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.     

Effects of gait pattern and arm swing on intergirdle coordination

Mature locomotion in humans is characterized by an anti-phase coordination (moving in opposite directions) between the pelvic and the scapular girdles. This pattern involves a specific relationship between the arm and leg motion is deemed to be most flexible and dynamically efficient. Still, when the arms are involved in another task, like a field player running with a ball in the hands, locomotion is still possible. In order to probe the flexibility of the locomotor synergy, the present study aimed to determine the persistence and the strength of the coordination patterns between the pelvic and scapular girdles when no arm swing was allowed during walking and running. Relative phase, the time difference between the girdle rotations, measured the ongoing inter-girdle coordination of eight healthy participants asked to walk and run with or without arm swing. Results showed that an absence of arm swing led to a change from an anti-phase to in-phase pattern (girdles moving in the same direction) and that an increase in velocity strengthened the adopted pattern. Moreover, the frequency distribution of relative phase for all gait patterns with arm swing proved to be bimodal, indicating that the prevailing anti-phase pattern was always mixed with a noticeable proportion of in-phase coordination. The presence of the in-phase pattern in the easy, natural locomotion with arm swing manifests its persistence and its stability, perhaps pertaining to its prevalence in earlier times in ontogeny or evolution.     

Mapping the tip of the tongue--deprivation, sensory sensitisation, and oral haptics

We investigated the impact of food deprivation on oral and manual haptic size perception of food and non-food objects. From relevant theories (need-proportional perception, motivated perception, frustrative nonreward, perceptual defence, and sensory sensitisation) at least four completely different competing predictions can be derived. Testing these predictions, we found across four experiments that participants estimated the length of both non-food and food objects to be larger when hungry than when satiated, which was true only for oral haptic perception, while manual haptic perception was not influenced by hunger state. Subjectively reported hunger correlated positively with estimated object size in oral, but not in manual, haptic perception. The impact of food deprivation on oral perception vanished after oral stimulations even for hungry individuals. These results favour a sensory sensitisation account maintaining that hunger itself does not alter oral perception but the accompanying lack of sensory stimulation of the oral mucosa. Both oral and manual haptic perception tended to underestimate actual object size. Finally, an enhancing effect of domain-target matching was found, ie food objects were perceived larger by oral than by manual haptics, while non-food objects were perceived larger by manual than by oral haptics.     

Functions and timescale of self-cutting in participants suffering from borderline personality disorder

The purpose of this study was to examine the meanings and timescale of self-cuttings in a cohort of 22 outpatients suffering from borderline personality disorder. Sixty-one events were recorded using the newly developed self-cutting-checklist (SCUC) designed to investigate the severity of self-cuttings, and intent to die, suicidal ideation, inner tension, sense of relief and anesthesia, and consequences associated with this behavior. We found that typical self-cuttings were associated with a decrease in inner tension and suicidal ideation. Moreover self-cuttings associated with a desire to die differentiated from those associated with no desire to die by significantly less reduction in inner tension. Finally, self-cuttings occurred significantly more often during evenings and nights than during daytime. In conclusion, self-cuttings can be reasonably addressed by self-report. Attention to specific issues such as intent to die and the time of the self-cuttings may improve the outcome of these particularly high-risk subjects.     

L’expertise judiciaire n’est pas un préalable obligatoire au changement de sexe à l’état civil pour les personnes transsexuelles

The changing of the sex designation on the civil status for transsexual persons in France is not governed by the legislator but by the case law, the Court of cassation. This system is now insufficient, given the unequal treatment between citizens among jurisdictions. Courts and ministerial orders cannot compensate such a situation. A legislative intervention seems to be necessary. The recent decisions from the Court of cassation have awakened fears regarding the so-called obligation of a legal and medical examination before a changing of the sex designation. We do consider that it is not a preliminary stage to succeed for such a proceeding.