Sonya turned her skin outside in

In the case of a young woman, it was evident that she had difficulties in approaching her pregenital experiences during analysis and that she had defended herself against pregenital anxiety. While these defences were aimed at denying and repressing early oral and bodily fantasies end experiences, they had also influenced and inhibited her subsequent bodily and genital development. Psychosomatic symptoms had both absorbed and represented archaic feelings and fantasies which had not found a more precise mental expression. Consequently, her female inner space had been repressed and excluded by skinerotic defences.     

“I think you understand me.” Studying the associations between actual,assumed, and perceived understanding within couples

The current study examined the associations between actual, assumed, and perceived understanding and partners’ levels of dyadic adjustment. One hundred fifty-two couples provided questionnaire data (assumed and perceived understanding), participated in a videotaped conflict interaction, and in a video-review task to assess actual understanding (empathic accuracy). The data were analyzed by means of the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model. The results suggest that (a) some aspects of how well someone assumes that (s)he has understood the partner during a preceding conflict interaction were positively associated with his/her own objective level of understanding (actor effect), (b) that someone's perception of how understood (s)he feels was not associated with the partner's objective level of understanding (partner effect), and (c) perceived understanding, but not actual understanding, was positively associated with dyadic adjustment.     

Reliability and validity of two widely-used worry questionnaires: self-report and self-peer convergence

The reliability and validity of the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) and the Worry Domains Questionnaire (WDQ) were examined with self-ratings from a non-clinical sample of 148 students in a test-retest design across four weeks. Ratings from three well-acquainted peers were also obtained. With internal consistencies and test-retest correlations of at least 0.85, the present study confirmed the high reliability of the questionnaires. Moreover, both measures demonstrated substantial convergent validity: Average agreement among peers was 0.42 (PSWQ) and 0.47 (WDQ) and aggregated self-peer agreement was 0.55 (PSWQ) and 0.49 (WDQ). Self-peer agreement was not biased by social desirability. These findings challenge views that worry is an unreliable and unobservable phenomenon.     

The analysis of experience: John Dewey and Elsie Ripley Clapp on desire and thinking, 1911

Unpublished correspondence with Elsie Ripley Clapp, along with extensive notes for a 1911 course, The Analysis of Experience, provide the context for a consideration of John Dewey's discussion of the relation between desire and thinking. Dewey's philosophic point of view is portrayed as it was developing in his own mind. The unity of thought and desire, the necessity of making objects of inquiry, the identification of thinking and acting, are themes in these materials which would appear in their published form in such works as Essays in Experimental Logic, Democracy and Education, and Human Nature and Conduct. In the unpublished materials, Dewey is seen as a naturalist at work in his laboratory, reworking his ideas and acknowledging Clapp's assistance in getting Dewey to connect practical situations in life with the philosophic distinctions under development. The 1911 materials are an excellent connection between problematics in Dewey's earlier writings on ethics, epistemology, and logic, and his later writings, on the same subjects in the 1920's and 1930's.     

Chronic pain,compensation and clinical knowledge

The nosological status of the putative clinical entity of compensation neurosis and the relationship of chronic pain complaints to compensation are explored. It is concluded that, using the traditional criteria of diagnostic validity, there is no support for the view that a specific type of psychiatric disorder related to compensation or litigation can be demonstrated. Although it has been generally considered that chronic pain complaints reflect an underlying disease state, recent evidence has shown that in the medico-legal setting the nature of the compensation system and the level of available benefits have a marked influence on both the rate of chronic pain complaints and the duration of pain related work incapacity.     

TEN SHORT ESSAYS ON HOW TRAUMA IS INEXTRICABLY WOVEN INTO PSYCHIC LIFE

The author contends that it is possible to reconcile trauma and drive theories of psychopathology if we carefully examine the general notion of trauma and reexamine Freud's ( 1919 ) theory of war neurosis and of repression itself as an elementary form of traumatic neurosis. The logic of these views follows Laplanche's reintroduction and generalization of the seduction theory in contemporary psychoanalysis.     

