Systemic insight in family therapy

Systemic epistemology calls for a concept of Systemic Insight, a restructuring insight that has to do with truly grasping systemic reality. Systemic Insight is action and change-oriented, grounded in the direct systemic experience of the client, and based on the how instead of the why of the relationship problem. Its results affect the whole system. The author elucidates the definition and therapeutic application of this concept, expanding on five major ingredients and illustrating in a verbatim case and commentary specific guidelines for designing interventions which procure Systemic Insight.The concept of Systemic Insight was first presented by the author as a workshop at the European Family Therapy Association International Congress: Feelings and Systems, Sorrento, Italy, November, 1992. I would like to thank Ms. Sara Iwanir, Dr. Haviva Ayal, my co-directors, and especially my husband Ron for his unending support and the helpful out of the profession fresh views.     

Uh‐Oh! What Have We Missed? A Qualitative Investigation into Everyday Insight Experience

This study takes a novel qualitative approach to the investigation of everyday insight experience. It offers ecological validation to findings principally rendered, prior to this research, from a quantitative, cognitive standpoint. In addition, it considers emotional as well as cognitive components of insight. Participants were given different (or no) definitions of insight to ensure experiences collected did not simply mirror the examples of insight provided. This avoided the circularity problem of previous insight research. With the use of an open‐ended questionnaire (online or hardcopy), first‐hand textual accounts of insight instances were recorded. Data collected from 76 participants were analyzed using an adapted qualitative methodology, Integrative Thematic Analysis. This enabled the researchers to identify themes from the data, building a new typology of insight: Content (Personal, Intellectual, Practical), Process (Social Facilitation, Time Away, Active Search) and Feelings (Positive Feelings, Negative Feelings) aspects of insight. The findings suggest everyday experience of insight reaches beyond cognitive problem solving to include elements related to applied psychology, namely Personal (counseling psychology) and Social Facilitation (occupational psychology). Notably, this study offers examples of negative insight, Uh‐oh moments, for the first time. Future research should focus on the interaction of cognitive and affective components in insight moments.     

Unconscious Insights

From early in the history of psychology, theorists have argued about whether insights are initially unconscious or whether they are conscious from the start. Empirically identifying unconscious insights has proven difficult, however: How can we tell if people have had an insight if they do not tell us they have had one? Fortunately, although obtaining evidence of unconscious insights is difficult, it is not impossible. The present article describes an experiment in which evidence of unconscious insights was obtained. Almost 90% of second graders generated an arithmetic insight at an unconscious level before they were able to report it. Within five trials of the unconscious discovery, 80% of the children made the discovery consciously, as indicated by their verbal reports. Thus, the initial failure to report the insight could not be attributed to the children lacking the verbal facility to describe it. The results indicate that at least in some cases, insights arise first at an unconscious level, and only later become conscious. Rising activation of the new strategy may be the mechanism that leads children to become conscious of using it.     

Vanda Shrenger Weiss – the Croatian pioneer between two worlds: Her role in the birth of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society (SPI)

In this paper the author sheds light on Vanda Shrenger Weiss, a forgotten pioneer of the international psychoanalytic movement. Vanda Shrenger was born into a large Jewish family in Croatia (1892), and her life was thoroughly intertwined with the great tragedies of European history: the First World War, the anti‐Semitic persecution within Eastern Europe, which entailed the decimation of her extended family in Croatia. Finally, the introduction of fascist laws in Italy led to her and her husband – Edoardo Weiss, the founder of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society – seeking refuge in the United States of America. During her time spent in Italy (1919–39), Vanda Shrenger, doctor and paediatrician, dedicated herself to psychoanalysis. She played a crucial part in the reconstruction of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society (SPI), whilst also being a founding member of the Rivista Italiana di Psicoanalisi (Rome, 1932). Vanda was the first woman to be a member of the SPI as well as to present a paper for it. This insightful and extensive analysis relating to this pioneer of the psychoanalytic world, has been meticulously accomplished by use of a combination of original archival materials, along with access to previously unpublished documents and personal details, kindly made available to the author by Marianna, the daughter of Vanda and Edoardo Weiss, who still lives in the United States today.     

创造性问题解决中的联想能力及其作用

长期以来,研究者一直认为联想能力与创造力之间存在着紧密的联系,但相关的实证研究并不能很好地支持这一论断,这可能是由于联想能力的界定不清所造成的。本研究梳理了以往研究中联想能力与创造力的关系,在此基础上辨析了联想能力测验所反映的实质,进一步提出了一个创造性问题解决中联想能力的作用模型：（1）联想能力主要作用于创造性问题解决中的重构阶段;（2）存在三种相对独立的联想能力,它们对空间类顿悟问题和言语类顿悟问题的影响不同;（3）联想内容中经验关系的联想能力与领域一般创造力关联最密切。     

