Uncanny Communication and the Porous Mind

In this paper I examine the phenomenon of “uncanny” unconscious communication and the plausibility of “telepathic” interconnectivity between patient and therapist. While reexamining long-standing psychoanalytic reluctance to engage with the topic of the “uncanny,” I present clinical examples of seeming anomalous transmission, followed by discussion from contrasting perspectives of psychoanalysis, neuroscience, quantum physics, and parapsychology. The patient’s and analyst’s reactions to these uncanny moments are explored, along with the potential clinical value of nurturing receptivity to this “frequency” of unconscious attunement.     

“Presence” and “Absence”: Kaleidoscopic Hide and Seek: Reply to Commentaries

In this reply I respond to Cambray’s introduction of the “self-organizing” and “emergent” qualities of telepathic communication, looking more closely at the relationship between dissociation and the emergence of telepathic phenomena. I highlight the creative aspect of such telepathic “intrusions,” viewing the clinician’s capacity for intuitive imagination as key to the emergence of telepathic material. In response to Eshel’s connection between the analyst’s “presence,” “absence,” and the patient’s unmet need for recognition, I examine the roles of co-construction and mutual dissociation in transference-countertransference enactments that generate uncanny phenomena. Verbal interpretation not always being the most viable mode of communication, “absence” can sometimes serve as a co-constructed, unconscious “solution” to the problem of multiple conflicting needs, holding a space for telepathic emergence to express the inexpressable.     

Job crafting for lean engagement: The interplay of day and job-level characteristics

The quality of working life under the production system known as lean manufacturing (LM) is a heavily debated topic. Little is known about the engagement level of employees under this system. Our study is concerned with how employees in this context craft their jobs to enhance their own engagement, and we specifically consider how daily skill utilization triggers this process. Using a cross-level perspective, we further consider whether job-level characteristics relevant to the lean context, namely task interdependence and boundary control, restrict or facilitate the effects of daily skill utilization. A daily diary study was conducted over 4 working days with 64 employees in a large company utilizing LM. The results of multilevel structural equation modelling demonstrated that on a given day, skill utilization was associated with seeking resources, and this relationship was stronger when employees had high boundary control and low task interdependence in their general job roles. Results further demonstrated that employees experienced higher work engagement on days when they sought resources and challenges. Our findings illustrate the motivational potential of job crafting under LM and how crafting activities can be facilitated by the design of jobs and allocation of daily tasks.     

Bidirectional relations between different forms of prosocial behaviors and substance use among female college student athletes

Bidirectional, longitudinal relations between alcohol and marijuana use and prosocial behaviors in women college student athletes were examined. Participants were 187 female college students (M_age = 19.87 years; 91% White) who completed questionnaires on their use of marijuana and alcohol, and six forms of prosocial behaviors across 6 years (2004–2010). The findings yield overall evidence that earlier marijuana use predicted lower levels of most specific forms of prosocial behaviors for women athletes in later young adulthood. Early expressions of altruistic behaviors predicted less marijuana use in later young adulthood. Expression of public prosocial behaviors early in young adulthood predicted higher levels of hazardous drinking in late young adulthood. These novel findings have important implications for links between prosocial development and substance use in women college athletes.     

Stomaching rejection: Self-compassion and self-esteem moderate the impact of daily social rejection on restrictive eating behaviours among college women

Objective: The present study examined whether having high self-esteem or a self-compassionate perspective help mitigate the impact of daily social rejection on negative affect and restrictive eating behaviours.

Design: Following a baseline survey assessing self-esteem and self-compassion, 121 college women completed online daily diaries for one week.

Main Outcome Measures: Negative affect and restrictive eating behaviours.

Results: On days when women reported more rejection, they also reported higher restrictive eating behaviours and greater negative affect. Effects were moderated by self-esteem and self-compassion, such that the lower participants were in self-esteem or self-compassion, the stronger the positive relation between rejection and negative affect and restrictive eating. However, only the common humanity/isolation dimension of self-compassion significantly moderated daily effects of rejection when controlling for self-esteem. Mediated moderation results reveal different mechanisms by which self-esteem and self-compassion buffer against rejections’ effects on affect and restrictive eating.

