The analytic situation as a dynamic field. 1969

This paper discusses the consequences of the importance that recent ³ papers assign to the countertransference. When the latter acquires a theoretical and technical value equal to that of the transference, the analytic situation is configured as a dynamic bi‐personal field, and the phenomena occurring in it need to be formulated in bi‐personal terms. First, the field of the analytic situation is described, in its spatial, temporal and functional structure, and its triangular character (the present–absent third party in the bi‐personal field) is underlined. Then, the ambiguity of this field is emphasized, with special weight given to its bodily aspect (the bodily experiences of the analyst and the patient being particularly revealing of the unconscious situation in the field). The different dynamic structures or lines of orientation of the field are examined: the analytic contract, the configuration of the manifest material, the unconscious configuration – the unconscious bi‐personal phantasy manifesting itself in an interpretable point of urgency – that produces the structure of the field and its modifications. The authors describe the characteristics of this unconscious couple phantasy: its mobility and lack of definition, the importance of the phenomena of projective and introjective identification in its structuring. The authors go on to study the functioning of this field, which oscillates between mobilisation and stagnation, integration and splitting. Special reference is made to the concept of the split off unconscious ‘bastion’ as an extremely important technical problem. The analyst’s work is described as allowing oneself to be partially involved in the transference–countertransference micro‐neurosis or micro‐psychosis, and interpretation as a means of simultaneous recovery of parts of the analyst and the patient involved in the field. Finally, the authors describe the bi‐personal aspect of the act of insight that we experience in the analytic process.     

The effects of activating a “baby brain” stereotype on pregnant women’s cognitive functioning

Throughout pregnancy and into the immediate postpartum period, women are generally perceived to be incompetent, stressed, and forgetful. However, the neuropsychological “baby brain” literature remains unclear and contradictory. Across two studies, we provide the first experimental tests of whether perceived cognitive impairment in pregnancy can be explained by stereotype threat theory, which proposes that awareness of negative stereotypes about one’s ingroup can harm performance. In Study 1 (N = 364), we tested stereotype threat effects in a 2 (stereotype threat versus no threat) × 3 (pregnant women versus new mothers versus never-pregnant female control) design. We observed a main effect of group on memory performance (pregnant women and new mothers performed worse than controls), but no other main or interactive effects. Study 2 (N = 409) aimed to extend these research questions with mathematics ability, memory, and attention as the dependent variables. Again, we found that a stereotype threat manipulation did not impair pregnant women and new mothers’ cognitive performance, nor was there any interactive effects. Groups also did not differ in their performance. We discuss these results in the context of stereotype threat mechanisms, calling into question whether a stereotype threat paradigm can be applied effectively to pregnancy-related stereotypes. This work has implications for the advancement of stereotype threat as a theory and contributes to the reappraisal of the utility of stereotype threat as a way of understanding how stereotypes affect performance.     

Are Moral Emotions Key to Informed Risk Decisions? A Commentary on Sabine Roeser,Risk, Technology,and Moral Emotions

Science and Engineering Ethics -     

Multiplying Obstetrics: Techniques of Surveillance and Forms of Coordination

The article argues against the common notion ofdisciplinary medical traditions, i.e. Obstetrics, asmacro-structures that quite unilinearily structure thepractices associated with the discipline. It shows that the various existences of Obstetrics, their relations with practices and vice versa, the entities these obstetrical practices render present and related, and the ways they are connected to experiences, are more complex than the unilinear model suggests. What allows participants to go from one topos to another – from Obstetrics to practice, from practice to politics, from politics to experience – is not self-evidently induced by Obstetrics, but needs to be studied as a surprising range of passages that connect (or don't). Techniques and devices to supervise the delivery, to render present the fetus during pregnancy, and to monitoring birth, are described in order to show that such techniques acquire different roles in connecting and creating Obstetrics as a system andobstetrical practices.     

