The incontinent analyst

The author describes a group of phenomena that can affect the analyst and become the motivating force that pushes the analyst to break confidentiality. He describes the inevitable dialectic of symmetry and asymmetry in the psychoanalytic dyad during the analytic process, and asserts that, every time the analyst is in symmetry with the emerging material of the analysand, identification will occur. This identification with the material offered by the analysand activates the system of ideals and produces a value judgment. The author explores the anxiety, the loneliness, the narcissistic deficiencies and the symptom of the analyst as phenomena that can force the analyst to rupture the promise of confidentiality given in good faith to the analysand at the beginning of the treatment.     

The psychoanalytic vision of Hans Loewald

Hans Loewald is a comprehensive and original theorist on a par with any major post-Freudian thinker, yet neither his ideas nor his person have become the basis for a Loewaldian school or approach, and he is not as well known as other innovators of comparable quality. In this paper the author attempts to characterize the scope and depth of Loewald's theory-his vision of the psyche and psychic life, or metapsychology, his characterization of the psychoanalytic process, and his vision of the clinical and human goals of psychoanalysis. She suggests that Loewald holds in all of these realms, and without apparent contradiction, a doubled-emphatically ego-psychological and emphatically object-relational-perspective, and an equal commitment to both the first topography and the structural theory. His views throughout are undergirded by a bi-directional developmental view that centers on differentiation and integration. The paper includes brief reflections on how to assess psychoanalytic theories, like Loewald's, developed before empirical research that seems to challenge them.     

To grit or not to grit,that is the question!

The current study tested the validity of grit as a non-cognitive construct related to, yet distinct from self-control. Data were collected from N = 1907 adults spanning the life-course (53.1% female, M age = 41.4 years). Associations between grit and present and past goals were very similar to ones observed with self-control. Extensive model tests using structural equation modeling provided evidence of substantial overlap between these two constructs, calling into question the conceptual and empirical distinctiveness of grit vis-à-vis self-control, as well as the importance of grit as a unique and independent characteristic salient for the pursuit and achievement of long-term goals. This finding was consistent and invariant across adult developmental periods. Study implications for grit-investment are discussed.     

大学生目标内容与主观幸福感的关系：一个有调节的中介模型

基于自我决定理论考察了目标内容对主观幸福感的影响,以及基本心理需要、自尊在其中的作用。采用欲望指数量表、基本心理需要满足量表、自尊量表、正负情绪量表、生活满意度问卷对535名大学生进行了调查。结果显示：（1）目标内部性显著正向预测主观幸福感;（2）基本心理需要在目标内部性和主观幸福感之间起部分中介作用;（3）基本需要的中介作用受到自尊的调节。因此,目标内部性对主观幸福感的影响是一个有调节的中介效应。     

信息的充分性和情绪性对推理的影响：时间压力的调节作用

主要探讨推理中信息相关因素对分析系统与启发式系统的影响。通过两个实验考察信息的充分性和情绪性对突发事件情境下推理的影响。实验1任务无时间压力,结果发现：信息充分性对推理的影响显著,表现为信息越充分,被试推理的逻辑指数越高,更多使用了分析系统;且信息充分时,接受积极信息的被试的信念指数显著增高。实验2任务有时间压力,结果发现：信息的情绪性对推理的影响显著,表现为接受积极信息的被试推理的逻辑指数显著大于接受消极信息组,更多使用了分析系统。两个实验结果表明,信息的充分性主要通过分析系统对推理产生影响,而信息的情绪性可通过双系统影响推理过程,即积极信息在推理时间充裕时促进启发式系统,但在有时间压力下促进分析系统。     

Parent–child value similarity in families with young children: The predictive power of prosocial educational goals

Value transmission from one generation to the next is a key issue in every society, but it is not clear which parents are the most successful in transmitting their values to their children. We propose parents’ prosocial educational goals as key predictors of parent–child value similarity. Accordingly, we hypothesized that the more parents wanted their children to endorse values of self‐transcendence (helping, supporting, and caring for others) and the less parents wanted their children to endorse the opposing values of self‐enhancement (striving for power and achievement), the higher would be parent–child overall value similarity. Findings from two studies of families – Study 1: 261 Swiss families, children aged 7–9 years; Study 2: 157 German families, children aged 6–11 years – confirmed this hypothesis. The effect was even stronger after controlling for values that prevail in the Swiss and German society, respectively. We integrate evidence from this study of values in families with young children with existing findings from studies with adolescent and adult children, and we discuss potential pathways from parents’ educational goals to parent–child value similarity.     

HYPOCHONDRIA: A REVIEW OF ITS PLACE IN PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY

After identifying Freud's fundamental contributions to the concept of hypochondria, the author undertakes a brief review of the term's trajectory within the Anglophone and Francophone psychoanalytic literature. Notions of defense, anxiety, and representation as they relate to corporeal experience are discussed. The author illustrates these main axes with which to read hypochondria with clinical material drawn from the analysis of a woman in whom somatic manifestations were especially pervasive.     

THE STORIED ANALYST: DESIRE AND PERSUASION IN THE CLINICAL VIGNETTE

Beginning with the quintessentially psychoanalytic tales of Freud, the case history has held a privileged position in the history and practice of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysts grow up with, grow into, and grow out of these narratives as clinical practitioners. Alongside the representational aspects of these case histories, there is a rhetorical or persuasive force that significantly influences us. The author contends that the theory of narrative and rhetoric can inform the how, the why, and the “so what?” of our relationship to these stories of psychoanalysis.     

THE MISSING FATHER FUNCTION IN PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY AND TECHNIQUE: THE ANALYST'S INTERNAL COUPLE AND MATURING INTIMACY

This paper argues that recovering the “missing” paternal function in analytic space is essential for the patient's achievement of mature object relations. Emerging from the helpless infant's contact with primary caregivers, mature intimacy rests on establishing healthy triadic functioning based on an infant‐with‐mother‐and‐father. Despite a maternocentric bias in contemporary clinical theory, the emergence of triangularity and the inclusion of the paternal third as a separating element is vital in the analytic dyad. Effective technique requires the analyst's balanced interplay between the paternal, investigative and the maternal, maximally receptive modes of functioning—the good enough analytic couple within the analyst—to serve as the separating element that procreatively fertilizes the capacity for intimacy with a differentiated other. A clinical example illustrates how treatment is limited when the paternal function is minimized within more collusive, unconsciously symbiotic dyads.     

Predictors of volitional personality change in younger and older adults: Response surface analyses signify the complementary perspectives of the self and knowledgeable others

Goals to change personality traits have been linked to self-rated Big Five traits. Extending previous research, we investigated the associations between change goals and diverse personality characteristics (e.g., self-esteem), other-rated Big Five traits, and self-other agreement in an age-heterogeneous sample (N = 378). Results replicated previous associations of change goals with age and self-rated traits. Additionally, change goals were stronger when others rated a person’s traits as low and when self-other agreement about traits was greater for extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Associations of additional personality characteristics with change goals diminished when we controlled for the Big Five traits. We conclude that goals to change personality traits primarily reflect the perspective of the self and, for some traits, of knowledgeable others.