Minding the gap between neuroscientific and psychoanalytic understanding of autism

This paper offers an integrative approach to the increasingly complex puzzle of autistic spectrum disorders. The author demonstrates how the work of one group of neuroscientists in Parma, on a special class of brain cells called ‘mirror neurons', and the work of researchers at the University of California in San Diego, applying these findings to the problem of autism, intersect with Frances Tustin's discoveries about the nature, function and meaning of psychogenic autism in children and even autistic states in neurotic adults. Included in the author's considerations are the results of some by now well-known studies conducted by a group of biologists at the University of California at Berkeley in the 1960s on the effects of ‘enriched’ versus ‘deprived’ environments upon the development of the brain, and a study of autistic children diagnosed as brain damaged and treated psychoanalytically at the Paediatric Neuro-Psychiatric Institute of the University of Rome in the 1980s. The author concludes with a coherent picture of various dimensions of autistic phenomenon that may constitute more than just the sum of its parts, and points towards new areas for discussion and study.     

Avoiding unbearable pain

This presentation describes the way in which defence mechanisms and resistance manifested themselves in the analysis of a man with a narcissistic personality disorder. In the course of the analysis, there were changes in the forms taken by the defence and the resistance, signalling important genetic and dynamic conditions in his life. Both represented desperate attempts to avoid the unbearably painful feelings and affects which he had experienced in his childhood, and bore witness to early and primitive defence mechanisms such as denial, splitting and projective identification. The defence can also be seen as an expression of an unconscious fear of being re-traumatised. The idealisation of the analyst in the first years of the analysis can therefore be understood as a precondition for entering into this kind of process. It also represented a defence against aggressive and homosexual feelings in the transference which first became clear during the final phase of the analysis and could then be worked through. At this point, the analyst's reactions to his own unconscious countertransference were of help in understanding what was actually going on. This analysis may also suggest that defects and trauma in the earliest years may be conducive to alexithymia, deficient contact between feelings and words, linked to the risk of developing serious psychosomatic illnesses. This may be a consequence of the fact that the child's feelings and affects were neither accepted, understood nor affirmed in words, or they may even have been met with rejection or ridicule. A connection between narcissistic personality disorders and alexithymia can possibly be seen here.     

Psychobiography in psychology: Past,present, and future

The present article reviews the history and emerging trends in the field of psychobiography. Five historical periods are highlighted: hagiography and pre-19th century study of lives; Freud and applied psychoanalysis; psychodynamic extensions and personology; modern multi-theoretical models; and psychobiography as interdisciplinary science. The author advocates for a science of psychobiography manifested in expanded and empirically validated theoretical models anchoring research. Further, attention is drawn to the need for more rigorous historiographic research methods weighting first-person sources and incorporating mixed methods designs. Increased attention to ethical and legal issues in the conduct and reporting of psychobiographical studies is also highlighted. Finally, emerging trends in psychobiography related to research production, academic training, and organisational initiatives are presented.     

Institutional creativity and pathologies of potential space: The modern university

Abstract

This paper proposes the applicability of object relations psychoanalytic conceptions of dialogue (Ogden, 1986 Ogden, T. 1986. The matrix of the mind, London: Karnac.  [Google Scholar], 1993 Ogden, T. 1993. “On potential space”. In In one's bones: The clinical genius of Winnicot, Edited by: Goldman, D. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aaronson.  [Google Scholar]) to thinking about relationships and relational structures and their governance in universities. It proposes that:

• the qualities of dialogic relations in creative institutions are the proper index of creative productivity; that is of, as examples, ‘thinking’ (Evans, 2004 Evans, M. 2004. Killing thinking: The death of the universities, London: Continuum.  [Google Scholar]), ‘emotional learning’ (Salzberger-Wittenburg et al., 1983 Salzberger-Wittenburg, I., Henry, G. and Osborne, E. 1983. The emotional experience of learning and teaching, London: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]) or ‘criticality’ (Barnett, 1997 Barnett, R. 1997. Higher education: A critical business, Buckingham: Open University Press.  [Google Scholar]);

• contemporary institutions' explicit preoccupation in assuring, monitoring and managing creative ‘dialogue’ can, in practice, pervert creative processes and thoughtful symbolic productivity, thus inhibiting students' development and the quality of ‘thinking space’ for teaching and research.

