The capacity to forgive: An object relations perspective

Forgiveness is commended by Christianity, as well as other religious traditions, as one of the most central of virtues, so central that the New Testament links man's very salvation to his ability to forgive. However, mental health professionals have correctly pointed out that the mandate to forgive is often used by religious patients in the service of defenses such as reaction formation, undoing, and denial. The forgiveness ideal is often misunderstood as a command not to experience aggressive feelings.It is the thesis of this paper that the capacity for genuine forgiveness is central not only to spiritual development but to psychological development as well. It is suggested that Kernberg's object relations theory provides the best model for understanding the nature and importance of forgiveness. Mature forgiveness does not involve the elimination of negative feelings toward others (or oneself) but the integration of negative and positive self-object representations and their connected affect. Anger at the offending persons must then be tempered by appreciation for their concomitant good qualities and motivations or, at the very least, empathy for the flaws which prompted them to behave destructively. The result is a more realistic and balanced view of others (and oneself), a more genuine relationship to the full range of one's own inner experience, and a greater ability to respond constructively to frustrating persons and situations.This paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association in New York in August 1987. The author wishes to thank Mark Finn, Ph.D., and David Hamblin, Ph.D., for their valuable discussions in the development of the ideas in the paper. Address requests for reprints to Dr. Gartner, Dept. of Pastoral Counseling, Loyola College, 7135 Mistrel Way, Columbia, MD 21045.     

The social supports of suicide attempters: The different roles of family and friends

The social support patterns of a sample of 101 suicide attempters were compared with the patterns of a control sample on the basis of structured interview data. Network characteristics and the extent of support in different functional categories were examined as to their absolute and relative power to discriminate between the suicide attempters and the controls. A clear separation of the functions of kin and of friends/acquaintances emerged. The crucial difference between the attempters and the controls lay in the number of friends with whom the subjects had agreeable everyday interactions and in the number of kin that provided crisis support, both psychological and instrumental. Other support differences between the two groups were of secondary importance. While there was no overall difference in the frequency of social interactions between the two groups, the size of the social network differed greatly. Consequences for the conceptualization and measurement of social support as well as for the prevention of suicidal behavior are discussed.     

Visual stimulation affects the perception of voluntary leg movements during walking

When a limb is used for locomotion, patterns of afferent and efferent activity related to its own motion are present as well as visual, vestibular, and other proprioceptive information about motion of the whole body. A study is reported in which it was asked whether visual stimulation present during whole-body motion can influence the perception of the leg movements propelling the body. Subjects were tested in conditions in which the stepping movements they made were identical but the amount of body displacement relative to inertial space and to the visual surround varied. These test conditions were created by getting the subjects to walk on a rotatable platform centered inside a large, independently rotatable, optokinetic drum. In each test condition, subjects, without looking at their legs, compared, against a standard condition in which the floor and drum were both stationary, their speed of body motion, their stride length and stepping rate, the direction of their steps, and the perceived force they exerted during stepping. When visual surround motion was incompatible with the motion normally associated with the stepping movements being made, changes in apparent body motion and in the awareness of the frequency, extent, and direction of the voluntary stepping movements resulted.     

Short-term memory for Chinese characters and radicals

Short-term memory for Chinese radicals and characters, varying in orthographic complexity, frequency, and—for radicals—intercharacter frequency (the number of compound characters that contain the radical), was studied using an immediate free-recall task. When radicals or characters are relatively frequent, so that their pronunciations are well known by literate Chinese, they seem to be maintained in verbal form in short-term memory. For these stimuli, intercharacter frequency and complexity have relatively small influences on memory span. Stimuli low in frequency, with pronunciations that are not apt to be known, seem to be maintained in visual form in short-term memory. Memory span is much smaller for these stimuli and is influenced by both intercharacter frequency and complexity. Furthermore, short-term memory for relatively high-frequency characters is interfered with more by a verbal than by a visual intervening task, whereas the opposite is true for low-frequency characters.     

Familiar idiom comprehension

Sentences containing idioms used either literally or figuratively were presented repeatedly for 100 msec per presentation. Half of the sentences were preceded by a paragraph. The number of presentations required to read the sentences and cued recall of the sentences were recorded. The serial brief presentations method provided predictable and meaningful results. Sentences containing idioms used literally required more presentations than those containing idioms used figuratively. Cued recall was better for idioms used literally than for those used figuratively. These results are interpreted as support for the Idiomatic Processing Model of idiom comprehension, which suggests that the figurative meaning is processed first; only if that one is inappropriate is the literal meaning processed.     

Age-related changes in working and reference memory performance and locomotor activity in the Wistar rat

Wistar rats of three age groups were tested in an automated tunnel-maze system of variable geometry to investigate whether changes in spontaneous locomotor activity and in learning and memory develop differentially or in a correlated fashion as a function of age. Senescent (30 months) as well as mature-adult (17 months) rats showed an age-correlated decline of locomotor activity as compared to the mature-young (5 months) group. Both working-memory (measured as within-trial arm discrimination performance) and reference-memory (measured as avoidance of "blind alley" visits) were severely affected in the senescent group, whereas the middle-aged animals suffered only from a working-memory deficit. The findings provide evidence that locomotor deficits do not necessarily interfere in the assessment of age-related changes in cognitive performance. Furthermore the results support the hypothesis that working and reference memory have different underlying physiological correlates and that these neuronal systems are differentially affected by the aging process.     

Dissociation of data-based and expectancy-based memory following hippocampal lesions in rats

Sham-operated and nonoperated animals or animals with hippocampal lesions were presented with sets of trials to test both expectancy-based and data-based memory within the same task. During the study phase of each trial the animals were presented with a constant sequence of five arms on an eight-arm radial maze followed by a test phase in which a recognition test requiring a win-stay rule was used. Expectancy-based memory was measured during the study phase of the trials as a pattern of correct or incorrect orienting responses in anticipation of the ensuing doors in the constant sequence. Both groups of animals acquired correct orienting responses at the same rate, emitted the same pattern of correct orienting responses, and made the same number and pattern of intralist and extralist intrusion errors. Data-based memory was measured during the test phase of the trial as correct recognition test performance. During the test phase the animals with hippocampal lesions were impaired relative to controls on both immediate and 24-h recognition tests. These results suggest that the hippocampus might mediate only data-based, but not expectancy-based, memory and imply a possible dissociation between expectancy-based and data-based memory systems.     

Pure agraphia and Gerstmann's syndrome as a visuospatial-language dissociation: an experimental case study

A right-handed man suffered a left parieto-occipital cerebral infarction, causing agraphia with Gerstmann's syndrome but without major aphasia, alexia, or apraxia. Oral spelling was superior to written spelling. Experiments were performed involving (1) analysis of errors in writing, (2) tasks of visual imagery, and (3) identifying letters drawn without leaving a visual trace. The results suggest that the agraphia and Gerstmann's syndrome are due to a dissociation of language skills and visuospatial skills caused by a dominant parieto-occipital lesion.