Winnicott's invitation to ‘further games of Jung‐analysis’

Winnicott signs off his celebrated review of Jung's (1963) autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections with the warning that translation of ‘erreichten’ as ‘attained’ (implying assimilation) rather than as ‘reached to’, could ‘queer the pitch for further games of Jung‐analysis’. This subtly underscores his view that Jung—who he described earlier as ‘mentally split’ and lacking ‘a self with which to know’—remained essentially dissociated. However, Winnicott, whilst immersed in this work on Jung, wrote a letter to Michael Fordham describing himself as suffering ‘a lifelong malady’ of ‘dissociation’. But this he now reported repaired through a ‘splitting headache’ dream of destruction, dreamt ‘for Jung, and for some of my patients, as well as for myself’ (Winnicott 1989, p. 228). Winnicott's recurrent concern during his last decade was with ‘reaching to’—that quintessential Winnicottian term—some reparative experience that could address such difficulties in constellating a ‘unit self’. This is correlated with his engagement with Jung and tracked through his contemporaneous clinical work, particularly ‘Fear of Breakdown’ (1963). Themes first introduced by Sedgwick (2008) and developed by the author's earlier ‘Winnicott on Jung; destruction, creativity and the unrepressed unconscious’ (2011) are given further consideration.     

Presentation modality and proactive interference in short-term retention using a mixed-morality distractor task

Two experiments investigated the release from PI following a shift in mode of presentation of the study words. In each experiment, the interpolated task required processing of both auditory (A) and visual (V) information. The results were the same with mixed lists (Experiment I) and with independent groups (Experiment II): A release from PI was obtained following an A to V shift but not following a V to A shift. It was concluded that the mixed-modality filler task has functional characteristics very similar to those of an A filler and that the filler task influences the memory code for study items.     

Forgivingness, vengeful rumination, and affective traits

Trait forgivingness is the disposition to forgive interpersonal transgressions over time and across situations. We define forgiveness as the replacement of negative unforgiving emotions with positive, other-oriented emotions. Rumination has been suggested as a mediator between forgivingness and emotional outcomes; however, we suggest that different content of rumination leads to different outcomes after transgressions. In four studies of 179, 233, 80, and 66 undergraduate students, trait forgivingness was negatively correlated with trait anger, hostility, neuroticism, fear, and vengeful rumination and was positively correlated with agreeableness, extraversion, and trait empathy. The disposition to ruminate vengefully mediated the relationship between trait forgivingness and (1) anger-related traits and (2) both revenge motivations and state anger following a specific recent transgression, but it did not mediate between forgivingness and (1) fearfulness and (2) avoidance motivations following a specific transgression. Self-hate statements, a proxy for depressive rumination, mediated the relationship between forgivingness and both depression and fearfulness but not the relationship between forgivingness and trait anger. Future research should distinguish the contents of mental rumination following interpersonal transgressions.     

Psychological Adaptation of Chinese Sojourners in Canada

Psychological adaptation during acculturation was studied among 68 Chinese sojourners (students and visiting scholars from China and Hong Kong), 28 Chinese immigrant and Chinese-Canadian students, 30 Chinese students and scholars in China, and 33 non-Chinese Canadian students. Each participant completed questionnaires pertaining to various aspects of their lives and personalities, including: health beliefs and behaviours; problems and ways of coping; social contact and acculturation attitudes; psychological and physical health; and subjective adaptation. The Chinese sojourners reported lower English fluency, lower ease of making friendships, more adaptation and communication problems, and lower subjective adaptation than non-Chinese Canadian, or Chinese-Canadian students. The Chinese sojourners experienced less desired and actual contact, more contact incongruity, more separation and less assimilation than Chinese-Canadian students. The Chinese sojourners reacted to their problems with less wishful thinking and self-blame, and more tension reduction, and the seeking of informational support than non-Chinese Canadian students. There were significant differences between groups in health concept and health causation, and believed and utilized health ways. Health causation, and believed and utilised health ways were the most important factors influencing the Chinese sojourners' health status. The Chinese sojourners experienced more problems, but tended to use fewer health ways after-arrival than pre-departure. The Chinese also experienced poorer health, especially poorer psychological health after-arrival than pre-departure. The longitudinal and cross-sectional analysis of the Chinese sojourners' Cawte scores supported the U-curve hypothesis.     