Conclusion: Self-compassion and self-esteem influence the complex impact that social rejection has on affect and restrictive eating. More than other dimensions of self-compassion or self-esteem, remembering one’s common humanity can result in a healthier response to social rejection.     

Discussion of Dominique Scarfone’s Paper, “On ‘That Is Not Psychoanalysis’: Ethics as the Main Tool for Psychoanalytic Knowledge and Discussion”: Terminable and Interminable Discussion

When we ask ourselves if psychoanalysis is a science and what type of science it is, we raise many questions related to the notion of faithfulness. For instance, we might ask what it means to be faithful to a text, to the essence of an author’s writings, or to his or her creative power. If being a psychoanalyst means, at the very least, being able to translate the other’s thoughts, one of the difficulties of this task lies in what we call the complexity of translation. Analysts translate, interpret, interfere with the thoughts of the other in order to open up new paths, to offer themselves as a projection screen, or to try to create a link between two subjects so as to make room for the present, which is sometimes erased by history. To elucidate some of these issues, Scarfone (this issue) focuses on a discussion on the ethics of the analyst and of psychoanalysis     

In search of reflective behavior and shared understanding in ad hoc expert teams.

The work reported on here concentrates on virtual ad hoc expert teams for the integration of learning and working, as ad hoc teams seem to be one way to cope with complexity in a knowledge-intensive society. In order to let ad hoc teams learn and work together, group members require effective communication and shared understanding among each other. Two empirical studies were conducted to study collaborative learning and shared understanding, one exploratory study and one experiment. In the first study, it was explored how virtual design teams work and learn together. Based on conceptual ideas, collaborative learning and shared understanding were observed and assessed in a design team over a period of four months. It was concluded that shared understanding was suboptimal; mainly due to the effect that hardly any questions were raised and answered. The second study elaborates on the need to encourage question-answer patterns and reflective behavior in such teams. A tool was developed that supported questioning behavior. As it was hypothesized that this tool leads to better questioning behavior, which in turn results in more reflective behavior and in increased shared understanding, an experiment was conducted. In the exploratory study, as well as in the experimental study, the perceived shared understanding increased over time. However, in both studies suboptimal questioning behavior and little reflective activity were noticed. The main results of the two empirical studies are compared and discussed.     

Memory consolidation in both trace and delay fear conditioning is disrupted by intra-amygdala infusion of the protein synthesis inhibitor anisomycin

Memory for delay fear conditioning requires the synthesis of new mRNA and protein in the basolateral amygdala. It is currently unknown whether similar molecular processes in the amygdala are required for the formation of trace fear memory, in which a stimulus-free interval is inserted between the conditional stimulus (CS) and unconditional stimulus (UCS). Here, we show that infusion of the protein synthesis inhibitor anisomycin into the basolateral amygdala disrupts consolidation of both trace and delay fear conditioning. This is the first evidence that protein synthesis in the amygdala is necessary for the formation of both trace and delay fear memory.     

Cooperation as a signal of genetic or phenotypic quality in female mate choice? Evidence from preferences across the menstrual cycle

Previous research highlighting the role sexual selection may play in the evolution of human cooperation has yet to distinguish what qualities such behaviours actually signal. The aim here was to examine whether female preferences for male cooperative behaviours are because they signal genetic or indirect phenotypic quality. This was possible by taking into account female participants' stage of menstrual cycle, as much research has shown that females at the most fertile stage show greater preferences specifically for signals of genetic quality than any other stage, particularly for short-term relationships. Therefore, different examples of cooperation (personality, costly signals, heroism) and the mate preferences for altruistic traits self-report scale were used across a series of four experiments to examine females' attitudes towards cooperation in potential mates for different relationship lengths at different stages of the menstrual cycle. The results here consistently show that female fertility had no effect on perceptions of cooperative behaviour, and that such traits were considered more important for long-term relationships. Therefore, this provides strong evidence that cooperative behaviour is important in mate choice as predominantly a signal of phenotypic rather than genetic quality.