Instructional effects in the use of the mnemonic keyword method for learning German nouns and their grammatical gender

The use of the mnemonic keyword method involves (a) the formation of an orthographic link between the form of a foreign word and that of a physically similar word in one's mother tongue (i.e. the keyword), and (b) the formation of a semantic link between the referent of the foreign word and that of the keyword. In a variation of this study method, English-speaking learners were asked to study the grammatical gender of German nouns by substituting the concepts of a woman, a man, and an inanimate object for the feminine, masculine, and neuter genders, respectively. This more concrete representation of gender was then to be incorporated to an interactive image along with the referent of the keyword and that of the German noun. The three experiments reported in this paper yielded four main results: (a) instructing learners to recode the gender tag and to include its representation into an interactive mental image along with the referent of the German noun facilitated the recall of genders: (b) the facilitating effect of imagery instructions on the recall of genders was obtained only if the English translation was recalled; (c) the probability of correctly reporting the gender given that the English translation was not recalled was higher than the baseline for guessing if the learners were instructed to encode the gender before the translation, otherwise it was consistently near the baseline: and (d) in contrast with prior studies with French-speaking subjects, the modified keyword method did not always enhance the recall of the familiar translation equivalents. The discussion bears mainly on the factors that might account for the difficulty of detecting a consistent keyword advantage in the recall of the familiar translation.     

The Syzygy,Reformulation and New Perspectives: Dreams,Anima-Animus and Gender1

The main objective of this qualitative and quantitative research paper is to explore the occurrences and relations of the anima, animus and androgynous in dreams, with particular emphasis on the consideration of the androgynous in the human psyche. The sample consists of 9 series of dreams (141 dreams in total), from 9 dreamers, 7 women (female sex/gender) and 2 men (male sex/gender), aged 25–57, heterosexual, undergoing Jungian psychotherapy, and presenting couple-related themes. Statistical results and qualitative analysis offer new input for the re-vision of the classical anima-animus model, and the addition of in-depth explorations into the androgynous, paving the way for a new model of psychopathology and psychotherapeutic clinical work, in transition.     

Predictors of Emotional Security in Survivors of Interpersonal Violence

As emotional security theory has recently been extended to understand recovery from interpersonal violence, the present study aimed to understand whether and to what extent trauma-specific aspects of the family environment (caregiver responses to disclosure, non-disclosure) and more general aspects of the family environment (interparental conflict, parental invalidation of emotions) explained variance in emotional security in the family in a sample of emerging adults with a history of interpersonal violence (physical or sexual abuse or assault). Results indicated that substantiated aspects of the interparental subsystem (interparental conflict) and parent–child subsystem (parental invalidation of emotions) predicted all three aspects of emotional security (preoccupation, disengagement, and security) in regression models where trauma-specific variables were included. Additionally, non-supportive caregiver response to disclosed trauma also accounted for significant variance in felt security, supporting the idea that problematic caregiver responses to traumatic events can erode emotional security for survivors of interpersonal violence, in addition to broader patterns in the interparental and parent–child subsystems.     

Healthy ageing,perceived motor‐efficacy,and performance on cognitively demanding action tasks

Current measures assessing older adults' functional ability detect existing limitations on essential tasks rather than changes in other aspects of functioning that could indicate future limitations. The perceived motor‐efficacy scale was developed to measure capability beliefs of healthy older adults across a range of daily action tasks. Subscales were developed through interviews with older volunteers and academics, then administered to participants aged 60–96 (N=300). Factor analysis of subscale scores produced 10 subscales. These demonstrated strong internal reliability, which was replicated with a second sample aged 60–92 (N=167). The influence of perceived motor‐efficacy on performance of cognitively demanding action tasks was investigated with a third sample aged 60–88 (N=134). On a task assessing the inhibition of an inappropriate action, older adults in their 80s with high confidence produced minor errors, whereas those with lower confidence produced extreme errors. On another task assessing the ability to inhibit a previously learnt action, those with high levels of perceived motor‐efficacy performed better amongst those least able to inhibit, but more poorly among those most able. Perceived motor‐efficacy may therefore be useful in identifying older adults at risk of functional limitations and enabling interventions before the onset of illness.