Displacement trauma: complex states of personal,collective and intergenerational fragmentation and their intergenerational transmission

Originally presented at the Journal’s one day conference entitled ‘Displacement: Contemporary Traumatic Experience’ held in London in November 2019, this paper expands on the author’s theory of the implicit psychological organizing gestalt, an associated pattern of psychic functions which operate in an integrated way to simultaneously structure and organize our experience of self-cohesion and self-continuity. The gestalt, which implicitly links the formation of psychic skin, body image, cultural skin and both personal and cultural identity with place, functions as an emergent non-conscious permanent presence or background ‘constant’. It develops over time and emerges out of embodied emotional experiencing with the total environment – both human and non-human. The author argues that it is the rupture of this gestalt and the disorganizing consequences of its loss which underlies the experience of displacement trauma. If disruptions in the formation of the gestalt and/or its later rupture remain unrecognized and unrepresented then the absence creates a void which can be intergenerationally transmitted. Case material is presented which describes this and which highlights the ways in which the gestalt can contribute to our understanding of collective displacement anxiety, cultural trauma and cultural complexes.     

The Origins of Fears of Compassion: Shame and Lack of Safeness Memories,Fears of Compassion and Psychopathology

Empirical and clinical research suggests that some individuals find self-generating compassion and receiving compassion from others difficult and aversive. However, it is unclear how these fears of compassion are linked to early experiences and to psychopathological symptoms. This study explores the relationship between shame traumatic memories, centrality of shame memories, early memories of warmth and safeness, fears of compassion, and depression, anxiety and paranoid symptoms. Participants were 302 individuals from the general community population, who completed self-report measures of fears of compassion, shame memories, early affiliative memories, and psychopathology. Shame traumatic and central memories were positively associated with fears of compassion for self, for others and from others, whereas early memories of warmth and safeness were negatively related to such fears. Path analyses revealed that fears of compassion for self and of receiving compassion from others mediated the effects of shame traumatic memory, centrality of shame memory and early memories of warmth and safeness on depressive, anxious and paranoid symptoms. These findings have implications for therapeutic interventions as these fears, as well as the negative shame-based emotional memories fuelling them, may need to be addressed in therapy to assist patients in self-generating and receiving compassion.     

Creative thinking and collective mobilisation in the Muslim world

ABSTRACT

To what extent does openness to new ideas and creativity (ONIC) help explain the elite-challenging collective mobilisation in the Muslim world? Are religious Muslims who are open to creative and innovative thinking more or less likely to engage in pro-democratic collective action? Analysing 16 Muslim-majority countries, this study advances the debate of Muslim contentious politics by systematically examining the extent to which ONIC explains the variation in high-risk, pro-democratic collective mobilisation. A quad-dimensional analysis of creativity indicates that ONIC is an empirically distinctive measure to capture openness and creative thinking. The evidence further suggests that, ceteris paribus, Islamic religiosity and ONIC are not mutually exclusive and that both are positively associated with collective protests. Notably, ONIC does appear to intervene to mediate the positive relationship between Islam and engagement in high-risk collective action, implying that the effects of religiosity may not be independent from how Muslims position themselves towards being open to novel ideas or creativity. The findings also demonstrate that an individual-level ONIC may be boosting the likelihood of protest engagement among more devout individuals in Islamic societies.     

Argentines’ collective memories of the military Junta of 1976: differences and similarities across generations and ideology

Although memories about a nation's past usually are semantic in nature, a distinction needs to be made between lived and distant semantic collective memories. The former refers to memories of community-relevant events occurring during the lifetime of the rememberer, whereas the latter to memories of distant events. Does the content of lived and distant semantic collective memories differ? Employing both free and cued recall, we examined the memories of younger and older Argentines of the Military Junta of 1976. We also examined the effects of political ideology. Content analysis indicated that (1) lived semantic collective memories were more likely to contain personal recollections than distant semantic collective memories, even though those with distant semantic collective memories could have incorporated memories of the parent's personal experience in their recollections, (2) lived semantic collective memories contained more causal statements, and (3) those on the Right with distant semantic collective memories were more likely to claim that they “Don't know” or offer positive accounts of the Junta, suggesting a need to “defend” the reputation of those on the Right. The results are discussed in terms of the goals and plans different generations might have when recollecting their nation's past.     

A Jungian contribution to a dynamic systems understanding of disorganized attachment

This panel emerged from shared clinical concerns when working with adult patients whose presentation style was reminiscent of a disorganized (Type D) infant attachment pattern. Psychotherapeutic work with such patients poses complicated transference and countertransference dilemmas which are addressed by all four panellists via theory and clinical vignettes. In common is an interest in contemporary attachment, neuroscience and trauma theories and their relationship to analytical psychology. Intergenerational trauma seems to be a salient factor in the evolution of fragmented and fragmenting interactions that lead to failures in self-coherence and healthy interpersonal relationships. Such early relational trauma is compounded by further episodes of abuse and neglect leading to failure in a core sense of self. These clinicians share how they have integrated theory and practice in order to help dissociated and disorganized patients to transform their dark and extraordinary suffering through implicit and explicit experiences with the analyst into new, life giving patterns of relationship with self and others. The alchemy of transformation, both positive and negative, is evident in the case material presented.     

