Psychoanalysis and Social Demand

In a public institution that works with adolescents who have committed infractions and the application of penalties that restrict the freedom of these adolescents, the psychoanalytical concept incompleteness has furnished the basis for an educational project. This same concept of non-wholeness has also been applied in order to explain why certain teenagers adhere to a criminal set of values instead of choosing righteous ones. Psychoanalysis teaches us to work through the demands that are made by our patients so as to bring the unconscious wish to the surface. Our work with these demands conditions the onset of still another demand: the request for clinical treatment. Both social and institutional demands can be treated in a similar way. In this paper, we associate violence with the notion of wholeness, therefore the acknowledgement of vulnerability and lack can actually restrain violence. This is a paradox sustained by psychoanalysis.     

Iterated Non‐Refutation: Robert Lockie on Relativism 1

Abstract

I argue that an experience’s sensuous elements play an ineliminable role in our being intentionally directed upon an entity through perception. More specifically, I argue that whenever we appreciate a sensuous element in experience, we appreciate an intrinsic and irreducibly phenomenal aspect of experience that I call phenomenal presence – an aspect of experience that I show is central to its presentational character – and that the appreciation of phenomenal presence is necessary for perceptual intentionality. If an experience is to possess intentionality, the experience itself must make an entity available as an object of perceptually-based singular beliefs and the experiencing subject, by virtue of undergoing the experience, must in some sense be able to appreciate that it has done so. Phenomenal presence is necessary for perceptual intentionality because it plays an ineliminable role in making an entity available to its subject in this way.     

Body Psychotherapy with Couples

SUMMARY

Bodynamic Analysis combines depth cognitive psychotherapy and an emphasis on relationship with an understanding of the body based on an empirical study of the psychological function of each muscle. The resulting developmental understanding has been elaborated in the form of Seven Developmental Stages, each having specific themes and issues. These themes and issues are often found to be at the core of the conflictual dynamics presented by couples who are seeking therapy. Thus, while addressing the issues of one person, we can simultaneously be eliciting and working with the interpersonal dynamics of the couple.     

Chapter 7: The Dilemma of Aging

SUMMARY

Intergenerational programming has received much attention and has been heralded as beneficial for both children and older adults. However, little has been reported in the literature concerning adult reactions to and benefits of intergenerational activities. A report on the first two years of an ongoing intergenerational project involving a preschool and a retirement community is presented. Four adults who participated regularly were interviewed in depth and findings are reported. All categories from the interviews represented aspects of Erikson's Generativity stage, and indicated that spirituality was enhanced through intergenerational contacts. Opportunities to interact with young children engendered a sense of relatedness to others and hope for the future for the older adult interviewees. Implications of this program that strengthened links to younger generations, and fostered positive affect, well-being, and spirituality in the aging process are discussed.     

Job Demand–Control–Support and diabetes risk: The moderating role of self-efficacy

Work-related stressors, including high demands and low control, play a significant role in the aetiology of diabetes. Nevertheless, most studies focus on main effects, and few consider individual differences that may moderate the stress–health association. Drawing from the Job Demands–Control-–Support (JDC-S) model, this study addresses this gap by testing how baseline levels of JDC-S affect an increase in two risk factors for diabetes—glycated haemoglobin (HbA1C) and fasting plasma glucose (FPG)—and by investigating the moderating role of self-efficacy. Participants (N = 1618) were Israeli employees who attended two consecutive routine health examinations. All were free of diabetes at baseline. JDC-S and self-efficacy were assessed at baseline (T1), and HbA1C and FPG were assessed at T1 and T2. Data were analysed with logistic and linear regressions, controlling for well-established diabetes risk factors. High demands and low support predicted an increase in HbA1C and FPG. In addition, high self-efficacy interacted with high demands and with low control in the prediction of an increase in HbA1C and FPG. Although employees with high self-efficacy might function well at work, overloading them may harm their physical health. Similarly, incongruence between employees’ sense of ability and the control given to them at work may result in physical impairment.     

Value in the guise of regret

Abstract

According to a widely accepted philosophical model, agent‐regret is practically significant and appropriate when the agent committed a mistake, or she faced a conflict of obligations. I argue that this account misunderstands moral phenomenology because it does not adequately characterize the object of agent‐regret. I suggest that the object of agent‐regret should be defined in terms of valuable unchosen alternatives supported by reasons. This model captures the phenomenological varieties of regret and explains its practical significance for the agent. My contention is that agent‐regret is a mode of valuing: a way in which the agent expresses and confers value.     

我国医学人文教育的价值取向

基于价值哲学范畴的价值取向概念,探讨我国医学人文教育的实践目标。紧密结合临床医学专业教学实践和临床医学人文教学实践,从解析现代医学目的、塑造医学人文品格、构建和谐医患关系三个维度,论证医学人文教育与医学专业教育的融合点,认识医学活动主体、客体的特征及其相互关系,拓宽医学教育实践的内涵与外延,建构医学教育主体、客体和医疗实践主体、客体的同轴目标,增加医学行为主体的软实力提升路径,化除医患关系不和谐的医方瑕疵。     

Visual field differences in visual word recognition can emerge purely from perceptual learning: evidence from modeling Chinese character pronunciation

In Chinese orthography, a dominant character structure exists in which a semantic radical appears on the left and a phonetic radical on the right (SP characters); a minority opposite arrangement also exists (PS characters). As the number of phonetic radical types is much greater than semantic radical types, in SP characters the information is skewed to the right, whereas in PS characters it is skewed to the left. Through training a computational model for SP and PS character recognition that takes into account of the locations in which the characters appear in the visual field during learning, but does not assume any fundamental hemispheric processing difference, we show that visual field differences can emerge as a consequence of the fundamental structural differences in information between SP and PS characters, as opposed to the fundamental processing differences between the two hemispheres. This modeling result is also consistent with behavioral naming performance. This work provides strong evidence that perceptual learning, i.e., the information structure of word stimuli to which the readers have long been exposed, is one of the factors that accounts for hemispheric asymmetry effects in visual word recognition.     

The idea of the self in the evolution of Hume's account of the passions

Terence Penelhum has written extensively about the role of the idea of the self in Hume's account of the emotional and moral life of persons. Penelhum fails to notice, however, a change that takes place in the way that the idea of the self functions in Hume's account of the passions as that account evolved after the Treatise. This paper charts part of that evolution, and reflects on its significance for Hume's moral psychology.