Du sollst Dir ein Bild machen

Zusammenfassung Die Gleichsetzung von Fokaltherapie mit Kurztherapie vernachlässigt die Erfahrungen, die mit einem fokalen analytischen Vorgehen gewonnen wurden, Erfahrungen, die für den analytischen Erkenntnisprozess insgesamt von großer Bedeutung sind.Ein Fokus stellt eine Hypothese dar, in der einzelne Themen in Form von Bildern zu einer fokalen Gestalt verbunden werden. Dies macht zunächst eine Reflexion des Gebrauches von Bildern und Metaphern in der Psychoanalyse notwendig, wo, ähnlich wie in der Philosophie oder Soziologie, eine Entwertung von Bildern stattfand. Latente Ängste vor schädlicher Regression und Wünsche nach völliger geistiger Ungebundenheit können hinter dieser Entwertung vermutet werden. Vernachlässigt wird dabei die Tatsache, dass unser Gehirn all unsere Sinneseindrücke zuerst als Bilder, nämlich als Hör-, Geruchs-, Geschmacks-, Tast- und Sehbilder wahrnimmt. Erst in einem nächsten Schritt werden daraus zunächst immer bildhafte Worte geformt.Ein weiteres Problem liegt in der häufigen Gleichsetzung von Fokus mit Einengung, was der offenen analytischen Grundhaltung zuwiderliefe und ebenfalls eine zu geringe Rezeption des Fokus im Rahmen der Psychoanalyse verständlich machen würde.In dieser Arbeit wird betont, dass das Erarbeiten eines Fokus, das Fokussieren, eine integrative Funktion hat, mit der die offen-chaotischen und die zielgerichtet-strukturierten Aspekte der analytischen Technik verbunden werden. Das Ergebnis dieses integrativen Prozesses ist ein sich allmählich ausdifferenzierendes inneres Bild, eine fokale Gestalt. Diese Vorgänge, die von Gestaltpsychologen bereits zu Beginn des 20. Jh. beschrieben worden sind, können auf den in jeder Analyse stattfindenden Erkenntnisprozess übertragen werden. Sie finden in jedem Analytiker statt, werden aber meist nicht bewusst reflektiert und genutzt. Die psychoanalytische Heuristik kann als ein fokaler Gestaltkreis beschrieben werden, in dem die offenen und die strukturierten Anteile analytischer Haltung und Technik zusammengefügt werden und sich zu einem immer differenzierteren inneren Bild des Patienten weiterentwickeln. Eine wichtige Konsequenz für die Ausbildung wäre daher eine Förderung der frühen Wahrnehmungsfähigkeit für solche inneren Bilder durch Übungen im Fokussieren.

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You should make a pictureFocus — metaphor — psychoanalytic heuristics

To consider focal therapy simply as a form of short-therapy means to miss the experiences gained by a focal analytical method which are, actually, highly important for psychoanalytic epistemology as a whole. A focus is a hypothesis connecting specific themes in form of images into a focal Gestalt. Thats why it is necessary to reflect first the use of images and metaphor in psychoanalysis in general, as, similar to philosophy and sociology, it came to a devaluation of images in psychoanalysis as well. Latent fears of harmful regression and the wish for absolute mental independency may be supposed to be the reason for it. The fact, that our brain perceives all our impressions in the first instance as images, in fact, as auditive, taste- haptic and visual images, was neglected. Only in a second step these images are modified into words which at first always have a pictorial quality.A further problem is, that focus is often misinterpreted as restriction contradicting an open psychoanalytic basic attitude. This may also have contributed to the poor reception of the focus in psychoanalysis.The author emphasizes that working out a focus has an integrative function which serves to connect the open-chaotic and the goal-oriented aspects of the psychoanalytic technique. The result of these integrative processes is a gradually developing inner image, a focal Gestalt. Processes like these, described already at the beginning of the 20th century by Gestalt psychologists, may be transferred onto the process of gaining insight going on in every psychoanalysis. They occur in every analyst, but remain in most cases unreflected and are not consciously used. Psychoanalytic heuristics can be described as a focal Gestalt circle bringing together the open and the structured components of psychoanalytic atittude and technique, which develop to a more and more differentiated inner image of the patient. An important consequence of these considerations for psychoanalytic training should be, to develop, by exercises in focussing, the ability of perceiving such inner images quite early.

