The capacity to symbolise: Ideas and implications

Through a literature review and clinical examples of session material and dreams, this paper explores aspects of the origin and development of the capacity to symbolise. The literature review considers Freud’s thinking on symbols in dreams, hysteria and obsessional neurosis, Klein’s discovery of the importance of unconscious phantasy, Bion’s ideas on the psychotic part of the mind and Bick’s seminal ideas on skin as an important symbolic boundary between psyche and soma. The clinical material in this paper is used to demonstrate the capacity to symbolise, reasons for the impairment of this capacity, and how the translation of symbols through interpretation in a therapeutic setting can enable the symbols to acquire meaning. It includes examples both of the author’s work with adults and of other clinicians’ work with a child and an adolescent in a psychotic state of mind. The paper’s aim is to consolidate the idea that the capacity to symbolise grows out of an optimal early parent/child relationship and that the awareness of the significance of the symbols when they have been interpreted is of crucial importance.     

The underutilization of applied psychology

Abstract

The utilization of social science and in particular of applied psychology is a complex process, beset with obstacles. Five approaches to gathering knowledge are described and a conceptually important distinction is made between Action-Research and Research-Action. The paper analyses a number of obstacles to utilization from the point of view of the research community, the potential user and the academic institutions which support the work. Evidence in relation to five barriers to application is used to identify a tentative model of underutilization.     

Working under cover: performance‐related self‐confidence among members of contextually devalued groups who try to pass

This paper experimentally examines the effects of passing (versus revealing) a contextually devalued identity on performance‐related self‐confidence. An experimental scenario was developed on the basis of the results of a pilot study. Studies 1 and 2 (total N = 255) experimentally manipulate passing versus revealing a contextually devalued identity, to an ingroup or an outgroup partner. The results show that, although passing makes participants believe that their partner has more positive expectations of them, it also undermines performance‐related self‐confidence. Moreover, the results show that negative self‐directed affect (i.e., guilt and shame) mediated the negative effect of passing on performance‐related self‐confidence. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social learning influences on menstrual symptoms and illness behavior

The contribution of learning to the adult experience of illness was investigated by asking 351 nursing students how their mothers reacted to menstrual symptoms and cold symptoms during their adolescence and how their mothers behaved when they themselves had menstrual symptoms. Mothers of respondents were independently asked the same questions. Nursing students who had been encouraged to adopt a sick role for menses or whose mothers modeled menstrual distress reported significantly more menstrual symptoms, clinic visits, and disability days for these symptoms as adults. Similarly, those encouraged to adopt a sick role for colds or who lived with a chronically ill person reported more clinic visits and disability days for nongynecological symptoms. Specific types of symptom reports and health care appeared to be learned: Encouragement and modeling of the menstrual sick role were more highly correlated with symptom reports, clinic visits, and absenteeism for menstrual than for nongynecological symptoms, and encouragement of the cold sick role was more highly correlated with nongynecological than with menstrual clinic visits and absenteeism.     

Perestrojka and literature: Texts and context

Conclusions? Are any conclusions to be had? We have shown how, at all levels, the system of Soviet literature, has both persisted and fallen into disrepair. The rigid model of socialist realism that took hold during the danovist period no longer exists. However, its presence is still felt not only as a constant negative point of reference, but through the numerous structures that grew out of it. Changes set in motion during the thaw continue at an accelerated pace for the sake ofperestrojka. All the same, five years later the latter has yet to achieve its literary revolution.There is one fundamental change. It would be an anachronism to organize today a conference on One or two Russian literatures?, as in Geneva some years ago. But will this merging of the separate branches of Russian literature go beyond confusion in the direction of a development describable as organic? Will the different components of the transformed system become compatible?Only time will tell and, it is hoped, dispell our doubts.TRANSLATED BY E. M. SWIDERSKI     

Changes in naming ability with age

We administered to 80 optimally healthy subjects, 30-80 years old, the Boston Naming Test, a test of confrontation naming. Results indicated that naming ability remains fairly stable across the adult life span until individuals are in their 70s, at which point there is a significant decline in performance (p less than or equal to .0001). Semantic errors (i.e., circumlocutions, semantically related associates, and nominalizations) and perceptual errors increase with age. Lexical errors (i.e., phonologically related real words and phonologically related nonwords) do not increase with age. Results of multiple regressions that included other neuropsychological variables indicate that estimated IQ, but not new learning ability, predicts a subject's naming score.     

Limits to participative leadership: Task,structure and skill as contingencies-a German-British comparison

The research investigated the relationship between managerial decision-making and a set of specified contingent situational factors: decision type, perceived skill requirements and objective skill inputs. The study was based on 663 German and British managers in two interlocking senior management levels of 37 large enterprises. The data were collected by means of Group Feedback Analysis as part of a large study of managerial decision-making in eight countries. The results show a significant (p = <.05) relationship between the choice of decision styles and the postulated contingency variables. Only 1 % of 615 senior managers consistently use a single decision style, more than two-thirds use four or five different styles. Very large variations occur as a function of different decision tasks, perceived skill requirements and objective skill availability. There are differences between the relatively well matched samples of German and British managers, but they are less significant than the broadly similar way in which both samples respond to the particular contingencies under investigation. The results are interpreted in the context of an open systems contingency framework. Their action implications are seen to suggest a link with sociotechnical theory on job design and wider issues of organisational and social policy.     

Tactual picture identification by blind and sighted people: Effects of providing categorical information

Four experiments examined the influence of categorical information and visual experience on the identification of tangible pictures, produced with a raised-line drawing kit. In Experiment 1, prior categorical information aided the accuracy and speed of picture identification. In a second experiment, categorical information helped subjects when given after the examination of each picture, but before any attempt at identification. The benefits of categorical information were also obtained in another group of subjects, when the superordinate categories were named at the start of the experiment. In a third experiment, a multiple-choice picture recognition task was used to eliminate the difficulty of naming from the picture-identification task. The multiple-choice data showed higher accuracy and shorter latencies when compared with identification tasks. A fourth experiment evaluated picture identification in blindfolded sighted, early, and late blind participants. Congenitally blind subjects showed lower performance than did the other groups, despite the availability of prior categorical information. The data were consistent with theories that assume that visual imagery aids tactual perception in naming raised line drawings. It was proposed that part of the difficulty in identification of raised line pictures may derive from problems in locating picture categories or names, and not merely in perception of the patterns.     

Preschool children with externalizing behaviors: Experience of fathers and mothers

Childhood behavior disorders are related to family stress and maladjustment. Little is known, however, about the adjustment of families with preschool-aged children at risk for subsequent behavior disorders. Moreover, fathers' perceptions of child problem behavior and their reactions to it generally have been neglected. Subjects were mothers and fathers of 52 preschool-aged children assigned to one of three groups: control, moderate externalizing, and high externalizing. Higher child externalizing behavior was associated with greater negative family impact, lowered parenting sense of efficacy, and child-rearing practices that were more authoritarian and less authoritative. Mothers and fathers did not differ in actual perceived level of child behavior problems, although both believed that mothers saw more problems. Child Group × Parent interactions indicated that mothers experienced increased stress and a need for help with moderate as well as high child externalizing behaviors, whereas fathers were not elevated on these measures unless the child's externalizing behaviors were high. Implications of these findings for early family intervention are considered.This study is part of the Preschool Project, conducted at UCLA's Fernald Child Study Center, Co-PIs Bruce L. Baker and Barbara Henker. We appreciate the involvement of Barbara Henker, Erin Gallagher, Laurel Smith, and Terry Webster. We also appreciate the very helpful anonymous feedback from the two journal reviewers.