In this context the paper examines uncanny and perverse connections between Paulo Freire's (1972 Freire, P. 1972. Pedagogy of the oppressed, London: Penguin.  [Google Scholar]) account of educational empowerment and dialogics (from his Pedagogy of the oppressed) to the consumerist (see, for example, Clarke & Vidler, 2005 Clarke, J. and Vidler, E. 2005. Creating citizen-consumers: New labour and the remaking of public services. Public Policy and Administration, 20: 19–37.  [Google Scholar]) rhetoric of student empowerment, as mediated by some strands of managerialism in contemporary higher education. The paper grounds its critique of current models of dialogue, feedback loops, audit and other mechanisms of accountability (Power, 1997 Power, M. 1997. The Audit Society: Ritual's of verification, Oxford: Oxford University Press.  [Google Scholar]; Strathern, 2000 Strathern M. Audit cultures: Anthropological studies in accountability, ethics and the academy London Routledge 2000 [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), in a close analysis of how creative thinking emerges.

The paper discusses the failure to maintain a dialogic space in humanities and social science areas in particular, exploring psychoanalytic conceptions from Donald Winnicott (1971 Winnicott, D. W. 1971. Playing and Reality, London: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]), Milner (1979 Milner, M. 1979. On not being able to paint, New York: International Universities Press.  [Google Scholar]), Thomas Ogden (1986 Ogden, T. 1986. The matrix of the mind, London: Karnac.  [Google Scholar]) and Csikszentmihalyi (1997 Csikszentmihalyi, M. 1997. Creativity, New York: Harper Perennial.  [Google Scholar]). Coleridge's ideas about imagination as the movement of thought between subjective and objective modes are discussed in terms of both intra- and inter-subjective relational modes of ‘dialogue’, which are seen as subject to pathology in the pathologically structured psychosocial environment. Current patterns of institutional governance, by micromanaging dialogic spaces, curtail the ‘natural’ rhythms and temporalities of imagination by giving an over-emphasis to the moment of outcome, at the expense of holding the necessary vagaries of process in the institutional ‘mind’. On the contrary, as this paper argues, creative thinking lies in sporadic emergences at the conjunction of object/(ive) outcome and through (thought) processes.     

Putting the ‘heart’ back into community psychology: some South African examples

In this paper we explore the impact of emotional dynamics in the field of community psychology and the value of psychodynamic concepts in making sense of this. Emotional processes have often not been very well acknowledged or conceptualized in writing in the area of community psychology practice. This neglect is understandable given the individualizing, pathologizing and medicalizing assumptions underlying many psychological theories of emotion. Psychodynamic ideas may, however, make a useful contribution to understanding central concerns in community psychology in so far as they are able to shed light on emotional processes in groups, the political determinants of emotional response and the emotional dynamics of power, which are all central to the thinking of community psychologists. Using examples drawn from a long-term programme of consultation to community-based services in South Africa, we explore the potential of psychoanalytic understandings of emotional processes in illuminating some of the complexities and challenges faced in developing effective community partnerships and working towards the empowerment of communities.     

Psychosomatic Health: The Body and the Word

Abstract

Why do men get firsts and women gets seconds? This question is currently being debated by some in Oxford University, but not elsewhere, where men's educational under-achievement - in secondary-school league tables, for instance (see, e.g., Phillips 1993) - is more often a matter of concern. Stephen Frosh (1998) has considered both issues in terms of the way young men are constructed and construct themselves through performing and acting on prevailing stereotypes about men and masculinity. These stereotypes include recklessness, not caution, which Maryanne Martin (1998) says contributes to men getting firsts at Oxford by virtue of this trait being rewarded by Oxford University's tutorial and examination system.

