The Prodigal Son: Some Psychological Aspects of Augustine’s Conversion to Christianity

Augustine’s conversion is considered exemplary for its Christian testimony. However, the psychological aspects are also relevant, for Augustine’s conversion to Christianity was as much inspired by personal and cultural ambitions as by religious convictions. For Augustine, the conversion to the Christian faith spelled a life of asceticism—a life of celibacy, a virtuous and chaste existence, which also offered him a means of escape from the threatening ambiguity of parental relations and a chance to realize the cultural ideal of the civilized philosopher who has subjugated the passions of the flesh. In this paper we explore the psychological dynamics of the absent father, the suffering mother and the prodigal son and the role they played in Augustine’s conversion to Christianity.     

Psychogenic Nonepileptic Seizures

Neurological, neurodiagnostic, and neuropsychological aspects of psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) are reviewed, including psychosocial, psychiatric, cognitive, and MMPI-2 findings.     

Dialectical Displacement and Redeployment of Attachments in the Kenotic Mode of Conversion: The Leaving Behind of Anton Boisen in Psychosis

This paper introduces a kenotic theory of conversion that builds from simple attachment to childhood experience of peak states to encompass dialectical stages of development: Priming, Decentering, Reflection, Encounter, Denucleation, Emplacement and Discipline. Thereafter, the dialectical mode gives rise to the mature phase of conversion—the continuing integration of the religious worldview through Metamorphosis and Embassy. The conversion theory is illustrated by an interpretation of a dialectical set of experiences of Anton Boisen. I interpret Anton Boisen’s conversion from a 19th Century Christianity that was wedded to religious and racial manifest destiny to that of a reborn Christian living with the 20th Century’s experience of evangelical and evolutionary universalism. Boisen’s clinical desolations (“psychosis”) and adoption of vocation (“change of allegiance”) suggest his conversion counterposed the instinctual with the higher order ideals he struggled to embody—a dialectical negation of his younger static and triumphalist Christian cultural identity that developed into a more integrated, expansive, and inclusive view of the human family and deepening allegiance to the ordinary, underserved, and growing population of the mentally suffering.

Personality, anxiety and functional dysphonia

Psychological factors are considered for the predisposition and perpetuation of functional dysphonia. In the present study 61 patients with functional dysphonia were compared with 61 healthy controls, matched by age, sex, and occupation with respect to Cloninger’s personality model, mood, and anxiety.The patients with functional dysphonia presented significantly higher scores than the healthy controls with respect to “harm avoidance” (HA); depressive symptoms; symptoms of unspecific and general anxiety; symptoms of specific anxiety concerning “health”, “illness”, and “extraversion versus introversion”. No significant differences were found in “novelty seeking” (NS), “reward dependence” (RD), “persistence” (PE), or in state-anxiety and anxiety of social situations. These results were found considering univariate and multivariate analyses and confirm the relationship of psychological factors such as personality traits, mood, and anxiety on one hand and conversion disorder in general and functional dysphonia in particular on the other hand. This important relationship should be considered in the diagnostic and therapeutic interventions of functional dysphonia.     

The interpretation of classically quantified sentences: a set-theoretic approach

We present a set-theoretic model of the mental representation of classically quantified sentences (All P are Q, Some P are Q, Some P are not Q, and No P are Q). We take inclusion, exclusion, and their negations to be primitive concepts. We show that although these sentences are known to have a diagrammatic expression (in the form of the Gergonne circles) that constitutes a semantic representation, these concepts can also be expressed syntactically in the form of algebraic formulas. We hypothesized that the quantified sentences have an abstract underlying representation common to the formulas and their associated sets of diagrams (models). We derived 9 predictions (3 semantic, 2 pragmatic, and 4 mixed) regarding people's assessment of how well each of the 5 diagrams expresses the meaning of each of the quantified sentences. We report the results from 3 experiments using Gergonne's (1817) circles or an adaptation of Leibniz (1903/1988) lines as external representations and show them to support the predictions.     

