Balint After Lacan ... and After

This paper examines Balint and Lacan's views about regression and symbolism, language, and transference. The author points out their similarities, their differences, and then proposes a synthesis through his approach of history, genealogy, trauma, and crisis. Freud's notions of masochism, of fixation (innate or phylogenetic) may thus be renewed, leading to the analyst's capacity to cope with deep regression and borderline (Balint) psychosis and perversion (Lacan) or to psychosomatics, including epilepsy.     

Rethinking deindustrialisation and male career crisis

The decline in manufacturing and growth of service-based jobs has prompted many social theorists to argue that the ability of working-class men to construct meaningful and rewarding careers is becoming ever more limited. Despite using the universal label ‘working class’, the experience of skilled working-class men has been largely ignored. This article explores 26 work history interviews collected from 14 former Royal Dockyard tradesmen in South-East England and 12 of these men's sons and grandsons. Findings from this research challenge the idea that most men were/and are passive victims of industrial change. By contrast, the majority of men in this study managed to carefully adapt to and navigate the transition from industrial to post-industrial work whilst still retaining a ‘linear life narrative’ to give meaning to their evolving careers and lives.     

Existential crises in two religious patients: Vicissitudes of faith and the emergence of the true self

The authors present two clinical cases involving an existential crisis which led the patients to lose what had been the foundation in their lives, their faith. Although the therapeutic settings differ – the first patient had a few psychotherapy sessions following a psychotic episode with a mystical background, while the second was in the final stage of analytic treatment – the authors highlight how in both clinical cases a loss of faith becomes a total and urgent crisis of the Self. The fracture which ensues seems to generate an intense engagement of the body which, paradoxically during a loss of faith, induces an experience of ecstasy of the kind that has traditionally been reported. In the first case the experience of ecstasy was lived first‐hand by the patient who thereafter redefined the psychotic breakdown as a “moment of truth”; whereas the second patient, through a deep projective identification, induces an eerie countertransferential feeling of ‘metaphysical’ shortfall in the agnostic psychoanalyst, triggering bewilderment, physical discomfort and awe in him. In both cases the authors believe that the notable somatic involvement may be correlated to a potentially profound and unprecedented contact with the True Self.     

Echoes of the Danish Cartoon Crisis 10 Years Later: Identity,Injury and Intelligibility from Copenhagen to Paris and Texas

ABSTRACT

The tenth anniversary of the Danish cartoon crisis of 2005–06 invites reflection on its historical significance and contemporary relevance. In the Danish context 10 years ago, the events generated substantial debate about issues such as terrorism, immigration, blasphemy and the place of Islam in Denmark and in the Danish folk. Furthermore, they raised complex questions about Danish identity in a society that had become significantly more religiously and culturally diverse in the preceding decades. Most of these questions, however, were eclipsed by the polarized public debate about free speech and religious respect. The year 2015 brought many of these questions back to the fore after the murders that January of 12 journalists at the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and attacks at a kosher market in Paris, followed in February by shootings at a free speech event in Copenhagen and at a synagogue, and later attacks in May at a Muhammad cartoon contest exhibit in Garland, Texas. Despite their disparate contexts, these violent events have echoes of the original Danish cartoon crisis. This article suggests that the three concepts of identity, injury and intelligibility can together help to add complexity to popular interpretations of the original Danish cartoon crisis and recent related events, and prompt us to think beyond the dualistic categories of free speech and blasphemy.     

The Need for Synergy in Academic Policies: An Introduction to the Dialogue on Pre‐registration

There has been much debate on the need for preregistering experimental studies. Opinions differ with some people believing that “pre‐registration should be required—for us to believe the results of papers,” and others believing that “pre‐registration makes no difference to science and just adds work.” This research dialogue brings differing viewpoints together, in an open academic dialogue. Two target articles and two commentaries discuss what pre‐registration does for replicability of studies, and what cost it adds on authors and reviewers. Additionally, in my introduction to the research dialogue, I deliberate on the need for synergy between our journals, review teams, authors, and institutions, in order for any new policies on pre‐registration to be successfully adopted.     

Perceived overqualification,felt organizational obligation,and extra-role behavior during the COVID-19 crisis: The moderating role of self-sacrificial leadership

Past research has found that employees who view themselves as overqualified for their jobs tend to hold negative job attitudes and be unwilling to go beyond the call of duty. In challenging situations such as during the COVID-19 crisis, when having “all hands-on deck” may be important to an organization's survival, mitigating the negative tendencies of these employees becomes important. Adopting a sensemaking perspective on crisis management, we examine whether supervisors' self-sacrificial leadership can mitigate these negative tendencies. First, we propose that employee perceived overqualification is associated with lower levels of felt obligation to the organization and thereby lower levels of extra-role behaviors (i.e., helping and proactivity). We next propose that supervisors' self-sacrificial leadership during the COVID-19 crisis can evoke, especially when COVID-19 more strongly impacts the organization, a sense of collectivism toward the organization, which mitigates the negative association of perceived overqualification with felt obligation and thus extra-role behaviors. We tested our theorizing in samples from the UK (n = 121, pilot study) and US (n = 382, main study) in studies with a multi-wave, time-lagged design. Findings from both studies provide support for our theorizing. We discuss implications for research and practice concerning perceived overqualification during a crisis.     

Reflexiones sobre la asistencia psicológica y psicoterapéutica a los afectados por el Síndrome del Aceite Tóxico (SAT)

RESUMEN

En este artículo se pone de manifiesto la determinación plurifactorial de los trastornos, en general, y del síndrome del aceite tóxico, en particular, y la imposibilidad de entenderlos a partir de los modelos mecanicistas dominantes en otros tiempos en la Psicología clínica y la medicina. Se realiza una reflexión sobre las características socioculturale s del grupo afectado por SAT, así como, las características físicas y psíquicas de dicho grupo. Para posteriormente proponer un modelo del análisis e intervención a este colectivo desde una perspectiva interdisciplinar, centrado en este caso en los factores psicológicos.     

Rediscovering Meaning

The present crisis of the Western countries involves not just the world of politics, finance, and the economy, but also the ecosystem balance, the world of the values on which the model of social organization and economic development is based. The crisis is therefore systemic, epoch-making, and overcoming it will require radical changes, above all in the way we think, in our scale of values, and therefore our culture. On the other hand, for decades the world—in particular the West—has been experiencing a cultural sea-change that is challenging many of the pillars of society that have stood for centuries. The young people of today and their use of technological social networks to develop non-profit initiatives for social change may create a more positive future while maintaining our human values.     

A Novel “Planetary Man”: From the Philosophical Paradigm of Modernity to Contemporary Anthropological Mutation: The Perspective of Ernesto Balducci

Italian priest, essayist, and intellectual of the twentieth century, Ernesto Balducci identified the crucial turning points of the new millennium by advancing original perspectives capable of opening unusual future scenarios. Sensitive to emergences of society (pollution, wars, ecological collapse), he retraces the causes in the more general “crisis of modernity,” proposing a new paideia and a new model of thought. He theorizes the construction of a novel planetary horizon that presupposes not only the building of new organizational structures, but also the achieving of an authentic “anthropological mutation” capable of inverting the course of history. While the old ethics were anthropocentric, founded on the supremacy of humankind over the world and nature, the new ethics is planetary, meaning that humankind must no longer be used as the parameter, but instead, the global horizon over which the effects of his or her actions extend.