COUNTERTRANSFERENCE IDENTIFICATION AND FANTASY IN PSYCHOANALYTIC PROCESS

The development of more nuanced understandings of psychoanalytic process is among the primary tasks of contemporary psychoanalytic theorizing. One piece of this complex undertaking involves the examination of moments when the analyst's countertransference position changes. Shifts in the analyst's feelings and thoughts in relation to the patient are complex events in which experiences registered at many levels of organization and via many modes of perception combine to contribute to meaning‐making and furthering of the treatment process. The author explores the role of fantasy in giving form and meaning to alterations experienced as a change of attitude or affect, through close examination of one such moment of shift.     

Leveraged Resources and Systems Changes in Community Collaboration

Most models of community collaboration emphasize the ability of diverse partners to come together to enact systematic changes that improve the health of individuals and communities. The ability of these groups to leverage resources is thought to be an important marker of successful collaboration and eventual improvements in community health. However, there is a paucity of research addressing linkages between systems change activities and leveraged resources. This study used a sample of collaboratives (N = 157) that received technical assistance and funding through the Georgia Family Connection Partnership (GaFCP) between 2006 and 2007. Data were collected from collaborative report of activities and funding, member ratings of collaborative functioning, and characteristics of the communities served by the collaboratives drawn from US Census data. Cross-lagged regression models tested longitudinal associations between systems change activities and leveraged dollars. The results indicated that systems change activities predict increased leveraging of resources from state/federal and private partners. However, there was no evidence that systems changes were linked with leveraging resources from local groups and agencies. These findings have important implications for providing technical assistance and training to health partnerships. Furthermore, future research should consider the relative strength of different systems change activities in relation to the ability of coalitions to leverage resources.     

Observing a client's grieving process: bringing logical positivism into qualitative grief counselling research

This positional paper originates from our need as researcher/practitioners to establish a meaningful epistemological framework for research into bereaved people's journey through loss and grief over time. We describe how the field of grief research has a long and established biological basis, in keeping with a positivist epistemology. However, there has been a diminution of the influence of logical positivism in twenty-first-century counselling research. We argue that in grief counselling research, naturalistic observation of the grieving process within a logical positivist paradigm, remains a valid and valuable construct. We posit an observational protocol for the grief counselling process which minimises the intrusion of research method into the therapeutic process. We offer this as a means of conducting qualitative research within a bereavement counselling service. Further, we suggest that the development of an observational protocol for a client's grieving process has potential implications for developing good practice in grief work.     

The Goal Circuit Model: A Hierarchical Multi‐Route Model of the Acquisition and Control of Routine Sequential Action in Humans

Human control of action in routine situations involves a flexible interplay between (a) task‐dependent serial ordering constraints; (b) top‐down, or intentional, control processes; and (c) bottom‐up, or environmentally triggered, affordances. In addition, the interaction between these influences is modulated by learning mechanisms that, over time, appear to reduce the need for top‐down control processes while still allowing those processes to intervene at any point if necessary or if desired. We present a model of the acquisition and control of goal‐directed action that goes beyond existing models by operationalizing an interface between two putative systems—a routine and a non‐routine system—thereby demonstrating how explicitly represented goals can interact with the emergent task representations that develop through learning in the routine system. The gradual emergence of task representations offers an explanation for the transfer of control with experience from the non‐routine goal‐based system to the routine system. At the same time it allows action selection to be sensitive both to environmental triggers and to biasing from multiple levels within the goal system.     

Do the right thing! A study on social representation of obedience and disobedience

The present research is aimed at investigating through a mixed-method approach the dimensions underlying the psychosocial constructs of obedience, disobedience and the relations between them. To this end, we consider the attitudes toward (dis)obedience being socially constructed, and we chose the theory of social representations (Abric, 2003; Moscovici, 1961) as the theoretical framework of this study.The data, collected on a sample of 190 individuals, allowed us to define these social objects, reducing both their complexity and polysemy.Obedience and disobedience were both seen by research participants as context-dependent behaviours, neither positive nor negative, per se. Also, both related to the concept of authority (individuals, institutions, and society). However, while obedience was mostly considered an uncritical response to laws, social norms or physical authorities, disobedience was defined as an active, conscious line of conduct. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

MIRACLES AND TWO ACCOUNTS OF SCIENTIFIC LAWS

Since early modernity, it has often been assumed that miracles are incompatible with the existence of the natural laws utilized in the sciences. This paper argues that this assumption is largely an artifact of empiricist accounts of laws that should be rejected for reasons internal to philosophy of science, and that no such incompatibility arises on the most important alternative interpretations, which treat laws as expressions of forces, dispositions, or causal powers.     

On the Role of Specific Emotions in Autonomous and Controlled Motivated Behaviour

In the present study, we study the effect of four specific emotions (i.e. happiness, relaxation, depression, and anxiety) on autonomous and controlled motivated behaviour. Drawing on the componential approach to emotions, we argue that because different emotions have a different action readiness—the readiness to engage with the environment—they also have a different impact on autonomous and controlled motivated behaviour. To test this hypothesis, we performed two studies. In the first one, 50 participants took part in an experience sampling study in which they reported their emotions (happiness, relaxation, depression, and anxiety) and autonomous and controlled motivated behaviour 10 times a day for 7 consecutive days. In the second study, 217 students participated in a lab experiment in which we studied the effect of induced anxiety, depression, happiness, and relaxation on autonomous motivated behaviour. The results showed how specific emotions predict autonomous motivated behaviour and that the relationship between the different emotions and autonomous motivated behaviour depends on the emotion under study. By doing so, we demonstrated the important role of emotions in the elicitation of autonomous motivated behaviour. Copyright © 2014 European Association of Personality Psychology     

心理学的想象力与行动力

本文由心理学与内卷化问题切入讨论,提出心理学应该具备想象力与行动力.想象力的培养可以借助人类学、历史学、哲学等学科的视野.行动力则需要树立相应的观念,面向社区、生活与人民群众.知行合一或许是可能的选择.     

Did Somebody See It? Applying the Verifiability Approach to Insurance Claim Interviews

We examined the application of the verifiability approach to insurance claim interviews. The verifiability approach states that truth tellers and liars differ from each other in terms of the number of details they give that can be verified. Eighty‐three true and false insurance claim statements, related to damage, theft, or loss, were coded in terms of ‘witnesses’ (was the incident witnessed by others) and ‘verifiability’ (the number of perceptual and contextual details provided that could be checked by the investigator). We found that the majority of liars, compared with half the truth tellers, described unwitnessed incidents. This difference between the groups allowed for the detection of liars only. Discrimination between liars and truth tellers based on the verifiability of details was not possible. The implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Unlocking the beauty of the imperfect duty to aid: Sen's idea of the duty of assistance

This paper examines the links between acting upon a duty to assist, responsibility for these actions, and how such actions link with incremental moral duties that can amass as a consequence of such action. More specifically, this paper is concerned with practices of international aid and assistance, whereby public and privately funded donations enable the actions of parties outside of the territorial and jurisdictional boundaries of a community and state to directly influence the functioning of that community, and the incremental moral duties to which such action can give rise. Using a Senian account of the basis of moral duty, it explains how agents are responsible for the outcomes of their acts of assistance, even when mediated through international institutional actors, and how such acts can give rise to accumulative duties and obligations that are not bound or constrained by territorial boundaries or pre-existing special obligations.