“Noxious Weed”: Persecution in the Development of Korean Christianity

The experience of persecution during the late Joseon and Japanese colonial period was not unusual for Korean Christians, who endured living as a minority faith within a hostile context. Like the pre‐Constantinian Christian communities and many Christians today who live in the global South, suspicion and persecution defined their world as openly confessing Christians, and they embraced, as part of converting to Christianity, the stark reality that their faith could incur personal harm in the form of hostility, incarceration, and even death. This article explores how conversion and maintaining Christian faith in a society adverse to Christianity shaped believers’ self‐understanding of the breadth of faith and acceptance of its mortal implications. Focusing on the Catholic and Protestant experience in Korea, Christian believers rigorously tested the country's attitudes against Christianity. In so doing, their experience provokes a critical reflection on the profoundness of the missionary mandate and illuminates the complexity with which their faith is forged as they must confront the brutal reality that they may be, at the very least, arrested. For many Korean Christians during Joseon Dynasty and the Japanese colonial period (1910–1945), conversion to Christianity was part of the process that transformed for believers a religious identity that was understood to be potentially detrimental to their relationship with the state.     

Conversion to non-remunerated plasmapheresis donation: Effects of labeling and donation environment

IntroductionPlasmapheresis donors’ recruitment strategies should focus on asking whole-blood donors (WBDs) to convert to plasmapheresis.ObjectiveThis study measured the effect of labeling on the conversion of WBDs to plasmapheresis donation and examined the relationship between the type of blood drive and conversion to plasmapheresis.MethodsTwo blood drives destined towards students were held either on a university campus (mobile blood drive), or in a blood center. At the end of each whole-blood donation, the nurse performed a labeling, reactivated a few minutes later by a second individual asking the donor if he would agree to donate plasma. If so, an appointment for plasma donation was made or a promise was collected. The number of commitments to plasmapheresis (promise/appointment) and the number of achievements of these commitments measured the effect of labeling.ResultsFew significant differences between social or functional labeling were found compared to a “no labeling” condition in terms of commitments and concretizations. The in-center blood drive achieved three times more engagements than the mobile blood drive (p < .001). Appointments had better chances to turn into a plasma donation than promises (p < .001).ConclusionLabeling as it was tested seemed ineffective in conversion from whole blood donation to plasmapheresis, but further studies should be carried out to replicate these results. When only collected during in-center blood drives, blood collection agencies should try to develop in-center whole blood donations and promotional approaches towards plasma donation. When approaching potential plasmapheresis donors, appointments should be preferred to promises. Further research is needed to examine the causes of these results.     

Why do young people become Jihadists? A theoretical account on radical identity development

Identity status theory and Lofland and Starks' (1965, Becoming a world-saver: A theory of conversion to a deviant perspective, American Sociological Review, 30, 862–875) model of religious conversion were used to explain why young people become jihad fighters. Both theories maintain that young people with unclear commitments are vulnerable for radical identity change. A religious problem-solving perspective, along with a self-definition as religious seeker, steers this potential identity change into the direction of religious conversion. This may lead young Muslims or young people with an uncertain identity and a religious orientation to move closer to radical Islam and jihad. Also, research from both traditions found that absence of positive affective bonds with relevant others go together with unstable identity. A new group with a clear defined mission may therefore be able to solve their problems in two ways: it offers warm interpersonal bonds, as well as potential new personal goals and commitments. Groups of jihadists are perfectly fit to serve this twofold purpose.     

Conversion Symptoms and Psychoanalysis in a Second Language

Abstract

Conversion symptoms involve a regression, where the patient appears to have lost access to previously available modes of verbal expression. Instead movements, sensations, postures, gestures, and visceral processes express emotions and unconscious wishes directly. Patients who are analyzed in a language other than their mother tongue, without access to the language of their early years, may rely on the body to express powerful affect and fantasies. A patient who displayed pseudoseizures on the couch is presented, looking specifically at how this man's conversion reaction may relate to the fact that the language of the analysis is not his mother tongue.     

Conversion Hysteria in a Pre-Adolescent Girl

Abstract

This paper is a case presentation of a 10-year-old girl with classic conversion hysteria symptomatology. Psychological test material as well as the ten session treatment is presented. The original Breuer/Freud conceptualization of hysteria and its linkage with trauma is considered. Current theories of trauma with the usual presenting symptoms of dissociation, abandonment fears, and repetition are also considered.