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 logic of turmoil: some epistemological and clinical considerations on emotional experience and the infinite

The idea of the infinite has its origins in the very beginnings of western philosophy and was developed significantly by modern philosophers such as Galileo and Leibniz. Freud discovered the Unconscious which does not respect the laws of classical logic, flouting its fundamental principle of non-contradiction. This opened the way to a new epistemology in which classical logic coexists with an aberrant logic of infinite affects. Matte Blanco reorganized this Freudian revolution in logic and introduced the concept of bi-logic, which is an intermingling of symmetric and Aristotelic logics. The authors explore some epistemological and clinical aspects of the functioning of the deep unconscious where the emergence of infinity threatens to overwhelm the containing function of thought, connecting this topic to some of Bion's propositions. They then suggest that bodily experiences can be considered a prime source of the logic of turmoil, and link a psychoanalytic consideration of the infinite to the mind-body relation. Emotional catastrophe is seen both as a defect-a breakdown of the unfolding function which translates unconscious material into conscious experience-and as the consequence of affective bodily pressures. These pressures function in turn as symmetrizing or infinitizing operators. Two clinical vignettes are presented to exemplify the hypotheses.     

What is unrealistic optimism?

Here we consider the nature of unrealistic optimism and other related positive illusions. We are interested in whether cognitive states that are unrealistically optimistic are belief states, whether they are false, and whether they are epistemically irrational. We also ask to what extent unrealistically optimistic cognitive states are fixed. Based on the classic and recent empirical literature on unrealistic optimism, we offer some preliminary answers to these questions, thereby laying the foundations for answering further questions about unrealistic optimism, such as whether it has biological, psychological, or epistemic benefits.     

The Role of Anxiety Sensitivity and Mindful Attention in Anxiety and Worry About Bodily Sensations Among Adults Living With HIV/AIDS

The current study examined cognitive factors that may be relevant to understanding anxiety and worry about bodily sensations among an HIV/AIDS population. Specifically, this investigation tested the main and interactive effects of anxiety sensitivity and mindful attention on anxious arousal, bodily vigilance, interoceptive fear, and HIV symptom distress among 164 adults with HIV/AIDS. Results indicated that anxiety sensitivity was positively related to anxious arousal, bodily vigilance, and interoceptive fear, but not HIV symptom distress. Mindful attention was negatively related to anxious arousal, interoceptive fear, and HIV symptom distress, but not bodily vigilance. These main effects for anxiety sensitivity and mindful attention were evident after controlling for disease stage, years with HIV, and demographic variables. There were no interactive effects between anxiety sensitivity and mindful attention. Results are discussed in terms of the clinical implications for identifying and treating anxiety and worry about bodily sensations among adults with HIV/AIDS. Limitations of this study include the use of cross-sectional data and self-report assessments.     

The Feeling of Bodily Ownership

In certain startling neurological and psychiatric conditions, what is ordinarily most intimate and familiar to us—our own body—can feel alien. For instance, in cases of somatoparaphrenia subjects misattribute their body parts to others, while in cases of depersonalization subjects feel estranged from their bodies. These ownership disorders thus appear to consist in a loss of any feeling of bodily ownership, the felt sense we have of our bodies as our own. Against this interpretation of ownership disorders, I defend Sufficiency, the thesis that every experience of bodily awareness suffices for a feeling of bodily ownership. Since Sufficiency conflicts with a face-value interpretation of these ownership disorders, the burden is on me to explain away the apparent tension. To do so, I identify and correct what I believe to be the fundamental mistake in the extant literature on the feeling of bodily ownership, namely the tendency to treat the notion of a feeling of bodily ownership as a single psychological construct. Instead, I distinguish the feeling of minimal ownership, the first-personal character of bodily awareness, from the feeling of affective ownership, the distinctive type of felt concern we have for our bodies. I motivate this distinction by raising the disownership puzzle, the fact that subjects suffering from ownership disorders display an ambiguous set of symptoms, arguing the distinction I draw between minimal and affective ownership is just what is required to resolve the puzzle.     

Angel or demon? Self-monitoring differences in the mental representations of current versus former romantic partners

We investigated whether high and low self-monitors had (a) segregated/integrated and (b) uniformly favorable (angelic)/uniformly unfavorable (demonic) mental representations of actual romantic partners. Self-monitoring was assessed using the 25-item Self-Monitoring Scale and the structure of mental representations was calculated using a modified segregation/integration measure. In Study 1, low self-monitors were more likely than high self-monitors to have (a) segregated and (b) disproportionally favorable mental representations of their current romantic partners. In Study 2, low self-monitors were more likely than high self-monitors to have (a) segregated and (b) generally unfavorable mental representations of their former romantic partners. Self-monitoring differences were not moderated in either study by relationship longevity or conflict.     

Tricks of Memory

Remembering an episode from even the recent past may involve a blend of fiction and fact. We discuss a straight-forward laboratory paradigm that is proving useful in the study of false memories of simple episodes. In this paradigm, subjects study lists of 15 related words ( bed, rest, awake ...) that are all related to a critical word that is not presented ( sleep ). Later, subjects recall and recognize the critical missing word with about the same probability that they remember words from the list. This memory illusion is resistant to people's attempts to avoid it. We argue that similar memory errors are commonplace and are a natural outcome of an intelligent cognitive system, which makes inferences about incoming information. Therefore, memory illusions, like perceptual illusions, are a consequence of normal human information processing and offer a window for examining basic cognitive processes.     

Robbing a Man of His Illusions: Response to Herbert Fensterheim and Stanley Messer

The suggestions made by Fensterheim and Messer regarding increasing ego strengths and pointing out patterns of interaction were found to be useful ones in treating this angry patient. Some other interventions derived from an integrative perspective are also described. The author is still grappling with the problem of stripping this man of his illusions.     

The affective costs of overconfidence

Positive illusions, though often beneficial (Taylor & Brown, 1988 ), can diminish the pleasure of outcomes. This prediction follows from decision affect theory. We investigated this prediction by measuring the confidence that recreational basketball players felt while making shots and the pleasure they felt with subsequent outcomes. Results showed that most players were overconfident. Those who were more overconfident tended to experience less enjoyment with their outcomes. Using individual parameter estimates from decision affect theory, we estimated how each player would have felt if their self assessments had been accurate. For the vast majority, better calibration would have led to greater pleasure. In a second study, we randomly assigned players to a debiasing treatment condition or a control condition. Relative to the control players, debiased players were better calibrated and derived greater average pleasure from the task. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

跨通道信源检测错觉的实验研究

本研究探讨跨通道信源检测错觉的特点。实验中将简单、无关且易产生视觉和听觉想像的事件随机以看、听、想像看和想像听的一种或两种组合方式让被试感受 ,2天后以视检测、听检测和全检测三种方式判断信源 ,结果均发现跨通道信源检测错觉 ,且信源判断受检测方式影响 ,知觉信息在源检测中具有更大的抗干扰性。研究结果支持信源检测理论。本文最后讨论了信源检测错觉的机制