The Spreading of Alternatives: Is it the Perceived Choice or Actual Choice that Changes our Preference?

After making a difficult choice, the preference rating of a chosen alternative tends to increase, and the rating of the rejected one tends to decrease. Such a change of preference is called spreading of alternatives. It is unclear whether it is the choice itself, or the choice one believes one has made that leads to preference change. Using a facial attractiveness task, we addressed this question by setting up an experiment to measure how the actual choice and perceived choice changed the preference. In the current study, participants first rated the attractiveness of female faces, and then made a choice between two faces that they had rated the same, after which, they re‐rated the female faces. Notably, in the re‐rating session, participants were given either veridical, false, or no feedback about their prior choice. This way, we were able to measure the functions of actual choice and perceived choice in rating changes. Results showed that both actual action and perceived action exert significant influence in shaping preference. The veridical feedback enhanced the spreading of alternatives effect whereas the false feedback weakened this effect, indicating that preference can be modulated by explicit manipulation. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analysis of transference: A North American perspective

Using detailed clinical vignettes, the author illustrates and compares several North American approaches to the analysis of transference, tracing their origins in Freud's works and in various post-Freudian conceptualizations, including the writings of Anna Freud and Charles Brenner. Particular attention is paid to the work of Merton Gill, Evelyne Schwaber, Paul Gray, and the British analyst, Betty Joseph. Discussed and illustrated are controversies over the broader and narrower views of transference, the interpretation of action in the analytic setting, earlier and later interpretations of transference with particular emphasis on the contrast between contemporary Kleinian and ego psychological perspectives, the role of extra-transference interpretation, and the concept of the transference neurosis. An argument is made for an integrative approach, drawing upon different emphases, depending on the clinical circumstances and the point of affective immediacy for the patient, which may or may not coincide with the point of affective immediacy for the analyst.     

'Actual neurosis' and psychosomatic medicine: THE VICISSITUDES OFAN ENIGMATIC CONCEPT

Out of the concept of neurasthenia, the main non-psychotic diagnosis of nineteenth-century psychiatry besides hysteria, and on the basis of psychophysiological problems of his own, self-diagnosed as neurasthenia, Freud developed the notion of 'actual neurosis', a 'contentless psychic state' manifested by various somatic symptoms and a depressive mood, which he attributed to a chemical factor associated with aberrant sexual practices and in particular masturbation. Rejected by post-Freudian analysts as such along with the diagnosis of neurasthenia, the concept of 'actual neurosis' has survived under various theoretical schemes that seek to explain psychosomatic illness and somatisation, in general, with its concomitant poverty of affects and dearth of fantasy life. In more recent years, the concept of 'actual neurosis' has resurfaced under the label of chronic fatigue syndrome, a medical entity thought to be an immunological deficiency, while in psychoanalysis Freud's idea of a contentless mental state has been replaced by that of unconscious fantasy and symbolisation at a pre-genital or pre-verbal level.     

Inventing the enemy

The following article elaborates on the need for the Other in order to delineate the self and one's identity, and the eternal psychological process of turning the Other into an enemy. A parallel process, which can be observed nowadays, leads to a disregard for the otherness of the Other that results in the blurring of identity and an internal loss of the differentiation of intrapsychic structures. Both psychological processes share a dehumanizing approach which leads to neurosis and alienation. In order to withstand these tendencies, a revision of analytical psychology's view of the psyche and of the practice of Jungian analysis is warranted: an alternative to the ‘Fear of the Feminine’ described by Erich Neumann in 1959. It is suggested that consciousness and unconsciousness intertwine but from a position of equality and reciprocity. Such an attitude does not inspire fear. Rather, it recognizes the need of one for the Other and the inevitability of this situation. Moreover, this need and interdependence on equal grounds nourish the wish to know the Other, to be aware of the differences, and yet, at the same time, to acknowledge how close the Other really is. Analytical psychological therapy based on this model stresses the power of the ego while also strengthening its capacity for introspection.