Reply to Lowry and Peterson

A pure time preference is a preference for something to occur at one point in time rather than another, merely because of when it occurs in time. Such preferences are widely regarded as paradigm examples of irrational preferences. However, Rosemary Lowry and Martin Peterson have recently argued that, for instance, a pure time preference to go to the opera tonight rather than next month may be rationally permissible, even if the amounts of intrinsic value realized in both cases are identical. In this reply, we argue that Lowry and Peterson's argument is unsuccessful.     

Male and female psychoneuroendocrine response to examination stress: A case report

Urinary catecholamine levels were investigated in one female and one male Ph.D. candidate during public defense of their Ph.D. theses as well as during 2 weeks preceding and 1 week following these examinations. Although females, in comparison to males, usually tend to show a weak adrenaline response to mental stress, a threefold increase was observed in both subjects. The results support the assumption that sex differences in adrenal-medullary responsiveness to stress is not determined by sex-specific biological factors alone and that a “male” responsiveness may be observed in achievement-oriented females exposed to a challenging real-life situation. Effects on urinary measures of cortisol obtained from the male subject resembled effects on adrenaline, showing that this kind of real-life stressor affects the sympathetic-adrenal medullary and the pituitary-adrenocortical systems similarly.     

THE EFFECTS OF REARRANGING WARD ROUTINES ON COMMUNICATION AND EATING BEHAVIORS OF PSYCHOGERIATRIC PATIENTS

Several aspects of ward routine were changed to study the effects of environmental manipulation on the behavior of 21 psychogeriatric patients. Furniture was rearranged to be more conducive to conversation (i.e., grouped around tables instead of along corridor walls), and mealtime routines were changed to allow patients more time to eat, more freedom in choosing the composition of the meal, and more pleasant surroundings. Patients were divided into experimental and control groups, and data were collected on the frequency of verbal and tactile communication and degree of skill in eating behavior. Following baseline, environmental changes were introduced across behaviors. Results show that the frequency of communication increased for the experimental group, as compared to both baseline and the control group. Eating behavior also improved significantly for the experimental group. The study shows that minor changes in the physical environment can promote therapeutic change in the behavior of patients diagnosed as senile dementia.     

SILHOUETTE EFFECTS IN NIGHT DRIVING

JOHANSSON, G. & RUMAR, K. Silhouette effects in night driving. Scand. J. Psychol. , 1971, 12, 80–89.–In order to investigate within what areas on the road silhouettes, as framed by the light from a meeting car, can be of help to the driver, a series of experiments has been performed. The experiments employed two stationary opposing cars standing at given distances from each other, these distances (100–400 m) being determined by pre-experiments. On the area between the cars "iso-silhouette" curves were measured using a special method for a number of silhouette relevant conditions. Factors favouring silhouette effects were found to be: narrow road, short distance between the cars, high road surface reflectance, inner bend, the driver's eyes being high above the road, particles in the atmosphere, large spread of the meeting headlight beams.     

Individual response patterns and the effects of different behavioral methods in the treatment of social phobia

The importance of individual response patterns in the treatment of phobic patients was examined in the present study. Forty psychiatric outpatients with social phobia were assessed with a social interaction test which was videotaped. Heart rate was continuously monitored during the test. On the basis of their reactions in the test situation, the patients were divided into two groups showing different response patterns; behavioral and physiological reactors. Within each group half of the patients were randomly assigned to a behaviorally focused method (social skills training) while the other half received a physiologically focused method (applied relaxation). The patients were treated individually in 10 sessions. The within-group comparisons showed that both treatments yielded significant improvements on most measures. The between-group comparisons showed that for the behavioral reactors, social skills training was significantly better than applied relaxation on six out of ten measures, and for the physiological reactors applied relaxation was significantly better than social skills training on three of the measures. The results support the hypothesis that greater effects are achieved when the method used fits the patient's response pattern.