Collective Informed Consent and Decision Power

It has been suggested that, in addition to individual level decision-making, informed consent procedures could be used in collective decision-making too. One of the main criticisms directed at this suggestion concerns decision-making power. It is maintained that consent is a veto power concept and that, as such, it is not appropriate for collective decision-making. This paper examines this objection to collective informed consent. It argues that veto power informed consent can have some uses in the collective level and that when it is not appropriate the decision power a concerned party ought to have in connection with an arrangement should be made relative to the interest she has at stake in it. It concludes that the objection examined does not undermine collective informed consent.

补偿他人还是保护自己?内疚与羞耻情绪对合作行为的影响差异

作为两种常见且易被混淆的自我意识情绪, 诸多研究者对内疚和羞耻的产生前因及影响后效进行研究, 尤其是近年来的研究逐渐关注两者对合作行为的影响。我们通过对已有研究进行梳理发现, 内疚和羞耻对合作行为的影响及其机制存在差异, 内疚的影响更为稳定及具有普适性, 羞耻的影响具有复杂性和多样性, 更容易受到其他因素的影响。内疚和羞耻对合作行为的不同影响可从动机机制和调节机制两方面进行解释。首先, 动机机制包括内疚对他人的补偿、修复动机以及羞耻对自我的保护、修复动机。内疚对他人的补偿、修复动机主要体现在维护社会互动中的公平; 弥补对他人造成的伤害, 降低自己和他人的痛苦; 修复人际关系, 重新获得他人或自己的接纳与认同。羞耻对自我的保护、修复动机主要体现在释放消极的情绪状态; 维护积极的自我形象和声誉, 修复自我; 保护自我, 防止后续伤害及不良后果。总体而言, 内疚者关注过失行为及后果, 侧重于对受害他人的补偿或对与他人关系的修复, 而羞耻者关注整体自我的受损, 侧重于对自我的保护和对自己社会形象的修复, 基于此, 我们在前人研究的基础上构建了内疚与羞耻影响合作行为的动机机制对比模型图。其次, 调节机制涉及到个体因素和情境因素的调节作用, 其中个体因素包括认知因素、社会价值取向、自我控制能力、情绪特质和情绪状态, 情境因素包括暴露情境和掩蔽情境、实验情境和日常情境、相关情境和不相关情境。具体而言, 内疚对合作行为的影响的较少受情境的限制, 而羞耻受情境因素限制较多, 在暴露情境、相关情境中更能促进合作行为的产生, 而在掩蔽情境、不相关情境中, 羞耻较难影响个体的合作抉择, 且无论是实验室情境还是日常情境, 内疚似乎都比羞耻更易影响合作。最后, 鉴于内疚与羞耻的诱发和测量方法的有效性仍需检验, 两种情绪对合作行为影响的过程机制和生理机制仍不明晰, 个体因素影响的研究尚不充足以及跨文化研究较为缺乏, 未来研究可以从内疚和羞耻诱发与测量方法的有效性, 情绪作用发生的内在过程和生理机制, 情绪影响的个体和文化差异这几方面进行扩展和深挖。     

Escaping the Dark Side of Curiosity

Curiosity as a clinical entity has been a neglected subject in the psychoanalytic literature. Freud never addressed the issue of curiosity systematically. His interest was in trying to account for children's sexual questioning. Nevertheless, hinderance to internal curiosity—this is to say, that which intimidates and abates the appetite for an exploration of one's motives—is part and parcel of psychoanalytic inquiry. And, arguably, there is no greater clinical challenge for the analyst than trying to treat an analysand who appears to lack an interest in the underlying causes of his unhappiness. The problem of impeded self-inquiry is usually exacerbated in people with more serious emotional disturbances. My position here is that in studying the conditions that mitigate against curiosity in a seriously disturbed patient, we gain access to an enlarged version of the curiosity problems of our less disturbed patients. Here I interpret my clinical impressions about problems with curiosity with ideas from the writings of Martin Buber and Albert Camus.     

Time perception in response to ashamed faces in children and adults

The present study investigated the effect of the perception of faces expressing shame on time perception in children aged 5 and 8 years, as well as in adults, as a function of their ability to recognize this emotional expression. The participants' ability to recognize the expression of shame among faces expressing different emotions was tested. They were then asked to perform a temporal bisection task involving both neutral and ashamed faces. The results showed that, from the age of 8 years, the participants who recognized the facial expressions of shame underestimated their presentation time compared to that of neutral faces. In contrast, no time distortion was observed in the children who did not recognize the ashamed faces or in those younger children who did recognize them. The results are discussed in terms of self-conscious emotions which develop to involve an attentional mechanism.