A History Which Began to Be Told: A Clinical Case

This article aims to reflect on the possible contributions of psychoanalysis in relation to severely disturbed patients by means of the presentation of a clinical case. Beginning with the family history, the evolutionary process of the symptoms and identification movements of the patient are analysed. The observation of the transference dynamics is emphasised, showing how the desire of the analyst and his privileged listening will allow the patient some level of possible subjective structure.     

From multimodal programs to a new cognitive–interpersonal approach in the rehabilitation of offenders

A considerable amount of meta-analytic research supports the effectiveness of cognitive–behavioral psychoeducational programs in reducing recidivism rates, in youths and adults with antisocial behavior. These same studies suggest that programs including a cognitive component are as twice as more effective in reducing recidivism rates. This paper reviews outcome studies sustaining the use of structured interventions in forensic settings. It introduces a new program, Growing Pro-Social (GPS), currently in use in several Portuguese youth rehabilitation centers and prisons. GPS is a multimodal structured group program designed for the rehabilitation of individuals with antisocial behavior. It includes 40 weekly sessions, organized into 5 sequential modules. Based on a cognitive–interpersonal theoretical framework, GPS focuses on cognitive, emotional, and behavioral change, assuming as an ultimate goal the modification of dysfunctional core beliefs underlying antisocial behavior.     

Genetic Counseling/Consultation in South-East Asia: A Report from the Workshop at the 10th Asia Pacific Conference on Human Genetics

This paper reports on the workshop ‘Genetic Counseling/Consultations in South-East Asia’ at the 10^th Asia Pacific Conference on Human Genetics in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in December 2012. The workshop brought together professionals and language/communication scholars from South-East Asia, and the UK. The workshop aimed at addressing culture- and context-specific genetic counseling/consultation practices in South-East Asia. As a way of contextualizing genetic counseling/consultation in South-East Asia, we first offer an overview of communication-oriented research generally, drawing attention to consultation and counseling as part of a communicative continuum with distinctive interactional features. We then provide examples of genetic counseling/consultation research in Hong Kong. As other countries in South-East Asia have not yet embarked on communication-oriented empirical research, we report on the current practices of genetic counseling/consultation in these countries in order to identify similarities and differences as well as key obstacles that could be addressed through future research. Three issues emerged as ‘problematic’: language, religion and culture. We suggest that communication-oriented research can provide a starting point for evidence-based reflections on how to incorporate a counseling mentality in genetic consultation. To conclude, we discuss the need for creating a platform for targeted training of genetic counselors based on communication-oriented research findings.     

Where Can I Find Consolation? A Theoretical Analysis of the Meaning of Consolation as Experienced by Job in the Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible

The aim of the study was to explore the meaning of consolation as experienced by Job in the Book of Job and as presented in literature and how consolation relates to suffering and care. The study’s theoretical design applied Ricoeur’s view on phenomenology and hermeneutics. The resulting themes were as follows: consolation that is present, that originates in confrontation, that keeps suffering at a distance, that does not alleviate suffering, that originates in experience from giving comfort, and that facilitates a change of perspective. The authentic and caring consolation accepts the sufferer’s incomprehensible “otherness” but however provides no answers about how to console.     

Therapist Self-as-Context and the Curative Relationship

This article discusses how the way the therapist relates to his or her personal responses to client material during the session contributes to making the relationship with the client an effective tool for treatment. Ideas from third wave behavior therapy are used to describe aspects of therapist involvement in the relationship and modes of therapist awareness of inner responses. In two vignettes, negative client reactions to an intervention bring problematic therapist material to the fore. Both cases highlight how the stories the therapists spun about themselves as professionals and persons could easily have limited their effectiveness in responding to the material. The vignettes also illustrate how clinicians can overcome personal meanings and judgments to access a more productive mode of interacting with the feelings a critical incident in the relationship evokes in them. It is argued that observing their own content from a psychological distance makes it possible for clinicians to use their feelings without getting caught up in them. These same feelings may then help the therapist perceive how the incident relates to the client’s daily life problems. The therapist’s engagement in a sense of self-as-context is described as a therapeutic stance that provides the psychological distance needed to help overcome alliance ruptures and other potential gridlocks and which may transform the therapist’s inner response to client content into a tool for addressing important client issues.     

Exploring the personal and social context of female youth sex offenders

This study explored the personal and social context of young female sex offenders, probing their risk profiles for prospective treatment interventions. A convenience sample of eight young South African female sexual offenders participated in the study (black = 88%, Indian = 12%, age range = 14–20 years). They completed semi-structured interviews on their perceptions of the influences to commit a sexual offence. The data were thematically analysed. Emergent themes on factors associated with sexual offending included: peer influence, poor child monitoring, parental neglect, unproductive sexual health education, as well as insight into the participants’ maladaptive beliefs and distorted thinking.     

Self-forgiveness and forgiveness-seeking in response to rumination: Cardiac and emotional responses of transgressors

Self-forgiveness and forgiveness-seeking are important and understudied aspects of forgiveness. We examined the cardiac and emotional patterns of healthy young adults (40 women, 40 men) who recalled an unresolved offense they had caused another person. Participants engaged in four imagery conditions: ruminating about the offense, being humbly repentant and engaging in self-forgiveness, seeking forgiveness from the victim and receiving forgiveness, and seeking forgiveness from the victim and being begrudged. Being repentant and begrudged forgiveness by one’s victim was associated with the same level of guilt as when ruminating, but significantly more negative emotion, less control, and less empathy than when ruminating, self-forgiving, and receiving forgiveness from the victim. Compared to ruminating about one’s wrongdoing, self-forgiving alleviated guilt and negative emotion, increased perceived control, decreased heart rate, and increased parasympathetic activation. Imagery of receiving forgiveness from the victim resulted in these same patterns and was equivalent to self-forgiveness across variables.     

Reflections on the clinical implications of symbolism

We start by stressing the idea that the process itself of constructing the symbol in its different components and its vicissitudes is centrally important to contemporary psychoanalysis as symbols are essential for thinking and for storing emotional experiences in our memory and for conveying our affects to others and to ourselves. Our implicit idea is that internal attacks are not directed only at the internal objects, but also include attacks on the structure or forms of the mental representations before and while they become constituted in symbols. It is by this means that destructive impulses invade the processes of symbolic construction. Symbols can lose their plasticity and thus silence the emotions and therefore cut off the patient from their meanings. Our clinical material allows us to increase our understanding of how the formal qualities of symbols operate in mental life, and how they can interfere in the capacity to work through emotional experiences. Finally, our reflections based on the analysis of a patient with difficulty in relating with the meanings of the symbols he produced will highlight the importance of the analyst's reverie along the process of formulating an interpretation. This paper is also part of a development in the study of the process of reverie.