Displacement as trauma and trauma as displacement in the experience of refugees

This paper investigates the relations between displacement, home, trauma and the self in the experience of refugees, which has become an issue of unexpected and far-reaching proportions in recent times. It questions to what extent and under what conditions displacement in the world may be traumatic and how trauma may be considered the effect of an inner displacement. Refugees’ lives are marked by forced migration that is related to a certain suffering due to the changes in their family, relational, social and cultural lives. The paper explores the extent to which these changes can represent a break so significant as to be traumatic. It outlines the way in which traumatic experiences can produce an inner displacement and reorganization of one’s mental life that leads to a focus on traumatic complexes. Under the most severe traumatic conditions, this can be understood as a displacement of the central axis of Self, in which the ego complex yields its position to other complexes, with a deep change in the organization and functioning of self. The experience of refugees highlights the way in which we live in a matrix of conscious and unconscious links between inner and outer worlds that need deeper and simultaneous consideration to understand their implications and mutual resonances for the psyche. Clinical cases of refugees will illustrate some aspects of these interconnections.     

The snake in the mandala: dialogical aspects of Jung’s ‘A study in the process of individuation’

Jung’s study centres on the amplification of pictures painted by a woman patient and posits their sequence as evincing the initial stages of the individuation process. His text performs a dialogue with its audience whereby Jung persuades us of this truth, and also reveals Jung’s dialogue with his patient and with his own ideas. The present paper revisits the clinical material first with a focus on the interaction between Jung and his patient. The second part compares the 1940 and 1950 versions of Jung’s study with attention to tensions that traverse them, such as Jung’s attitude to the animus and his two voices as a practitioner and a theorist.     

Discussion about the Triple Foundational Relationship between Intellect,Emotion, and Willing from the Perspective of the Phenomenology of Consciousness

There are at least three foundational relationships between the three conscious acts of intellect, emotion, and willing. Section 2 covers the structural foundational relationship (Brentano and Husserl in his early period): all conscious acts are intentional and can be divided into objectifying (intuition and representation) and non-objectifying acts (emotion and willing). Because a non-objectifying act cannot constitute an object, things must be based on objectifying acts and the object constituted by the latter; in this sense, a non-objectifying act is rooted in an objectifying one. Section 3 explains the genetic foundational issue with consciousness (Husserl in his later period, Scheler, and Heidegger): the stream of consciousness has its earliest origins and follows a process where it gradually unfolds. The earliest origin is the intentional willing, followed by nonintentional feelings, and, finally, the representation and thinking of willing. Intentional activity taking place afterward must be based on the conscious activity that has come already. Section 4 points out that, apart from the two aforementioned kinds of foundational relationships (i.e. structural and genetic), a third foundational relationship (i.e. dynamic) can also be found between the conscious acts of intellect, emotion, and willing in the Consciousness-only school (a Buddhist tradition in the East). In a continuous activity, the foundational relationship between the three aspects of intellect, emotion, and willing always remains encased in dynamic changes, and the change of primary and secondary roles (i.e. a change in the foundational relationship) could happen at any time. From this perspective, one can explain and resolve the confrontation and conflicts between the two former foundational relationships.     

The interoception and imagination loop in hypnotic phenomena

We tested a working hypothesis that the ideomotor and motor-control suggestions measured by current hypnotizability scales depend on the activation of an interoception-imagination processing loop. In three experiments, participants were exposed to an induction phase, Items 3 (mosquito hallucination) and 8 (arm immobilization) of the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Form C, and a new version of Item 8 involving the additional activation of imaginative and interoception processes. We found that this modified version of Item 8 elicited greater responsiveness to suggestion, irrespective of its position in the sequence of hypnotic items. We argue that this interoception-imagination loop hypothesis provides a useful information processing analysis for understanding several hypnotic phenomena.     

