An analysis with Bion: an interview with James Gooch. Interview by JoAnn Culbert-Koehn

In 1968 Wilfred Bion moved to Los Angeles, escaping the perils of fame in London. He lived in Los Angeles until a few months before his death in Oxford in 1979. He made a deep impact on psychoanalysis in Los Angeles through those he analysed and what he wrote. James Gooch, psychiatrist and founding president of the Psychoanalytic Center of California describes in detail the transformative experience of his analysis with Bion in an interview with JoAnn Culbert-Koehn, Jungian analyst. Dr. Gooch describes important differences between his analysis with Bion and his classical Freudian analysis during his analytic training.     

The body and language: M. M. Bakhtin on ontogenetic development

James Wertsch has been influential in prompting a cultural turn in developmental psychology. Drawing upon the Russian philologist M. M. Bakhtin, Wertsch advocates a sociocultural approach involving the claim that agents’ development and action are mediated by social systems of signs and symbols. We seek to improve upon Wertsch’s understanding of agency by revisiting Bakhtin and the sociocultural quality of embodied action inherent in the phenomenology addressed in Bakhtin’s early work. In particular, this paper takes issue with the notion of mediation because it implies an approach to language that neglects the phenomenological immediacy of experience that is central to embodied action. This paper uses the early work of Bakhtin as a lens by which an idea that occurs in Bakhtin’s later work - speech genres - can be reinterpreted. Doing so enables us to propose how it is possible to have a sociocultural theory of individual ontogenetic development that includes the phenomenological immediacy of experience.     

Fruits of Health; Roots of Despair: William James, Medical Materialism and the Evaluation of Religious Experience

In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James introduces the term “medical materialism” to describe the fallacious attempt by some scientists to argue against the value of spiritual ideas. Two literary case studies will be considered for purposes of better understanding James’ idea. What’s more, it will be shown that, in addition to James’ three criteria for the appropriate evaluation of religious experience, there is another factor not made explicit, namely that of hopefulness. This factor serves to distinguish ordinary from pathological morbid-mindedness, the latter of which has no religious significance.Tadd Ruetenik teaches philosophy at Penn State Altoona. He received his Ph.D. from the English and Philosophy program at Purdue University. Correspondence to Tadd Ruetenik, tlr18@psu.edu.     

尤尼斯道德发展的实践活动观述评

尤尼斯等人关于道德发展的实践活动观强调青少年期的社会参与经验对其道德发展的持久影响,认为社会参与活动构成青少年公民同一性、政治和道德同一性发展的基础,而对人性和社会的尊重是道德行为的根本机制,道德教育的使命就是让个体通过社会参与活动培养起这种尊重的品质。尤尼斯的道德实践活动观是对艾里克森和柯尔伯格理论的继承和超越,但有关研究仍然存在着一定的问题。     

Mystical Experience: Unveiling the Veiled

Mystical experience is not unusual. Nearly half of all Americans report having had one or more mystical experiences. The author looks at how these experiences are moments of knowing—Do they unveil what is hidden?—and at how pastoral theologians and clinicians may help others come to understand their experience. Some thoughts on what this area of study may contribute to pastoral theology and pastoral counseling are also provided.     

威廉·詹姆斯与具身认知心理学

威廉·詹姆斯是美国心理学的创始人,被世人称为"美国心理学之父"。他创造了一整套的心理学理论,包括在具身认知兴起的过程中,他也发挥了重要的、不可替代的作用。而具身认知主要指在人们的认知过程中身体发挥着重要的关键作用,亦即认知是人们通过身体的具体体验及其活动方式而产生的。文章主要通过具身认知的兴起来了解在詹姆斯的一整套心理学理论中所包含的具身认知思想以及探究詹姆斯在其中发挥的重大作用。     

A Response to “Participation: A Religious Worldview” by James M. Gustafson

This response offers an interpretation of James Gustafson's “Participation: A Religious Worldview,” which thinks with Gustafson on the theme of “participation,” while highlighting points where my own thoughts diverge from his. The essay begins by drawing the reader's attention to Gustafson's style, arguing that the simple elegance of his writing constitutes part of his larger claim about the need to remove ourselves from the center of our thought. Next, the essay analyzes Gustafson's use of “participation” by putting it in context and connecting it with his broader methodology. Finally, I draw the reader's attention to important loci in the text in order to show how Gustafson's essay helps address various extant misinterpretations of his thought but also to point to ways in which my “thinking with” Gustafson leads me to think otherwise than he does.     

Early recollections of individuals preparing for careers in clinical psychology,dentistry, and law

This study compared the early recollections (ERs) of three groups of students preparing for careers in clinical psychology, dentistry, and law. Recollections of psychology students showed significantly more “negative affect,” “threatening situations,” and “less reference to groups of people” than did the other two groups. “School” was mentioned significantly more in the ERs of law students than in the ERs of the other groups. Law students reported ERs which indicated the highest frequency of the “active dimension,” dentistry students the least. The implications of the findings for vocational choice are discusssed.     

Perceived qualifications,resource abundance,and resentment about deprivation

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that perceptions of being well qualified for a desired object will decrease individuals' resentment about deprivation when opportunities for obtaining the object are good (i.e., when the resource is abundant), but increase resentment when the resource is scarce. In the first experiment, unemployed nurses participated in a survey of the job situation for nurses. The initial questions in the survey were designed to manipulate respondents' perceptions of (a) their qualifications for employment, by affecting their perceived similarity to employed nurses (similar vs different), and (b) the job potential for unemployed nurses (improve vs worsen). In the second experiment, subjects competed over a number of trials with other participants for money that they had previously been promised. Some of the subjects had practiced the task ahead of time (qualified subjects), whereas others had not (unqualified subjects). In addition, the number of payments that were allegedly available was varied (many vs few). In both experiments, the manipulation of good qualifications reduced resentment when the resource was abundant, but did not significantly affect resentment when the resource was scarce. The implications of these results for understanding the determinants of resentment about deprivation are discussed.     

Distance distortions in children's cognitive maps: an examination of the information storage model

Second graders (mean age = 7-8), fourth graders (mean age = 9-8), and sixth graders (mean age = 11-11) walked two paths located in and around their school. Children in the Unsegmented condition estimated the distance and time taken to walk a path that was relatively undifferentiated in terms of the number of qualitatively different areas of the school through which it passed. Children in the Segmented condition made the same estimates for a path that went through different areas (segments) of the school (i.e., cafeteria, hall, vestibule, and outside the building). Children at all three grade levels estimated that the distance traversed in the Segmented condition was longer than the distance in the Unsegmented condition. This difference was not significant on the time measure. It was concluded that (1) paths with a large number of segments are perceived as being longer than paths of the same length with fewer segments, (2) distances along paths with few segments are underestimated, (3) distances along paths with many segments may be overestimated as a function of developmental level, and (4) only younger children may have used time to estimate distance.