Beyond illusion: Psychoanalysis and the question of religious truth1

In this paper the author critically examines the nature of the positive, reconciliatory attitude towards religion that has become increasingly prevalent within psychoanalytic thinking and writing over the past 20 years. She shows how this positive attitude rests on a change in the nature of the prototype of religion and its reassignment to the realm of illusion, thus making irrelevant an issue most central both to psychoanalysis and to traditional Judeo‐Christian belief ‐ the passionate search for truth. The author demonstrates how the concern with truth, and specifically with the truth of religious claims, lies at the basis of the opposition between psychoanalysis and religion but, paradoxically, also provides the common ground for dialogue between the two. She argues that, as Freud developed his ideas regarding the origin of conviction in religious claims in his Moses and monotheism (1939), the nature of this common ground was expanded and the dialogue became potentially more meaningful. The author concludes that meaningful dialogue emerges through recognition of fundamental differences rather than through harmonisation within a realm of illusion. In this light, the present study may also be seen as an attempt to recognise fundamental differences that have been evolving within psychoanalysis itself.     

幽门螺杆菌相关性胃炎的时空特征研究

研究幽门螺杆菌导致胃黏膜病理损伤表现的多样性与年龄的关系。进行胃镜检查的患者,排除其它脏器疾病,测定尿素酶表达程度,观察黏膜损伤情况并取病理。结果是不同程度尿素酶表达的幽门螺杆菌感染性胃炎表现不同的病理特征;年龄、幽门螺杆菌感染时间及生活事件是相互作用的原因。幽门螺杆菌特征性慢性感染过程及其致病方式使胃黏膜的病理变化有了多样性,高尿素酶表达的幽门螺杆菌引起的增生性病灶乃至隆起性病变的机会随年龄增加及胃黏膜的病理变化而增长。     

Analysis of the creation of 'emptiness', of 'nothingness', in certain types of psychosis

Some psychotic patients manage to create nothingness and emptiness thanks to the amount of work their ego accomplishes. That is the paradox we find in schizophrenic patients, their ego is simultaneously weak and powerful. When we analyse how this nothingness/emptiness is created, we enter into a strange world in which the patient's ego is, in part, defective and fragmented; his or her thinking apparatus, capacity for perceiving and feeling are under attack. Yet this same ego can call on intellectual ability, imagination and tremendous energy in order to create a highly complex structure, thanks to which the psychotic individual manages to create a kind of para-organization of space by splitting 'nothingness' (the space between representations) and 'density' (a compact magma made up of many different highly-condensed representations). Both nothingness and density may give the impression that the patient is 'nowhere to be found' and therefore impossible to analyse. In this paper, I shall describe these mechanisms as they appear in the clinical material of a female psychotic patient.     

The 'body–container': A new perspective on the 'body–ego'

Psychoanalytic theory and practice tend to focus on metaphorical and symbolic mental representations in a way that often pushes aside the importance of a bodily 'presence' possessing qualities that can not and should not be subordinated to the representational structure. By introducing the 'body – container' model, this paper reintroduces the concrete physical body into the psychoanalytic discourse in a more direct way. This clinical – theoretical model links the 'body-ego' ( Freud, 1923 ) to the container idea ( Bion, 1962 ) aiming to creates a new integrative psyche-soma scheme. The 'body – container' experience is available as a subjective realization through a priori psycho-physical forms structured as an envelope and a central vertical axis. These forms are the outcome of our given bodily structure experienced under the 'magnetic' force of object relation. The mental envelope is already discussed in psychoanalytic theory ( Anzieu, 1989, 1990 ; Bick, 1968 ) and I wish to introduce the characteristics of the vertical axis which I call 'the frontal spine', emphasizing its constitutional reciprocity with the skin envelope. The proposed model offers new insights into the psycho-physical organization in primitive mental states and may contribute to the understanding of the complementary structural relation between embodied and represented in human experience. Two clinical examples illustrate the therapeutic work relevant to disturbances in the primal psycho-physical space organization at different developmental levels.     