Contextual Career Counseling for Transitioning Military Veterans

Military culture is a unique subset of the United States, complete with its own language, writing style, norms, membership, rank structure, values, and laws (Harmon, 2007 ). Using contextual theory for career counseling, counselor educators can assist counselors‐in‐training in understanding the effects of the military environment on clients who are military veterans. This article includes a review of the literature and a call for research.     

Self-schematic representation of the type A and B behavior patterns

Past research has established clear behavioral differences between Type A and B individuals. The purpose of our research was to examine how these behavioral differences are represented in the self-definitions of Type As and Bs. We investigated the existence of Type A and B self-schemata by using two tasks designed to measure the influence of these hypothetical structures on speed of processing and memory interference. During an initial task, Type As and Bs made self-relevant decisions (like me, not like me) in response to trait adjectives previously scaled as Type A, Type B, or neutral in content. Reaction times for the decisions were measured, and results indicated that both Type As and Bs made faster decisions for schema-compatible responses than for schema-incompatible responses. On a second task, Type As and Bs were tested for recognition memory after they attempted to memorize half of the aforementioned trait list. Memory errors were examined and indicated that Type As and Bs made more errors that were compatible with their respective self-schemata. Taken together, these results indicate that a Type A and B distinction forms a reliable organizing framework for the self-definitions of Type As and Bs. The existence of stable cognitive structures that parallel the behavioral differences between Type As and Bs has important implications for both theory and application.     

Longitudinal Predictors of Alcohol‐Related Harms During the Transition to Adulthood

While a range of factors have been found to increase the likelihood of alcohol‐related harms among young people, little is known about their relative importance. This article aimed to identify the risks for alcohol‐related harms at an age when alcohol use and problems tend to peak in Australia (19–20 years). A wide range of concurrent and antecedent factors from multiple domains were examined using path analysis, including individual characteristics, family environment, and externalising and internalising problems. The sample comprised of 941 individuals from the Australian Temperament Project, a large longitudinal community‐based study. The path model controlled for current risky drinking and revealed a number of variables that were significant longitudinal predictors of alcohol‐related harms within each of the domains, including adolescent antisocial behaviour and drinking behaviour, low agreeableness, impulsivity, and paternal drinking levels. The potential for developmental prevention approaches to reduce alcohol‐related harms by targeting externalising behaviour problems, interpersonal influences, and individual characteristics is discussed.     

Simulating murder: the aversion to harmful action

Diverse lines of evidence point to a basic human aversion to physically harming others. First, we demonstrate that unwillingness to endorse harm in a moral dilemma is predicted by individual differences in aversive reactivity, as indexed by peripheral vasoconstriction. Next, we tested the specific factors that elicit the aversive response to harm. Participants performed actions such as discharging a fake gun into the face of the experimenter, fully informed that the actions were pretend and harmless. These simulated harmful actions increased peripheral vasoconstriction significantly more than did witnessing pretend harmful actions or to performing metabolically matched nonharmful actions. This suggests that the aversion to harmful actions extends beyond empathic concern for victim harm. Together, these studies demonstrate a link between the body and moral decision-making processes.     

An asymmetric test of homogeneity of proportions

An asymmetrical test of homogeneity of proportions possesses distinct advantages over a symmetrical test. The symmetric chi square test of homogeneity is widely employed in psychological research. An asymmetrical alternative to the chi square test of homogeneity is proposed and described.     

On the status of unconscious memory: Merikle and Reingold (1991) revisited

Four experiments are reported that reevaluate P. M. Merikle and E. M. Reingold's (1991) demonstration of unconscious memory: the greater sensitivity to familiarity (repetition) of an indirect (implicit) memory task than of a comparable direct (explicit) task. At study, participants named the cued member of a pair of visually presented words. At test, new and uncued study words were presented against a background mask. Participants judged whether each word was old or new (direct task) or whether the contrast between the word and the background was high or low (indirect task). Contrary to the original findings, the sensitivity of the indirect task to familiarity never exceeded that of the direct task. These findings pose a challenge to a key pillar of evidence for unconscious influences of memory.