Commentary on Paper by Michael Parsons

A range of clinical psychoanalytic approaches in the United States is considered as they may parallel Parsons's presentation of an “independent” orientation in Britain.

Attention is paid in particular to the analyst's sense of outsiderness and concern for otherness, along with their moral implications for clinical work. In addition, the limitations of theory and defensive misuse of theory are also addressed.     

Reflections on knowledge and experience

As analysts become more experienced, theoretical knowledge becomes more integrated and implicit and is gradually transformed into the practical wisdom (phronesis) described by Aristotle. While this leads to greater freedom in ways of working, it remains conditional on the consistent disciplined practice represented by the analytic attitude. In the context of my own development as an analyst, I suggest that increasingly the analyst works from the self rather than the ego and link this with Fordham's account of ‘not knowing beforehand’. Some implications for boundaries, enactment and the use of personal disclosure are discussed in relation to clinical material. I compare analysis with the wisdom traditions of religious practice and suggest that analysis is concerned with a way of living rooted in humane values of compassion and benevolence.     

James Astor in conversation with Warren Colman

In this interview with Warren Colman, James Astor speaks about his development as a Jungian analyst from his own experience of personal analysis in the 1960s to his recent retirement from clinical practice. The discussion covers his long association with Michael Fordham, the child analytic training at the SAP, the infant observation seminars with Fordham and Gianna Henry through which Fordham was able to make new discoveries about infant development, his experience of supervision with Donald Meltzer and the development of his own thinking through a series of papers on the analytic process, supervision and the relation between language and truth. The interview concludes with reflections about the legacy of Michael Fordham and the future of analytic work.     

The effect of very brief exposure on experienced fear after in vivo exposure

Two experiments tested the effect of exposure to masked phobic stimuli at a very brief stimulus onset asynchrony on reducing the subjective experience of fear caused by in vivo exposure to a feared object. In the main experiment, 35 spider-fearful and 35 non-fearful participants were identified with a questionnaire and a Behavioural Avoidance Test (BAT) with a live tarantula. One week later, they were individually administered one of two continuous series of masked images: spiders or flowers. They engaged in the BAT again immediately thereafter. They provided ratings of subjective fear at the end of each BAT (pre- and post-manipulation). Very brief exposure to images of spiders reduced the fearful group's and not the non-fearful group's experience of fear at the end of the BAT. This effect was replicated with another sample of 26 spider-fearful participants from the same population. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

“Generic” and “Specific” Expertise in English: An Expert/Expert Study in Poetry Interpretation and Academic Argument

In this study, eight English professors thought aloud as they read four lyric poems and composed a short text proposing a hypothetical talk about them for a professional conference. The study used a crossed design in which participants read a poem in each of the following conditions: familiar to them and close to their professional writing, familiar and far, unfamiliar and close, unfamiliar and far. When reading familiar poems, participants produced longer protocols and more elaborate interpretations. When planning their conference talks, participants produced longer protocols for poems that were far from their professional writing as they struggled to access sufficient background knowledge. Participants attempted to say something “new” about the poems, and they closely monitored the limits of their knowledge. These results suggest that English professors, just like experts in other disciplines, develop both “generic” and “specific” expertise. Implications for expertise research, literature instruction, and academic literary scholars are considered.     

The Relevance of Age of Onset to the Psychopathology of Social Phobia

The present study aimed to examine the relevance of age of onset to the psychopathology of social phobia using a large clinical sample of 210 patients with social phobia. The two most common periods of onset were during adolescence (ages 14–17) and early childhood (prior to age 10). Structural regression modeling was used to test predictions that early onset social phobia would be associated with greater severity of the disorder, stronger current symptoms of depression and anxiety, greater functional impairment, and more pronounced levels of emotional disorder vulnerabilities (e.g., neuroticism/behavioral inhibition, extraversion, perceptions of control). Logistic regression was used to evaluate relationships between age of onset and the presence of acute and chronic stress at the time of onset. Results showed that earlier age of social phobia onset was associated with stronger current psychopathology, functional impairment, and emotional disorder vulnerabilities, and that later age of onset predicted the presence of an acutely stressful event around the time of disorder emergence. These results are discussed in regard to their clinical implications and congruence with prominent etiological models of the emotional disorders.     

Sales Technology Applications: Interactive Video Technology in Sales Training: A Case Study

Interactive video (IV), a new technology for training, has had a recent surge in popularity. The use of interactive video technology has been reported to reduce training costs, increase quality, and decrease the amount of time required for training. The major characteristics of this new technology are presented. A state-of-the-art application of an IV system for sales training developed at BellSouth Services is discussed. The results confirm that IV is a promising new sales training tool.     

The Rationality of Ultimate Concern: Moral Exemplars,Theological Ethics,and the Science of Moral Cognition

This paper argues that consideration of moral exemplars may provide a means for integrating insights across philosophical ethics, theological ethics, and the scientific study of moral cognition. Key to this endeavor is an understanding of the relation of cognition and emotion in ethical decision-making, a relation that is usually understood to be oppositional but which in proper circumstances may be understood to be quite the opposite. Indeed, a distinctive feature of moral exemplarity may consist in the ability to properly integrate the emotions into the moral life, and reference to and imitation of exemplars may involve a referencing and imitating of the emotions of the exemplar.     

Assessment of dispositional embarrassability

Abstract

Embarrassability, the propensity for an individual to experience embarrassment, has been frequently acknowledged as an important personality characteristic. The present research sought to explore the dispositional features of embarrassability by the psychometric development of 25-item measure, the Susceptibility to Embarrassment Scale (SES). The SES was designed to describe the personality characteristics of easily embarrassed persons rather than reactions to potentially embarrassing situations. The results indicated that the SES was an internally consistent and temporally stable measure. Its items were uncontaminated by social desirability. Assessments of construct validity suggested that the scale was a valid measure of embarrassability, and specifically a better measure of dispositional components of embarrassability than the only alternative measure of the construct. The location of the SES within the Big Five structure of normal adult personality is presented as well as its relationship with measures of deviant personality.     

Rising Up From Down Under: A Response To Adams-Webber On Cognitive Psychology And Personal Construct Theory

This article is a response to Adams-Webber's (1990) critique of my discussion of the relation between personal construct theory and cognitive psychology (Warren, 7990). Several points of specific disagreement are raised in an effort to clarify my own position. Furthermore, this clarification highlights the need for “integrationist” perspectives to clearly and directly address the problems, as well as the prospects, of relating personal construct theory to other perspectives in psychology.