In the following pages I too will talk about the equation of men with recklessness. Or, more accurately, I will talk about the way in which men and women act on nightmares and dreams that often glorify men, not least as reckless heroes, in large part because, despite the gains of feminism, glory is still more often men's than women's prerogative in male-dominated society, of which Oxford University is a prime example. I too will consider how this might contribute to men more often getting firsts, and to women more often getting seconds in finals in Oxford. I will end with some implications of my findings for therapy - at least, for the kind of therapy I do as a Freudian therapist. I will therefore begin with Freud.     

Languages of trauma; towards a phenomenological response

In this article, I explore the possibilities of a phenomenological perspective on trauma in psychoanalytic practice. I highlight the problem of interpretations that universalise experiences of trauma, provide explanations in terms of ‘causes’ and assume particular processes/stages of ‘recovery’ from it. The notion of trauma challenges dichotomies of ‘internal’ and ‘external’ worlds. Traumatic experiences always have a context – that of the immediate relational circumstances of the individual suffering from the trauma, including the wider social/relational context, and the person’s history. I argue for an attunement to the language and specificity of the meanings, verbal and non-verbal, conscious and unconscious, of the client’s suffering within the analytical relationship. This requires the therapist to avoid ‘ready-made’ interpretations from psychoanalytic theory and to be open to the poiesis of the speech, which emerges between therapist and client. My discussion of my reading of the Chilean documentary film, Nostalgia for the Light, which focuses on the traumatic experiences of those who survived Pinochet’s military regime (1973–1989), highlights how diverse responses to trauma are. The originality of the language of the film calls on us as therapists to discover new ways of listening and speaking to our clients’ suffering.     

The interior and the abject: uses and abuses of the female in the middle ages

In this paper I argue that during the High Middle Ages definitions of the female as distinct from the life led by women played a crucial role in defining social boundaries and solidifying new systems of power. I suggest that there were two female figures that were crucial to these definitions: the mother and the virgin. While the mother image was invoked to describe the internal functioning of the Christian community, the virgin metaphor drew the external boundaries and defined the Christian community's relation to the non‐Christian other.     

Reasoning from uncertain premises: Effects of expertise and conversational context

Four experiments investigated uncertainty about a premise in a deductive argument as a function of the expertise of the speaker and of the conversational context. The procedure mimicked everyday reasoning in that participants were not told that the premises were to be treated as certain. The results showed that the perceived likelihood of a conclusion was greater when the major or the minor premise was uttered by an expert rather than a novice (Experiment 1). The results also showed that uncertainty about the conclusion was higher when the major premise was uttered by a novice and an alternative premise by an expert, compared to when the major premise was uttered by an expert and the alternative by a novice (Experiment 2). Similarly, the believability of a conclusion was considerably lower when the minor premise was uttered by a novice and denied by an expert, as opposed to when an expert uttered the minor premise and a novice denied it (Experiment 3). Experiment 4 showed that the nature of the uncertainty induced by a denial of the minor premise depended on whether or not the context was a conversation. These results pose difficult problems for current theories of reasoning, as current theories are based on the results of experiments in which the premises are treated as certain. Our discussion of the results emphasises the importance of pragmatics in reasoning, namely, the role of general knowledge about the world in assessing the probability of a premise uttered by an expert or a novice and the role of interpretations of the premise based on pragmatic inferences in revising these initial probabilities.     

Towards a biblical psychoanalysis: a second look at the first book

Freud's materialistic treatment of religion has discouraged and stigmatised inquiries concerning the potential theoretical and clinical utility that biblical stories could offer to the ongoing development of psychoanalysis. As a result, the historical development of psychoanalysis has been disproportionally influenced by the Hellenic ideals that influenced the German humanistic pedagogical value of Bildung, to which Freud was an ardent disciple. However, since it has consistently been recognised that Western culture has been mutually influenced by both biblical and Hellenistic attitudes, it may be warranted to extend this dialectal interplay into the realm of individual psychology, in the process delimiting a space whereby psychoanalysis and biblical thought can constructively coexist. In this vein, prototypical myths from the Greek and biblical traditions can reliably be situated on a psycho-mythological continuum, with Greek myths representing a less integrated level of ego development and biblical narratives reflecting an unambivalent, higher level of psychological organisation. The Greek mythology of Oedipus and the biblical Binding of Isaac has been chosen to illustrate this dynamic.