Affectivity in Its Relation to Memory

It seems obvious that various feelings (various kinds of affectivity) are memorized, forgotten, and recollected to various degrees. Some of them are forgotten. Some of those forgotten can be recollected, while others are lost forever. For example, short and long-lasting feelings and shallow and deep feelings are memorized and remembered in different ways. In this paper I analyse from a conceptual point of view several categories of memory-of-feelings and offer a comprehensive map of them. In the end, the richness of categories in the realm of memory is interpreted as a proof of the intricacy of affectivity.     

Sensitivity to Inflectional Morphemes in the Absence of Meaning: Evidence from a Novel Task

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research - A number of studies in different languages have shown that speakers may be sensitive to the presence of inflectional morphology in the absence of verb meaning...     

Writers Blocked: On the Wrongs of Research Co-authorship and Some Possible Strategies for Improvement

The various problems associated with co-authorship of research articles have attracted much attention in recent years. We believe that this (hopefully) growing awareness is a very welcome development. However, we will argue that the particular and increasing importance of authorship and the harmful implications of current practices of research authorship for junior researchers have not been emphasised enough. We will use the case of our own research area (bioethics) to illustrate some of the pitfalls of current publishing practices—in particular, the impact on the evaluation of one’s work in the area of employment or funding. Even where there are explicit guidelines, they are often disregarded. This disregard, which is often exemplified through the inflation of co-authorship in some research areas, may seem benign to some of us; but it is not. Attribution of co-authorship for reasons other than merit in relation to the publication misrepresents the work towards that publication, and generates unfair competition. We make a case for increasing awareness, for transparency and for more explicit guidelines and regulation of research co-authorship within and across research areas. We examine some of the most sensitive areas of concern and their implications for researchers, particularly junior ones, and we suggest several strategies for future action.     

Could Presentism in the Histories of Psychology Actually be Futuristic?

Disputes about the origins of psychology in the history of the discipline are functional not for our understanding of the past, but as normative signs that regulate the construction of ideas in the future. We introduce the notion of open-ended normativity that regulates the development of a given discipline towards its future. Hence the question of the cultural origins of psychology becomes contested in the 21st century as an important topic. It proves that the history of psychology is an active participant in the making of psychology, as it is creating its future.     

Implicit Theories of Common Health Conditions Held by Indian Social Workers and Students

Social work is viewed as a change-related profession. However, little is known about social workers’ own beliefs about change. To understand this, we used the implicit theory paradigm to compare theories about various health conditions held by social workers, social work students, and undergraduate students from Bombay, India (N = 352). The participants had to assess the possibility of change in four health conditions: cancer, tuberculosis, depression, and mental retardation. We predicted that social workers whose professional education involves concepts such as Person-in-Environment would display more incremental views of these conditions than students – namely that they are modifiable. Our predictions were supported for the following conditions: cancer, tuberculosis, and depression. These incremental views were neither related to age nor years of professional experience. Though we expected that the extent to which participants believed these health issues to be amenable to change would influence their support for a small personal tax, our findings did not bear this out. We explore the possible reasons for our findings and discuss their implications for health communication in India as well as for social work education.     

GREAT IDEAS AND DUMB LUCK IN PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOTHERAPY

Both Dr. Kuriloff’s initial contribution to the Roundtable, and her later response to her fellow discussants focus on the social construction of psychoanalytic theories of therapeutic action. She notes the promise of the enlightenment/ modern era as impetus for an initially positivist “science” of psychoanalysis, and then implicates the scourge of the Shoah as that which galvanized the largely Jewish seminal community to cling to universal, versus contextual theories and technique. That the deconstruction of truth and authority, beginning with the post-war “baby boom” and student movements in the United States and Europe, put an end to one metapsychology is yet another example of the power of context upon ideas and praxis. This seemingly haphazard pairing of context and content determines the degree to which theories are embraced or ignored within any particular body politic, or within our tiny community at one time or another, prompting Kuriloff to warn against over valuing and/or excluding any theory, theorist, or technique from what we need to know and do to be helpful to people. This tension—between immersion in, and observation of the field—is what psychoanalytic theory and praxis ought to allow.     

WHAT IS EFFECTIVE IN PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOTHERAPY? SOME THINGS CHANGE,SOME STAY THE SAME

As a reflection on two roundtable discussions published in the American Journal of Psychoanalysis in 1957 and 1965, the author seeks to provide historical context for what has taken place within the culture, within the profession, and within himself over this period of time. The struggle to define “effectiveness” is addressed and an argument made for the inclusion of empirical research into our work, but with simultaneous appreciation for the difficulty in objectively defining and measuring what takes place within the therapeutic relationship. This difficulty is hypothesized, in part, to be a function of the non-verbal and preverbal experiences of both patient and therapist.