FROM PRIMARY MATERNAL PREOCCUPATION TO DEAD MOTHER*

Ferenczi (1929) writes about the unwelcome child who is not ushered into this world with care and grows up in the grip of the death instinct, with a depressive streak and a weakness in the capacity for life. Andre Green’s (1986) concept of the dead mother describes a similar phenomenon, by which the image of a loving mother is transformed into an inanimate, dead parent. The absent mother becomes the negative, which will then take up a central position in the child’s psyche. Winnicott (1956) describes a different maternal participation, and proposes that towards the end of her pregnancy the ordinary devoted mother develops a psychological condition which he calls primary maternal preoccupation, the main feature of which is the mother’s heightened attunement to her baby at the expense of all else. I suggest that there is a potent and clinically relevant connection among these concepts: a depressed or damaged mother can still provide temporary devotion before reverting back to a state of depressive absence and that, conversely, even the devoted mother will eventually recover from the state of primary maternal preoccupation and begin to tend to other matters, and the mother’s reclaiming herself can be traumatic for the child even under the best of circumstances. The connection among these concepts is illustrated with clinical material, including transference and countertransference implications, from the treatment of a young woman who grew up as an unwelcome child.     

The practice of speleology: What is its relationship with spatial abilities?

Cognitive Processing - Given the evidence of motor and exploring activities being related to spatial abilities on different scales, the present study considers the case of speleology, a peculiar...     

Do Abrupt-onset Peripheral Cues Attract Attention Automatically?

The proportion of peripheral cues that predicted at which of two locations a discrimination target would occur was manipulated in three experiments. Near cues occurred adjacent to the target and far cues occurred adjacent to the other location. In Experiment 1, near and far cues were presented in separate blocks so each predicted target location. Both types of cue produced benefit relative to a neutral baseline. In Experiment 2 expectancy for near versus far cues was manipulated. In one group, 80% of the peripheral cues were near; in another, only 20% were near; in a third, near and far cues occurred randomly. Near cues always produced benefit. Far cues produced benefit when they were expected, had no effect in the random group, and sometimes produced cost when they were unexpected. Experiment 3 repeated the near-expected and far-expected conditions, but target duration was shortened to 50 msec. A similar pattern emerged, except that near cues produced less benefit at longer SOAs when they were unexpected. The data suggest that peripheral, abrupt-onset cues may produce benefit via an automatic process, but that such a process is more like location priming than the capture of attention. Expectancy determines whether and where attentional resources will be allocated in response to the cue.     

The Psychosomatic Relationship As A Symbolic Circular Communication: Subjective And Transgenerational Dreams

The human being can be divided into body and mind, two inextricably linked aspects influencing each other. From birth, the body is the site of emotional experiences thanks to cellular memory. The transgenerational and the oneiric imaginary are two themes closely related to the body. Many families express their emotional experiences through bodily symptoms and, in dreams, body icons are used to “talk” about the subject’s identity. The body expresses itself and “speaks” through dreams, which can even become predictors of diseases.     

Suicide Attempt Risk in Youths: Utility of the Harkavy–Asnis Suicide Scale for Monitoring Risk Levels

The Harkavy–Asnis Suicide Scale (HASS), one of the few self‐report scales assessing suicidal behavior was evaluated and ideation, was evaluated and predictors of suicide attempts (SAs) were identified with the goal of developing a model that clinicians can use for monitoring SA risk. Participants were 131 pediatric emergency department (ED) patients with suicidal behavior. The HASS and Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC‐IV) were administered approximately 2 months after ED presentation. When compared with DISC‐IV ratings, sensitivity of the HASS SA items was excellent (100%), and overall classification accuracy was 72%. SA planning was the strongest predictor of SAs.     

Healthy Lifestyle,Well-being,Physical Activity,Sport, and Scholastic/academic Performance: Interactions and Connections

The physical activity and sport are key elements for a healthy lifestyle. However, a little-investigated element is the presence of a possible relationship between school or academic performance and the participation in physical activity and sport in groups of preadolescents and adolescents. In order to clarify the complex relationship between mind and body in preadolescence and adolescence, the present discussion investigates the causal and direct relationship between sport activity and performance; and describes how this relationship can be mediated by the sense of self-esteem and self-efficacy; and investigates the relationship between group sports practice and school or academic performance.     

Esperanza and the Melancholy of Otherness: A Discussion of “A Country of Two: Race and Social Class in an Immigrant Therapeutic Dyad”

Santiago Delboy’s paper, “A Country of Two,” (this issue) focuses on race and class relations in an immigrant treatment dyad. In this discussion I will further examine racial tension from the perspective of the perverse pact, the main features of which are dissociation and amnesia, and the disavowal of hatred and hostility. The perverse pact is an essential feature of White colonial culture as well as of North American White identity and it can impact the dialogue in an interracial therapy duo. I will also comment on the melancholy of Otherness in the context of race, class as well as immigration.