Anticipated Regret and Time Perspective: Changing Sexual Risk-taking Behavior

In two studies we test the effects of anticipated affective reactions such as regret on behavioral expectations and behavior. These effects were examined in the context of sexual risk-taking behavior. More specifically, we tested the impact of the anticipated feelings associated with unsafe sex on sexual risk-taking behavior. We assumed a difference between the feelingsabout unsafe sex and the feelings people anticipate to haveafter this behavior. Two studies tested the hypothesis that respondents who are induced to focus on their anticipated, post-behavioral feelings are more likely to report negative feelings such as regret and to adopt safer sexual practices than respondents who are asked to focus on their feelings about the behavior itself. Study 1 shows that anticipated feelings after unsafe sex were more negative than feelings about the behavioral act itself, and that respondents who were asked to consider these anticipated feelings expressed stronger expectations to reduce their risk in future interactions. Thus, asking respondents to take a wider time perspective, and to consider the feelings they would haveafter having had unsafe sex, resulted in ‘safer’ behavioral expectations. Study 2 replicates the findings of Study 1, and also yielded a reliable effect of the time perspective manipulation on actual, self-reported behavior. Respondents who were asked to report on their anticipated feelings after unsafe sex showed less risky behavior in the five months following the experiment than the remaining respondents. Thus, the induced focus on post-behavioral emotions increased the likelihood of preventive behavior. Implications of these findings for behavioral intervention programs are discussed.     

The paedophile and his inner world: Theoretical and clinical considerations on the analysis of a patient1

The main feature of the treatment of the paedophile is the distance that separates the analyst from the patient. However hard the analyst tries to understand his patient, the paedophile's world appears to him, especially at the beginning of the treatment, incomprehensible, disheartening and distant. This paper describes the analytic therapy of a paedophile patient. The psychopathological organization that dominates his inner world originates from a delusional nucleus in which an object (a child or an adolescent) is idealized and worshipped in place of the parents. This object promises all manner of pleasure and happiness. The positive outcome of this patient leads one to believe that, if analytically treated, some paedophile patients are open to therapeutic transformation.     

The importance of seeing what is not there: A quasi‐signal detection analysis of positive and negative behavior in newlywed couples

Partners scrutinize each other's behaviors to identify the quality of their relationship. Because people's perception of their partners' behavior is imperfect, they face a signal detection problem for which there are 4 outcomes: hits, misses, false alarms, and correct rejections. Research confirms the importance of hits, misses, and false alarms for relationship quality, but nothing is known about correct rejections. In a prospective study among newlywed couples, it was predicted and found that people are good at detecting the absence of partner behavior, especially negative partner behavior, and that these correct rejections are important for relationship quality above and beyond hits. Happy partners see reality in a way that maintains their happiness, which includes seeing what is not there.     

Reflections on the setting in the treatment of adolescents1

The author focuses on the signifi cance of the setting for the development of the psychoanalytic process, especially in the case of adolescents who request analytic treatment. Her main goals are to specify: a) how the setting is confi gured with this type of patients; and b) to what extent it contributes to the creation of an inner space that may internalize a fi gure with reverie‐a good object that will metabolize the bad and thus enable identifi cation. The setting, which is considered the necessary context for analytic work, is defi ned as bearing two facets: that of the analyst, which must be constant and stable, and that of the adolescent, which will progressively change provided that the analyst maintains a fi rm context that contributes to make the adolescent feel contained and accepted. It is such a feeling that will enable the unfolding of the analytic process. The author emphasizes the importance of the presence of the analyst (his or her voice, the manner of his or her speech, and so on), and the need for the analyst to comply with the rules he or she has established together with the patient. She presents a clinical case to illustrate this conceptualization.     

Sexual similarity,complementarity, accuracy,and overperception in same‐sex couples

We examined whether similarity, complementarity, accuracy, and positive illusions exist within the sex lives of same‐sex romantic couples. Partners had similar and complementary sexual desires and they perceived each other's desires with considerable accuracy; these effects were greater than in randomly matched pseudocouples. As evidence of positive sexual illusions, people overperceived sexual similarity and complementarity, and they overperceived the accuracy with which their partner knew their desires. Using actor–partner interdependence models (D. A. Kenny, D. A. Kashy, & W. L. Cook, 2006), similarity, complementarity, and positive illusions predicted sexual satisfaction, but a partner's actual accuracy did not. In parallel with earlier findings from heterosexual couples, this work indicates that positive sexual illusions are motivated cognitive processes that benefit sexual satisfaction, as theories of relationship maintenance suggest.     

‘Am I a Ceadas child?’: exploring the nature and experience of shame in the psychotherapy of an adolescent boy

Although shame is a central affect running through all phases of psychosexual and social development, it is usually masked by guilt and therefore it is not readily recognised, explored, and understood within the therapeutic situation. Moreover, there is a tendency to treat all shame manifestations as if they operate at the same level. The author proposes the need to distinguish between two qualitatively discrete manifestations of shame states which, albeit intertwined, operate at different levels and require different understanding and technique: a primary, unconscious kind based on psychobiological survival and triggered by a condition of psychic and physical danger, and a secondary, social shame, mainly conscious, based heavily on vision and evoked in social situations. The natural, primary form of shame becomes pathological after catastrophic chronic exposure of the primitive ego to unthinkable anxieties. Such premature rupture of primary skin containment may result in omnipotence-based pathological organisations impeding or precluding acceptance of guilt and need for reparation. Pathological primary shame predisposes the individual to states of pathological secondary shame. When initial traumatic conditions are re-activated and re-experienced in therapy, they may trigger re-enactments and, possibly, a negative therapeutic reaction. Recognising variations and mixed states of primary and secondary shame states, especially when shame is compounded with guilt, can provide guidance in the assessment of the fragility of the ego, and therefore inform our technique and the therapeutic process. This theoretical position is discussed with the help of clinical material from a twice-weekly psychotherapy of a 16-year-old boy imbued with shame compounded with guilt, related to transgenerational objectification and dehumanising experiences.