The Transition from Object Faith to Personal Faith: Transitional Subjects

In this article, I unmoor the concept of heresy from its religious, technical roots, using the metaphor heresies of the heart to depict the psychological and theological dynamics of the human proclivity to rely on the idea of Truth to alienate, depersonalize, and coerce other human beings. Using the concepts of the personal mode of existence and emotional intelligence, I define heresies of the heart as comprising (a) those emotional attitudes that involve the transformation of insecurity and anxiety into hostility and hatred toward the Other, (b) recognition and treatment of the Other as less than a person, and (c) unquestionable beliefs regarding one’s truth and the certainty of one’s innocence. Theologically, heresies of the heart signify the presence of idolatry, which is a type of bad faith that involves the use of a contingent object to contain anxiety by transforming it into hostility toward the Other.     

The paradox of the question

What is the best question to ask an omniscient being? The question is intriguing; is it also paradoxical? We discuss several versions of what Ned Markosian calls “the paradox of the question” and suggest solutions to each of those puzzles. We then offer some practical advice about what do if you ever have the opportunity to query an omniscient being.     

General and Domain-Specific Self-Esteem Among Regular Education and Special Education Students

We examined the global and domain-specific self-esteem of students who are emotionally disturbed, students who are learning disabled, and students who are in regular education classrooms. Students who were emotionally disturbed or learning disabled had lower global self-esteem than did students in regular education classes. The specific domains in which students in special education felt that they were less competent than students in regular education included social skills, leadership skills, and academics. However, the 2 groups of students in special education did not differ from one another. No differences emerged between the groups on a measure of self-esteem that is less subject to social desirability concerns. Implications of this research for education are discussed.     

Trait Anger and Axis I Disorders: Implications for REBT

Anger has a prominent role in basic theories of emotion. And while many psychiatric disorders can be conceived of as emotional disorders (e.g., depressive disorders, anxiety disorders), there are no disorders for which anger is the cardinal feature. We analyzed diagnostic data on 1,687 (as later) psychiatric outpatients and looked at the co-occurrence of high trait anger (as assessed by criterion 8 of Borderline Personality Disorder) and Axis I disorders, and Borderline and Antisocial Personality Disorders. The purpose was to examine whether dysfunctional anger met criteria necessary to be considered a valid diagnostic category. Results showed that high trait anger was not fully accounted for by any particular Axis I diagnosis, or any set of Axis I diagnoses, or by the combination of Axis I diagnoses and Borderline and Antisocial PDs. Trait anger also accounted for significant amounts of unique variance in several indicators of psychiatric impairment and psychosocial functioning. We describe the anger disorder diagnoses of Eckhardt and Deffenbacher (Anger disorders: Definition, diagnosis and treatment. Taylor & Francis, Bristol, PA, 1995), and discuss the implications of those diagnoses for the practice of REBT and CBT.

Alter(ING) Potential Space: Personalization and Community in Psychoanalytic Therapy

In this paper, I use the notion of alterity to amend Winnicott's view of potential space. I suggest that the parent's potential space—omnipotent recognition and treatment of the baby as person—makes possible the baby's belief in and experience of omnipotence, which is manifested in his/her omnipotent recognition and treatment of objects in terms of utility, pleasure, and function. This early manifestation of potential space gives way to recognition of objects as proto-persons, which accompanies the child's illusion that the (transitional) object recognizes him/her as a person. Here the child learns to surrender to the object's omnipotent constructions and, in these moments, there is a proto-communion—an illusory experience of mutual joining together as persons. This eventually gives way to a potential space wherein two or more people mutually and omnipotently construct and surrender to each other as persons, subordinating pleasure, function, and utility to the recognition of the Other as person. This depiction of potential space can serve as a framework for understanding the process of therapy as a struggle not simply of reality and illusion, but one of recognition and treatment of Others as persons and the possibility of communion and community.     

Intending to Leave But No Place to Go: An Examination of the Behaviors of Reluctant Stayers

We extend recent conceptual work on withdrawal states and develop a framework to examine behavioral tendencies of reluctant stayers (i.e., employees who desire to leave but cannot). Although principles of self-interest suggest that these employees ought to behave appropriately to maintain employment, reactance theory suggests that the combination of high turnover intentions and low job alternatives may result in lower performance and greater deviance. Contrary to conventional wisdom but consistent with reactance theory, low perceived job alternatives strengthened the positive relationship between turnover intentions and deviance, as well as the negative relation between intentions to quit and task performance. Moderated-mediation analyses revealed that the indirect effect of work frustration (via turnover intentions) was stronger on task performance and deviance when perceived job alternatives were low rather than high.     

Does right-left prevalence occur for the Simon effect?

In four experiments, we investigated whether a right-left prevalence effect occurs for the Simon task, in which stimulus location is irrelevant, when the stimulus and the response sets vary along horizontal and vertical dimensions simultaneously. Simon effects were evident for both dimensions, and they were of similar magnitude, indicating no prevalence effect. Manipulations of the relative salience of the dimensions for the stimulus and the response sets resulted in a larger Simon effect for the more salient dimension than for the less salient one, but there was no overall prevalence effect. The results indicate that manipulations of salience affect the relative magnitudes of automatic response activation for the vertical and the horizontal dimensions but that the right-left prevalence effect is due to a coding bias in intentional response selection processes when stimulus location is relevant.