A new definition of well-behaved discrimination functions

A discrimination function shows the probability or degree with which stimuli are discriminated from each other when presented in pairs. In a previous publication [Kujala, J.V., & Dzhafarov, E.N. (2008). On minima of discrimination functions. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 52, 116–127] we introduced a condition under which the conformity of a discrimination function with the law of Regular Minimality (which says, essentially, that “being least discriminable from” is a symmetric relation) implies the constancy of the function’s minima (i.e., the same level of discriminability of every stimulus from the stimulus least discriminable from it). This condition, referred to as “well-behavedness,” turns out to be unnecessarily restrictive. In this note we give a significantly more general definition of well-behavedness, applicable to all Hausdorff arc-connected stimulus spaces. The definition employs the notion of the smallest transitively and topologically closed extension of a relation. We provide a transfinite-recursive construction for this notion and illustrate it by examples.     

Tatsuoka 矩阵理论的修正

K .K.Tatsuoka和她同事开发的规则空间模型（RSM）是一种在国内外有较大影响的认知诊断模型,但是Tatsuoka的RSM中 矩阵理论存在缺陷和错误,这些失误使得RSM中用布尔描述函数（BDF）计算被试理想项目反应模式（IRP）的方法缺乏理论依据。这里揭示了Tatsuoka的 矩阵理论的缺陷和错误并引进既不使用BDF又便于应用的计算IRP的方法;接着还介绍一种由可达阵计算简化 阵的方法,该方法显示了可达阵在构造认知诊断测验的重要性。这些结果对丰富 矩阵理论及正确使用RSM进行认知诊断有一定的意义     

速示重复和非速示呈现下的汉字结构方式效应

在速示重复和非速示两种实验条件下考察了汉字大小和笔画数对结构方式效应的影响。在速示实验中,发现有结构方式主效应,并在小号字上以及两种笔画数的汉字上也存在结构方式效应;在非速示实验中,没有发现结构方式主效应,但在多笔画的小号汉字上和多笔画的中号汉字上存在结构方式效应。两个实验还表明,汉字的结构方式效应量值随着视觉条件的改善而减少。该文提出了用以解释结构方式效应的汉字空间通透性概念及其算法,并且讨论了解释结构方式效应量值随着视觉清晰度的改善而系统性减少的模型。     

De l'argumentation comme métamorphose

Linguistic rhetoric and argumentative reasoning are generally identified. Certain types of problems, however, make use of non-verbal systems of representation, and, among them, image. Image is not just matter but also form, and computer processing in AI makes it possible to grasp this form by linguistic means (logico-mathematical languages). The synthesis of animated images has made it possible to represent metamorphoses, the thought of the unexpected. The fact that language produces image (and conversely) does not fail to transform the standard ways of thinking about epistemology.

     

Principal components analysis of sampled functions

This paper describes a technique for principal components analysis of data consisting ofn functions each observed atp argument values. This problem arises particularly in the analysis of longitudinal data in which some behavior of a number of subjects is measured at a number of points in time. In such cases information about the behavior of one or more derivatives of the function being sampled can often be very useful, as for example in the analysis of growth or learning curves. It is shown that the use of derivative information is equivalent to a change of metric for the row space in classical principal components analysis. The reproducing kernel for the Hilbert space of functions plays a central role, and defines the best interpolating functions, which are generalized spline functions. An example is offered of how sensitivity to derivative information can reveal interesting aspects of the data.This research was supported by Grant PA 0320 to the second author by the Natural Sciences and Research Council of Canada. We are grateful to the reviewers of an earlier version and to J. B. Kruskal and S. Winsberg for many helpful comments concerning exposition.     

Maddening Desire: Understanding Lust in Pastoral Counseling

Christian theologians have argued that lust is a compelling sexual desire that distorts reason and judgment, leads to exploitation and injustice, and corrupts the erotic dimensions of human experience and relationships. In this article, I expand on this tradition, arguing that lust signifies the collapse or attenuation of amative space. This collapse is described as either the subjugation of the other or pseudo surrender to the other, which is accompanied by misrecognition of the other's unique and inviolable subjectivity, as well as a heightened sense of distrust. The diverse communicative actions associated with lust, which lead to the collapse of amative space, have several sources, namely, trauma, physiology, and culture. The attempt to restore amative space requires that the counselor and client join together in identifying and understanding the meanings and sources of lustful behaviors, which assists them in considering various strategies for the sake of increasing self-awareness and self-control that loosen the bonds of lust.