The sandwich model: The ‘music and dance’ of therapeutic action

My premise is that a ‘layered’ approach is necessary to understand the process of exchanges that result in therapeutic change. I imagine these processes occurring in three layers – although the number of domains in which change is taking place is actually infinite – such as in a sandwich. The top layer, or top slice of bread of the sandwich, represents a broad view of the change process; it is non‐linear and includes the feature of uncertainty, a general principle of dynamic systems theory. The middle layer, or the meat of the sandwich, is explained by theories that are immediately and clinically useful to a therapist, such as psychoanalytic theories. These are primarily linear theories and use language and symbols to ‘tell a story of what happened’. The bottom layer, or bottom slice of bread of the sandwich, is the micro‐process; this layer includes the moment‐to‐moment patterns of coordinated rhythms that both communicate meaning and provide the essential scaffold for all higher‐level change processes. The micro‐process also requires a non‐linear theory to make sense of its variability and emergent properties. Taking a bite out of the sandwich will include a ‘polysemic bundle of communicative behaviors’ (Harrison and Tronick, 2011). I will illustrate the ‘sandwich model’ with the clinical case of the analytic treatment of a 5 year‐old boy.     

The incidence of Freudian self‐analysis in the construction of the psychoanalytic theory of anxiety

The value and function of self‐analysis has been a contentious issue in several studies dedicated to the Freudian legacy. For some writers, Freud's experience of self‐analysis is rightly considered to be the master key to an understanding of the origins of the fundamentals of psychoanalysis. For others, the exaggerated importance attributed to the process merely led to the construction of a foundational myth. Nevertheless, if it is recognized to be a process in which Freud, in collaboration with Fliess, analysed personal aspects, working hypotheses and psychopathological debates, a reconsideration of self‐analysis may contribute new elements to our understanding of the paths that were taken in the elaboration of the theory and practice of pyschoanalysis. Starting from this premise, the present work will consider the systematic examination that Freud conducted of his own phobia in the course of his self‐analysis to be a process of great relevance to the elaboration of the early psychoanlytic conceptualizations of anxiety, in that in the course of this process the possible role of sexuality, fantasy, memory and unconscious determinism in the etiology of anxiety became part of the discussion.     

On family secrets and –K

In this paper I present a novel interpretation of family secrets. Leaning on Bion's concept of ‐K, the constitution of secrecy is interpreted in terms of family dynamics that actively prevent knowledge formation and mental growth. Family secrets are interpreted as a destructive process that attacks the family's truth‐generating‐space – the shared semiotic space within which meanings are constituted through family relationships. The paper explores the microstructure interpersonal process of ‐K through the analysis of Mike Leigh's movie, Secrets and Lies. Two scenes in the movie are used to demonstrate how ‐K is worked out in the form of a specific intersubjective semiotic endeavor that unconsciously blocks the process of meaning‐making.     

Burial and resurgence of projective identification in French psychoanalysis

Curiously enough, the concept of projective identification was ignored, and even rejected in France for at least two decades after the publication of the founding texts of Melanie Klein and Herbert Rosenfeld. This rejection was due to a critique from child psychoanalysts close to Anna Freud and also from the teaching of Lacan: the first took the real mother–child relation extensively into account, while the latter only saw the internal object as a signifier. The fact that during this period the countertransference was a concept reduced to its negative content no doubt explains this deliberate ignorance. With the dissemination of a broader and more positive conception of the countertransference, a renewal of interest could be observed in the 1980s with references to empathic listening and to the effects of thought‐induction.     

From Copenhagen to the consulting room: Pauli and Jung in Copenhagen

In this paper the city of Copenhagen is used as a starting point to highlight some critical historical events, both concerning the exchange of ideas between the physicist Wolfgang Pauli and C.G. Jung and the history of psychotherapy in Scandinavia. Pauli's years in Copenhagen under the influence of Niels Bohr and his philosophy prepared him mentally to receiveC.G. Jung's ideas. The paper also recounts the one occasion that Jung was in Scandinavia, attending the 9th conference of the General Medical Society for Psychotherapy in Copenhagen, just before going to New York in 1937 to give his final seminars on Pauli's dreams. The reason for focusing on these particular events is that they also constitute part of the history of the reception of psychodynamic psychology in Sweden and Scandinavia.     

Revisiting Chinese‐speaking children's understanding of argument structure

A causative verb is likely to appear in a sentence with two noun arguments, whereas a noncausative verb tends to appear in a sentence with a single argument. The present research investigates from what point children learning Chinese begin to show this knowledge of argument structure. Two‐, 3‐, 4‐, and 5‐year‐old children were tested using a forced‐choice pointing task. The results showed that Chinese‐speaking children aged 2 years could associate a transitive construction with a causative event, whereas they were not able to map an intransitive construction to a noncausative event even after reaching 5 years of age. The reason why Chinese children have such difficulty in learning knowledge of intransitive construction is discussed, focusing on (a) the semantic properties of certain intransitive verbs, which have been found not only in Chinese but also in other languages, and (b) the ellipsis of arguments, which is characteristic of Chinese.     

A sixth personality domain that is independent of the Big Five domains: The psychometric properties of the HEXACO Personality Inventory in a Japanese sample

We investigated the reliability of the HEXACO‐Personality Inventory (HEXACO‐PI) using the NEO Five‐Factor Inventory (NEO‐FFI) and the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) Big Five scales in a Japanese sample of 492 respondents (mean age = 20.4 years). The psychometric properties of the HEXACO‐PI were examined and found to be satisfactory. The results of the factor analysis showed that the six hypothesized personality domains were found independently. A total of 307 participants responded to the NEO‐FFI and the IPIP Big Five scales. The results showed that the five domains of the HEXACO model corresponded to the Five‐Factor domains and were relative to the Big Five personality domains as a whole, but the sixth domain, Honesty‐Humility, showed weak to moderate correlations with some factors of the NEO‐FFI and the IPIP Big Five scales. These results suggest that the Honesty‐Humility domain is independent of the five fundamental personality factors and that the HEXACO‐PI is a useful and reliable questionnaire for investigating personality structure in cross‐cultural and other context.     

The relationship between procrastination,delay of gratification,and job satisfaction among high school teachers

The present study aimed at determining whether a significant relationship exists between procrastination, delay of gratification, and job satisfaction, with work‐related stress as an intervening variable among high school teachers. The sample consisted of 150 high school teachers from Karachi, Pakistan. The analysis showed a negative correlation between procrastination and job satisfaction, and a positive correlation between delay of gratification and job satisfaction. Also, procrastination and delay of gratification were significant predictors of work‐related stress, and work‐related stress was also a significant predictor of job satisfaction. In conclusion, when the teachers are not procrastinating on their job and score high on delay of gratification they will be more satisfied with their job and feel less stressed.