On psychic elements in a case of autistoid perversion

The paper explores the formation of psychic elements from an epistemological point of view, drawing on the work of Bion to examine a clinical case of autistoid perversion. Distinguishing the qualification of psychic elements from the realization of pre‐conceptions, the paper argues that psychical elements are constituted through a mutually shared experience of presence, and so they should be understood in a paradoxical way – through being‐O and transformations into K. These ideas are explored via a clinical case concerning a patient with an autistoid–perverse organization. The patient had been denied any bodily contact with her parents during her first year of life due to an infection; in later life she exhibited an autistoid coprophilic perversion. During the course of her treatment, as it became possible to break down the autistoid organization, the nameless contents surfaced in a mutually shared experience of presence. The analyst was able to hold on to their meaning, which was unavailable to the patient. The absent analyst, however, turned into the mother who ‘put the child down’ and was experienced by the patient as a suicidal threat. In being‐O, the analyst was able to endure the paradox of being the one who ‘put her down’ in order not to put her down; the paradox of being‐O functioned as a container for the destructive objectal dimension of the state of ‘being put down’.     

Psychoanalytic developmental psychology and the supervision of psychotherapy supervisor trainees

While literature on psychotherapy supervision abounds, literature on supervisor supervision (i.e., the actual supervision of a supervisor trainee who is in the process of learning to supervise) is far more scarce. How might the supervision of supervision process be best understood? What is the developmental experience of supervisor trainees? How can supervisors effectively intervene when working with supervisor trainees? Those questions have been addressed in only the most meagre fashion, and guidance on how to engage in the supervision of supervision is sorely lacking. In this paper, a psychoanalytic developmental framework is used to provide a means of conceptualising the supervisor trainee experience and to suggest a programme by which supervisors can best respond to their supervisor trainees' needs. Supervisor trainee ‘unfolding’ and ‘becoming’ are captured within a developmental progression that punctuates separation and individuation processes. The place of the supervisor – in holding and containing, loosening and liberating, buffering and bolstering, and refuelling and reloading – is considered in the facilitation of supervisor trainee development.     

Couple Therapy Interventions for Problems with Extramarital Affairs

SUMMARY

A number of couples request therapy because of relational problems resulting from an extramarital affair. In treating such couples, five phases of cognitive and emotional aspects of problematic affairs have been identified: (1) the start, (2) suspicion and negation, (3) explosion and impulsive reactions, (4) making choices and deadlock, (5) working through. Clients may enter therapy at very different points in these phases. Some come in full crisis, others in the deadlock phase, not being able to decide what to do. A different therapeutic intervention is proposed for each phase.     

Addressing Cultural Factors in Development of System Interventions

SUMMARY

The purpose of this article is to address various issues concerning multicultural interventions at a system level. Diversity is presented through a different conceptual approach and specific implications for school psychological practice are addressed. In this theoretical context an alternative model of school psychological services that was developed in the Greek educational system is presented and a primary intervention program is described as a paradigm of multicultural system/community intervention. Finally, the components of a transnational approach to multicultural system/community interventions that provides the basic procedural guidelines to developing effective, culturally sensitive interventions in the school environment is proposed.     

From Theory to Practice

Abstract

Beginning counselors are often eager to incorporate expressive techniques in their counseling sessions. However, there is still some disconnect between student counselors studying an experiential technique in coursework and supervision, and then executing these activities while conducting a counseling session. The following article provides a rationale for teaching expressive techniques and explores a previously developed model for teaching supervisees. An experiential activity is presented, as well as a case study illustrating the use of the teaching model.     

The Legal Status of Transsexuals in Turkey

ABSTRACT

The development of the legal regulations concerning transsexuals in Turkey can be analysed in three phases. The first phase was prior to 1988 when there were no legal parameters at all. The second phase started in 1988 when certain changes made in the Turkish Civil Code (TCC) for the first time gave people who had already undergone sex reassignment surgery (SRS) the possibility to enter this change into the birth register. The third phase commenced in 2002 when the new Turkish Civil Code came into force.¹ Art.40 of the Code now regulates the pre-conditions for a surgery and the procedure for getting a court authorisation in order to be operated as well as the procedure for entering the sex change into the birth register after the operation. Following remarks aim at briefly explaining these historical developments in Turkish law and presenting the current legal situation in Turkey with respect to transsexuals. The deficiencies in the existing regulation and possible ways of surmounting these will also be examined.     

From Bayesian epistemology to inductive logic

Inductive logic admits a variety of semantics (Haenni et al. (2011) [7, Part 1]). This paper develops semantics based on the norms of Bayesian epistemology (Williamson, 2010 [16, Chapter 7]). Section 1 introduces the semantics and then, in Section 2, the paper explores methods for drawing inferences in the resulting logic and compares the methods of this paper with the methods of Barnett and Paris (2008) [2]. Section 3 then evaluates this Bayesian inductive logic in the light of four traditional critiques of inductive logic, arguing (i) that it is language independent in a key sense, (ii) that it admits connections with the Principle of Indifference but these connections do not lead to paradox, (iii) that it can capture the phenomenon of learning from experience, and (iv) that while the logic advocates scepticism with regard to some universal hypotheses, such scepticism is not problematic from the point of view of scientific theorising.     

Confirmation as partial entailment: A representation theorem in inductive logic

The most prominent research program in inductive logic – here just labeled The Program, for simplicity – relies on probability theory as its main building block and aims at a proper generalization of deductive-logical relations by a theory of partial entailment. We prove a representation theorem by which a class of ordinally equivalent measures of inductive support or confirmation is singled out as providing a uniquely coherent way to work out these two major sources of inspiration of The Program.     

An epistemic and dynamic approach to abductive reasoning: Abductive problem and abductive solution

We propose a study of abductive reasoning addressing it as an epistemic process that involves both an agent?s information and the actions that modify this information. More precisely, we present and discuss definitions of an abductive problem and an abductive solution in terms of an agent?s information, that is, in terms of knowledge and beliefs. The discussion is then formalised by ‘implementing’ our definitions in a dynamic epistemic logic framework, where the properties of these definitions are studied, an epistemic action that represents the application of an abductive step is introduced, and an illustrative example is provided. A number of the most interesting properties of abductive reasoning (those highlighted by Peirce) are shown to be better modelled within this approach.