Current developments in the practice of individual psychoanalytic psychodrama in France

The authors present the history of individual psychoanalytic psychodrama and its current developments as practised in France. They put forward the technique, objectives and rules, along with the indications, limits and risks that ensue from the specific nature of this therapeutic approach. Through its technical adjustments, individual psychoanalytic psychodrama provides a therapeutic option that is appropriate to the defences prevalent in many patients that cause classical psychotherapies to fail: massive inhibition, operative functioning far removed from affects or in false self mode; phobias, disavowal or splitting of the internal psychic life and emotions; prevalence of short discharge circuits in acted-out behaviours and bodily or visceral complaints and expressions. Psychodrama utilizes these defences not in order to eliminate them but to 'subvert' them so that they can continue to carry out their protective role, in particular ensuring narcissistic continuity. At the same time, psychodrama relaxes these defences and facilitates a possible filtering through of the repressed material. Through the number of actors and the diffraction of transference that this allows, psychodrama provides a possibility of adjusting the potentially traumatic effect of the encounter with the object and the instigation of the transference in the regressive dimension induced by any psychotherapeutic process.     

Anxiety, advice, and the ability to discern: feeling anxious motivates individuals to seek and use advice

Across 8 experiments, the influence of anxiety on advice seeking and advice taking is described. Anxious individuals are found to be more likely to seek and rely on advice than are those in a neutral emotional state (Experiment 1), but this pattern of results does not generalize to other negatively valenced emotions (Experiment 2). The relationships between anxiety and advice seeking and anxiety and advice taking are mediated by self-confidence; anxiety lowers self-confidence, which increases advice seeking and reliance upon advice (Experiment 3). Although anxiety also impairs information processing, impaired information processing does not mediate the relationship between anxiety and advice taking (Experiment 4). Finally, anxious individuals are found to fail to discriminate between good and bad advice (Experiments 5a-5c), and between advice from advisors with and without a conflict of interest (Experiment 6).     

Micro-ecological behavior and intergroup contact

Research evaluating intergroup contact has tended to rely on self-report measures. Drawing on recent micro-ecological research, the two studies reported here used a multi-method approach to examine contact in a more holistic fashion. This involved the measurement of observable behavior at the micro-level, intergroup attitudes via infrahumanization and focus groups. Participants were taking part in a community intervention program in Northern Ireland. We conclude that micro-ecological behavior is not necessarily indicative of outgroup attitudes. Although behavior and attitudes changed in line with one another in Study 1 (less aggregation and significantly less infrahumanization), there were no infrahumanization differences between those who sat beside an outgroup member and those who did not. Importantly, the work presented here illustrates a unique method that allows micro-ecological behavioral observations to be made for the first time in non-racial settings.     

The reckonings of Nahmanides and Arnold of Villanova: on the early contacts between Christian millenarianism and Jewish messianism

Historians of the last generation have shown that millenarian circles played a critical role in transforming attitudes towards Jews and Judaism in early modern Europe. Furthermore, the Joachimist leanings that opened the way in early modern times for a rapprochement between Christians and Jews, they found, were already there in the Middle Ages. My aim here is to consider the case of Arnold of Villanova, a?lay supporter of the radical Franciscans. A?major stimulus for Arnold’s eschatological ideas was his wrestling with messianic notions widespread among Jews, especially kabbalists. However, at this early stage, messianic or millenarian expectations were associated, among both Jews and Christians, with a confrontational stance.     

Building the perfect curse word: A psycholinguistic investigation of the form and meaning of taboo words

Taboo words represent a potent subset of natural language. It has been hypothesized that “tabooness” reflects an emergent property of negative valence and high physiological arousal of word referents. Many taboo words (e.g., dick, shit) are indeed consistent with this claim. Nevertheless, American English is also rife with negatively valenced, highly arousing words the usage of which is not socially condemned (e.g., cancer, abortion, welfare). We evaluated prediction of tabooness of single words and novel taboo compound words from a combination of phonological, lexical, and semantic variables (e.g., semantic category, word length). For single words, physiological arousal and emotional valence strongly predicted tabooness with additional moderating contributions from form (phonology) and meaning (semantic category). In Experiment 2, raters judged plausibility for combinations of common nouns with taboo words to form novel taboo compounds (e.g., shitgibbon). A mixture of formal (e.g., ratio of stop consonants, length) and semantic variables (e.g., ± receptacle, ± profession) predicted the quality of novel taboo compounding. Together, these studies provide complementary evidence for interactions between word form and meaning and an algorithmic prediction of tabooness in American English. We discuss applications for models of taboo word representation.