WINNICOTT AND HELPLESSNESS: DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY,RELIGION, AND PERSONAL LIFE

The author examines Winnicott's theory of development from the perspective of existential helplessness, arguing that (a) his views illuminate healthy (and unhealthy) aspects of religion, and (b) express his stance toward the helplessness of dying and death. The author contends that Winnicott understood the infant's psychic growth in relation to the reality of existential helplessness and absolute dependency. Four interrelated, dynamic paradoxes embedded in Winnicott's developmental perspective are discussed, and these paradoxes are seen as frameworks to depict his notions of ego, transitional objects, and true/false selves. The author posits that religion, which Winnicott included under the rubric of transitional phenomena, can be understood in relation to existential helplessness and can be assessed in terms of the degree to which these paradoxes are dynamic.     

Battle of the dinosaurs: The impact of internalized bad paternal and maternal objects in a three-year-old boy

Abstract

This paper begins with a summary of W. Ronald D. Fairbairn's object relations theory, with particular focus on his ideas of how paternal objects are internalized alongside maternal objects. A case is then presented of a three-year-old boy who experienced deprivation and frustration from both his mother and father, thus initiating the internalization of bad paternal and maternal objects. Assessment and implications for treatment are then discussed using Fairbairn's model as an organizing framework for developing goals and interventions, and monitoring treatment progress.     

“None of the above” as a correct and incorrect alternative on a multiple-choice test: Implications for the testing effect

Both positive and negative testing effects have been demonstrated with a variety of materials and paradigms (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006b). The present series of experiments replicate and extend the research of Roediger and Marsh (2005) with the addition of a “none-of-the-above” response option. Participants (n=32 in both experiments) read a set of passages, took an initial multiple-choice test, completed a filler task, and then completed a final cued-recall test (Experiment 1) or multiple-choice test (Experiment 2). Questions were manipulated on the initial multiple-choice test by adding a “none-of-the-above” response alternative (choice “E”) that was incorrect (“E” Incorrect) or correct (“E” Correct). The results from both experiments demonstrated that the positive testing effect was negated when the “none-of-the-above” alternative was the correct response on the initial multiple-choice test, but was still present when the “none-of-the-above” alternative was an incorrect response.     

Overdetermination and Elimination

Abstract

I focus on two arguments, due to Jaegwon Kim and Trenton Merricks, that move from claims about the sufficiency of one class of causes to the reduction or elimination of another class of entity, via claims about overdetermination. I argue that in order to validate their move from sufficiency to reduction or elimination, both Kim and Merricks must assume that there can be no ‘weak overdetermination’; i.e., that no single effect can have numerically distinct but dependently sufficient causes occurring at the same time. One problem for both arguments is that weak overdetermination isn't obviously objectionable. That point has been well made before. But I want here to go further than merely shifting the burden of proof onto the advocates of overdetermination arguments. I want to tease out why they are so convinced that we must resist weak overdetermination and explain why their conviction is misguided. Both Merricks and Kim, I shall argue, ultimately rest their case on the same motivating principle, which I call the principle of additional causal powers. This principle, I argue further, should be rejected. It lacks argumentative support, and it begs the question against those at whom the arguments are directed.     

Pointing gestures modulate domestic dogs’ search behavior for hidden objects in a spatial rotation problem

In the spatial domain, domestic dogs are highly inclined to search at the last location where they saw an object disappear and cannot infer that a hidden object has moved imperceptibly from one location to another. In the current study, we examined whether exposure to human social cues modulates dogs’ search behavior for hidden objects. In Experiment 1, twenty dogs were first trained to find an object they saw disappear inside a stationary container in the presence (social group) or absence (non-social group) of pointing gestures. In tests, the containers were rotated 180° around a central axis. The dogs in the non-social group systematically searched at the initial (now incorrect) hiding location, whereas the dogs in the social group chose correctly significantly above chance. In Experiment 2, we tested whether pre-exposure to human pointing has an impact on dogs’ use of gestures. No gestures were given during training and both the social and non-social conditions were administered to each of the ten dogs. In contrast to Experiment 1, the performance of dogs in the social condition dropped significantly and varied substantially from one dog to another. Overall, this study suggests that dogs’ tendency to use human signals is so strong that it even outweighs their spatial bias to search where they saw an object disappear; however, this penchant to use human gestures appears to be dependent on the degree of familiarity of the dog with these signals.     

On the Logic of Classes as Many

The notion of a "class as many" was central to Bertrand Russell's early form of logicism in his 1903 Principles of Mathematics. There is no empty class in this sense, and the singleton of an urelement (or atom in our reconstruction) is identical with that urelement. Also, classes with more than one member are merely pluralities — or what are sometimes called "plural objects" — and cannot as such be themselves members of classes. Russell did not formally develop this notion of a class but used it only informally. In what follows, we give a formal, logical reconstruction of the logic of classes as many as pluralities (or plural objects) within a fragment of the framework of conceptual realism. We also take groups to be classes as many with two or more members and show how groups provide a semantics for plural quantifier phrases.     

Daimonic elements in early trauma

This paper explores some of the 'daimonic' elements of unconscious mentation that emerge both in dreams and in the transference/countertransference field with early-trauma patients and illustrates these with an extended clinical example. An archaic and typical (archetypal) 'trauma complex' is articulated (with diagram) as a bi-polar structure consisting of divine child protected and/or persecuted by an inner 'guardian angel'. Sources of this structure and its mythological inner objects are traced to trauma at the stage of what Winnicott calls 'unintegration' and to flooding by disintegration anxiety at a time before nascent ego-structure has formed. In an extended case example, the author shows how the patient's traumatized innocence and desire for a new start, thwarted by self-attacking defences, pulls him into playing the inflated role of her guardian angel, leading to re-traumatization in the transference. Working through is seen as the necessary disillusionment and humanization of these daimonic structures as they are projected, suffered, and transmuted by the analytic partners in the stormy process of psychotherapy.     

A GENERALIZED CONCEPTION OF TEXT APPLIED TO BOTH SCIENTIFIC AND RELIGIOUS OBJECTS

Abstract. The idea of a text is reviewed and reconstructed to facilitate the application of concepts of interpretation to the objects analyzed in the natural sciences, as well as to objects analyzed in religion and literature. Four criteria—-readability, formality, material transcendence, and retrievability—-are proposed as the basis for a generalized conception of text. Objects in both religion and science, not previously thought to be texts, are shown to be included in the new definition and therefore to be potential subjects of developing methods of interpretation.