Rorschach test findings at the beginning of treatment and 2 years later, with a 30-year follow-up

In this article, I report a case containing 2 Rorschach assessments-the first (R1) 30 years ago at the beginning of a 4-year period of psychotherapy and the second (R2) 2 years later. I also recently contacted the patient to obtain information about his life during the 26 years since termination. This report examines the 2 Rorschach protocols-combining the Comprehensive System (CS; Exner, 2003) structural summaries with thematic content analysis-in relation to the patient's history, treatment, and 30-year outcome. I focus on the change between R1 and R2, particularly the shift from an introversive to an ambitent EB and a corresponding shift from 6 Y responses on R1 to 6 m responses on R2. In the clinical interpretation, I considered these shifts in a context of the patient's patterns of managing destabilization and overstimulation.     

Questioning nuclear waste substitution: a case study

This article looks at the ethical quandaries, and their social and political context, which emerge as a result of international nuclear waste substitution. In particular it addresses the dilemmas inherent within the proposed return of nuclear waste owned by Japanese nuclear companies and currently stored in the United Kingdom. The UK company responsible for this waste, British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL), wish to substitute this high volume intermediate-level Japanese-owned radioactive waste for a much lower volume of much more highly radioactive waste. Special focus is given to ethical problems that they, and the UK government, have not wished to address as they move forward with waste substitution. The conclusion is that waste substitution can only be considered an ethical practice if a set of moderating conditions are observed by all parties. These conditions are listed and, as of yet, they are not being observed.     

Individual attitudes and perceived social norms: Reports on HIV/AIDS‐related stigma among service providers in China

This study examined HIV/AIDS‐related stigma among Chinese service providers by comparing their personal attitudes toward people living with HIV/AIDS with their perception of social norms related to people living with HIV/AIDS. We randomly selected three provincial hospitals, four city/prefecture hospitals, 10 county hospitals, 18 township health clinics, and 54 village clinics from Yunnan, China. Doctors and nurses were randomly sampled proportionally to the doctor–nurse ratio of each hospital or clinic. Lab technicians were over‐sampled in order to include an adequate representation in the analysis. A total of 1,101 service providers participated in a voluntary, anonymous survey where demographic characteristics, individual attitude and perceived social norms toward people living with HIV/AIDS, discrimination intent at work, general prejudicial attitude and knowledge on HIV/AIDS were measured. A majority of the sample demonstrated a similarity between their personal views and what they thought most people in society believe. Multiple logistic regressions revealed that participants who were younger or reported personal contact with people living with HIV/AIDS were significantly more likely to report personal attitudes toward the population that were more liberal than their perceived social norms. Holding a more liberal personal attitude toward people living with HIV/AIDS than perceived social norms was significantly and negatively related to the level of discrimination intent at work, perceived discrimination at interpersonal level and the level of general prejudicial attitude toward people living with HIV/AIDS. Results underscored the importance of understanding social norms and personal attitudes in studying HIV‐related stigma and called for the incorporation of existing human capital into future HIV stigma reduction programs.     

The embodied self: thinking psychoanalytically in a time of 'science'

Abstract :  In order to be relevant in our 'scientific' times, it is necessary that we psychoanalysts situate our ideas in thoughtful and respectful relationship to neighbouring disciplines such as genetics, cultural studies, and neuro-anatomy. In this paper I suggest that, although psychoanalysis still continues to have valuable contributions to make to the understanding of human sexual experience and behaviour, in order to make these contributions relevant we must tune in with openness to the challenges posed by the unfolding discoveries in the other disciplines that grapple with the arena of human sexuality.
I will suggest ways in which research on sexual desire and gender identity may be assimilated into psychoanalytic thinking and give some examples of its use in analytic practice.     

Imaging intelligence with proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy

Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (¹H-MRS) is a technique for the assay of brain neurochemistry in vivo. N-acetylaspartate (NAA), the most prominent metabolite visible within the ¹H-MRS spectrum, is found primarily within neurons. The current study was designed to further elucidate NAA–cognition relationships, particularly whether such relationships are moderated by sex, or tissue type (gray or white matter). We administered standard measures of intelligence to 63 young, healthy subjects and obtained spectroscopic imaging data within a slab of tissue superior to the lateral ventricles. We found that lower NAA within right anterior gray matter predicted better performance VIQ (F = 6.83, p = .011, r² = .10), while higher NAA within the right posterior gray matter region predicted better PIQ (F = 8.175, p = .006, r² = .12). These findings add to the small but growing body of literature linking brain biochemistry to intelligence in normal healthy subjects using ¹H-MRSI.     

Electrophysiological responses to auditory novelty in temperamentally different 9‐month‐old infants

Behavioral reactivity to novel stimuli in the first half‐year of life has been identified as a key aspect of early temperament and a significant precursor of approach and withdrawal tendencies to novelty in later infancy and early childhood. The current study examines the neural signatures of reactivity to novel auditory stimuli in 9‐month‐old infants in relation to prior temperamental reactivity. On the basis of the assessment of behavioral reactivity scores at 4 months of age, infants were classified into groups of high negatively reactive and high positively reactive infants. Along with an unselected control group, these groups of temperamentally different infants were given a three‐stimulus auditory oddball task at 9 months of age which employed frequent standard and infrequent deviant tones as well as a set of complex novel sounds. In comparison to high positively reactive and control infants, high negatively reactive infants displayed increased amplitude of a positive slow wave in the ERP response to deviant tones compared to standard tones. In contrast, high positively reactive infants showed a larger novelty P3 to the complex novel sounds. Results are discussed in terms of optimal levels of novelty for temperamentally different infants.