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Herrn Prof. Dr. Rolf Klüwer zum 80. Geburtstag gewidmet.     

Group decision making in hidden profile situations: dissent as a facilitator for decision quality

The effect of diversity in individual prediscussion preferences on group decision quality was examined in an experiment in which 135 three-person groups worked on a personnel selection case with 4 alternatives. The information distribution among group members constituted a hidden profile (i.e., the correct solution was not identifiable on the basis of the members' individual information and could be detected only by pooling and integrating the members' unique information). Whereas groups with homogeneous suboptimal prediscussion preferences (no dissent) hardly ever solved the hidden profile, solution rates were significantly higher in groups with prediscussion dissent, even if none of these individual prediscussion preferences were correct. If dissent came from a proponent of the correct solution, solution rates were even higher than in dissent groups without such a proponent. The magnitude of dissent (i.e., minority dissent or full diversity of individual preferences) did not affect decision quality. The beneficial effect of dissent on group decision quality was mediated primarily by greater discussion intensity and to some extent also by less discussion bias in dissent groups.     

Honeybee methodology, cognition, and theory: recording local directional decisions in interpatch foraging and interpreting their theoretical relevance

Investigations made into the cognitive decision making of honeybees (Apis mellifera) traveling from one flower patch to another flower patch (interpatch foraging) are few. To facilitate such research, we present methods to artificially emulate interpatch foraging and quantify the immediate decision making of honeybees (within 50 cm) choosing to fly an interpatch path. These “Interpatch Methods” are validated, applied, and shown to produce novel information for the field of honeybee spatial cognition. Generally, we demonstrate that a single foraging cohort of honeybees is shown to be capable of making decisions based upon different sets of learned cues, in the exact same context. Specifically, both terminal beacon orientation cues and compass navigation cues can guide the cognitive decision making of interpatch foraging honeybees; our bees chose both cues equally. Finally, the theoretical importance of decision making for interpatch paths is compared with the other foraging paths (outward and homing) with respect to the information available to recruited foragers and scout foragers. We conclude that the ability to analyze interpatch foraging is critical for a more complete understanding of honeybee foraging cognition and that our methods are capable of providing that understanding.     

Multicriteria agency theory

This paper extends standard agency theoretic models to explicitly take into account the presence of multiple criteria at the agent level. Two approaches for this extension are discussed. In the first approach we consider only the minimum information that the principal might posses about the agent’s preferences for different criteria. It can be shown that in this context the principal has limited possibilities to influence the agent’s behaviour. In the second approach a richer information set is considered. In this context it is possible to determine probabilities of alternatives being selected by the agent. We also analyse how these probabilities can be influenced by the principal and how this affects the principal’s net profit. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reactions to self-discrepant feedback: Feminist attitude and symbolic self-completion

Reactions to self-discrepant feedback were theoretically and experimentally investigated. The conceptual frame was provided by the theory of symbolic self-completion. Starting from the assumption that attitudes can function as central aspects of self-definition, 81 female subjects were either presented with feedback that their attitudes were unfeminist (treatment, i.e. incompleteness condition) or they received no feedback (control condition) Then they were given the opportunity for self-symbolizing by subscribing to a feminist journal. Subjects with strongly pro-feminist attitudes who were made incomplete with respect to their feminist self-definition subscribed more often and more intensively to the feminist journal than others. The results illustrate that attitudes can take on the character of self-definitions. Furthermore, reactions to self-discrepant feedback concerning a central attitude were as predicted by the theory of symbolic self-completion.     

Opfer-überzeugungen

The public interest in ??new?? clinical symptoms is described exemplified by burnout, mobbing and trauma. In the background self-explanations by patients as well as interests of therapists can be recognized. Both can be understood as an expression of subconsciously reflected contemporary convictions. Post-traumatic stress syndrome and the sequelae of abuse, which are probably diagnosed too often in guideline correct psychotherapy, throw up questions on the appropriate therapy and possible injurious side effects. The social background to the psychotherapeutic fascination with trauma will be discussed.     

Personal correlates of contrasting environments: Student satisfactions in high school classrooms

American Journal of Community Psychology -