The analytic situation as a dynamic field. 1969

This paper discusses the consequences of the importance that recent ³ papers assign to the countertransference. When the latter acquires a theoretical and technical value equal to that of the transference, the analytic situation is configured as a dynamic bi‐personal field, and the phenomena occurring in it need to be formulated in bi‐personal terms. First, the field of the analytic situation is described, in its spatial, temporal and functional structure, and its triangular character (the present–absent third party in the bi‐personal field) is underlined. Then, the ambiguity of this field is emphasized, with special weight given to its bodily aspect (the bodily experiences of the analyst and the patient being particularly revealing of the unconscious situation in the field). The different dynamic structures or lines of orientation of the field are examined: the analytic contract, the configuration of the manifest material, the unconscious configuration – the unconscious bi‐personal phantasy manifesting itself in an interpretable point of urgency – that produces the structure of the field and its modifications. The authors describe the characteristics of this unconscious couple phantasy: its mobility and lack of definition, the importance of the phenomena of projective and introjective identification in its structuring. The authors go on to study the functioning of this field, which oscillates between mobilisation and stagnation, integration and splitting. Special reference is made to the concept of the split off unconscious ‘bastion’ as an extremely important technical problem. The analyst’s work is described as allowing oneself to be partially involved in the transference–countertransference micro‐neurosis or micro‐psychosis, and interpretation as a means of simultaneous recovery of parts of the analyst and the patient involved in the field. Finally, the authors describe the bi‐personal aspect of the act of insight that we experience in the analytic process.     

知识经验与顿悟：来自认知神经科学的证据

知识经验对于顿悟问题解决是一把双刃剑,强势知识会阻碍顿悟问题解决,弱势知识才是顿悟问题解决的关键。强势知识引导的组块效应、约束效应和固着效应等心理定势现象,“帮助”问题解决者以惯用方案来理解、思考和解决问题。之所以会这样,可能是因为大脑内存在一套具有优先级差的层级加工系统,赋予惯用方案的优先级最高。不过,惯用方案不仅不能够解决顿悟问题,而且还会通过注意竞争和注意失灵方式来阻碍新异方案的探索和执行,所以,问题解决者往往都会进入思维僵局。僵局的打破和顿悟的实现,需要抑制住强势知识及其相关的惯用方案、激活弱势知识和新异方案,这违反了大脑的认知加工惯性,是很难以自发发生的。但是,可以通过激活扩散来增强弱势知识的激活水平,或者是拓宽注意范围、提高注意灵活性来增加弱势知识激活的可能性,从而促进顿悟问题解决。     

创造发明中顿悟的原型启发脑机制

科学界关于“原型启发”催化创造发明中顿悟发生的事例十分普遍, 从中国的“鲁班从带齿边的茅草中得到启发而发明锯子”的传说, 到“瓦特从沸腾的开水壶上受到启发而发明蒸汽机”的经典故事, 都说明“原型启发”是创造发明的一种重要思维方式。然而, 由于创造发明思维过程的复杂性, 国内外关于创造性思维脑机制的研究还停留在非科学问题解决的研究上。依据科学家运用原型启发而成功发明创造的最新实例, 项目组编制了《创造发明实验问题材料库》, 并计划以功能性磁共振成像(fMRI)和事件相关电位(ERP)作为技术手段系统探讨原型启发催化创造发明中顿悟发生的脑机制, 例如, 原型激活和启发信息利用的脑机制、问题意识下灵感捕捉的脑机制以及原型知识表征、动机与情绪状态、大脑工作状态等因素对原型启发影响的脑机制。该研究的开展, 对理解人类的创造性本质具有重要的理论意义, 对培养和激发人的创造力具有一定的实践价值。     

How physical interaction with insight problems affects solution rates,hint use,and cognitive load

So-called insight problems are widely studied because they tap into the creative thinking that is crucial for solving real problems. However, insight problems are typically presented in static formats (on paper, computer) that allow no physical interaction with the problem elements, whereas such an interaction might in fact reduce the load on limited cognitive resources, such as working memory (WM) capacity, thereby facilitating solutions. To test this proposition, 124 young adults were allowed to interact physically with nine established insight problems, while another 124 people attempted to solve these problems using paper and pencil. Additionally, hints were provided for three problems that typically no-one solves. No general facilitating effect of physical interaction was found, with only one problem clearly benefitting from it. Furthermore, making use of hints was actually hindered by physical interaction. No difference in perceived task load and correlation with WM capacity was observed between the formats, and subjective ratings of insight were virtually unaffected by presentation format. Overall, physical interaction minimally affected insight problem-solving, which appears to rely strongly on internalized cognitive processing involving WM.     

‘Un-certainty’: working therapeutically with a transgender young person and learning to bear the unknown

Abstract

The rate of referrals to mental health services for children and young people for whom gender dysphoria is the identified clinical issue has increased significantly over the last ten years. Debates around the classifications of gender identity disorder, gender dysphoria or gender incongruence, as well as the involvement of child and adolescent mental health services with this group of children and young people seem to be re-enacting the societal gender binary world view where we see acceptance versus rejection, open-mindedness versus conservative, trans-phobic thinking. In this paper the author will attempt to shed some light on the work with these young people in a clinical setting by reflecting on a year of therapeutic work with a female to male young person. Through the therapist’s reflections upon these binary preconceptions, along with the use of developmental and object relations theory, an in-depth account of the work is given. It is suggested that in some cases the therapist’s capacity to bear the unknown, while gradually observing and mirroring the un-integrated inner self of the patient, can gradually bring the fragments together, even if not in a perfect fit, and that this in turn provides a sense of relief.