具有认知诊断功能的区块化自适应测验的提出及验证

CD-CAT以Q矩阵理论为基础，存在着处理属性个数限制的缺点。为了解决该问题，本文提出了具有认知诊断功能的区块化自适应测验（CD-BAT）。CD-BAT将单个的CD-CAT作为区块进行处理，把前一区块的信息作为先验信息用于后一区块的估计过程，并不断更新和修正前一区块的估计结果。模拟研究表明，CD-BAT的判准率略优于CD-CAT，题库质量下降时，这种优势逐渐加大。随着CD-BAT的区块的增加，其属性判准率呈现上升趋势。     

A School Psychologist's Self-Study Guide to Sport Psychology

SUMMARY

School psychologists may find the field of sport psychology beneficial to them in extending their skills and effectiveness. As trained psychologists, they are likely to already have some of the knowledge and skills necessary for working in the area of sport psychology. However, without additional training, this may not be sufficient for ethical and effective practice. This article enumerates the necessary knowledge and skills for working in sport psychology according to APA's recent proficiency standards. It then details a plethora of available resources and methods for entering into the domain of sport psychology. The article emphasizes self-study while continuing to practice ethically within the ‘boundaries of one's competence.’     

Burnout and psychiatric “cases”: Early evidences of an association

This exploratory study extends the phase model of burnout in a critical direction by assessing whether individuals assigned to eight progressive phases will present escalating mental health symptoms. Despite the small convenience population (N = 161), the present affirmative results encourage early replications for three basic reasons. Thus the associations with mental health reported here are consistent with numerous other tests of the concurrent validity of the phase model. Moreover, substantial proportions of the variance are explained here by data supporting the view that the progressive phases are associated with accelerating proportions of “cases,” here defined as respondents to the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) who report four or more non-psychotic psychiatric symptoms. The GHQ form used here is modified for U.S. contexts. In addition, this basic conclusion is reinforced in three ways: by factor analysis of GHQ items; by rejecting several variables alternative to the phases as GHQ variants; and by using canonical discriminant functions to compare phase assignments with the actual group memberships of “normals” and “cases” assigned by the GHQ.     

Benefits and Interindividual Differences in Children's Responses to Extended and Intensified Relaxation Training

The present study investigates whether extended and intensified systematic relaxation training techniques lead to increased short-term and prolonged effects in settings of stress prevention. One hundred and twenty-eight fourth- and sixth-graders (aged 9.6 and 11.6 years, respectively) participated in Imagination or Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR). Extension consisted of a varying number of training sessions (five versus ten), while intensified training contained additional training elements to enhance the transfer to the children's daily life (yes versus no). Age, gender, anxiety, activity level and suggestibility were included as additional variables that were assumed to moderate the effects of the training. Dependent variables indicating short-term training effects included physiological parameters (heart rate, skin conductance level, skin temperature) as well as subjective ratings (mood, physical well-being, training evaluations). Medium-term training effects, measured 1 week and 2 months after the training, were related to stress experiences, somatic stress symptoms, and coping strategies reported by the children. The results do not show considerable short- or medium-term effects of extended or intensified training. In addition, no clear moderator effects were found in the present sample.     

Domestic Violence

Summary

In this paper, the authors outline their experience in incorporating a curriculum on domestic violence into an urban family practice residency program. Based on the concept that in order to successfully develop such a curriculum, it is necessary to address the “culture of the organization,” joint educational strategies that in-elude resident education as well as faculty development were considered. A research question was designed to inquire as to the difference in the level of knowledge about domestic violence in family practice faculty as compared to residents prior to the introduction of educational strategies. The authors describe curriculum goals and objectives and outline specific teaching methods as well as the evaluation instrument utilized in the study to measure actual difference in knowledge between faculty and residents about domestic violence with a focus specifically on spousal abuse. Their conclusions point to the need for an educational strategy that includes emphasis on the faculty-resident interface which utilizes both traditional and non-traditional integrated formats in order to successfully train residents in the identification and treatment of domestic violence.     

Religious credence is not factual belief

I argue that psychology and epistemology should posit distinct cognitive attitudes of religious credence and factual belief, which have different etiologies and different cognitive and behavioral effects. I support this claim by presenting a range of empirical evidence that religious cognitive attitudes tend to lack properties characteristic of factual belief, just as attitudes like hypothesis, fictional imagining, and assumption for the sake of argument generally lack such properties. Furthermore, religious credences have distinctive properties of their own. To summarize: factual beliefs (i) are practical setting independent, (ii) cognitively govern other attitudes, and (iii) are evidentially vulnerable. By way of contrast, religious credences (a) have perceived normative orientation, (b) are susceptible to free elaboration, and (c) are vulnerable to special authority. This theory provides a framework for future research in the epistemology and psychology of religious credence.