A pre-suicide state in an adolescent female 1

Abstract

During a pre-suicide state, the enactment of a suicide fantasy is the motive force. The nature and function of a suicide fantasy is explored in this paper in the context of the impact of puberty on the female body image and against the background of the pre-Oedipal and Oedipal father's relationship with his daughter. Case material from the analysis of an adolescent girl is presented to illustrate the crucial role of the father, in the transference, prior to a suicide attempt.

La force motrice qui sous-tend l'état pré-suicidaire est la mise en acte d'un fantasme suicidaire. Cet article explore la nature et la fonction du fantasme suicidaire dans le contexte de l'impact, chez une adolescente, de la puberté sur son image du corps avec, en toile de fond, la relation que le père, pré?dipien et ?dipien, entretient avec sa fille. Un matériel clinique extrait de l'analyse d'une adolescente est présentée afin d'illustrer le rôle crucial du père au sein du transfert avant la tentative de suicide.

Mots-clés: État pré-suicidaire, fantasme suicidaire, puberté et image du corps chez la fille, père pré?dipien et ?dipien, transfert, contre-transfert

Riassunto: Durante lo stato pre-suicidio, il motivo forza è la messa in atto di una fantasia di suicidio. Nell'articolo viene esplorata la natura e la funzione della fantasia di suicidio considerando l'impatto della pubertà sull'immagine del corpo femminile e sullo sfondo di una relazione pre-edipica ed edipica del padre con sua figlia. Viene presentato il materiale dall'analisi di una adolescente per illustrare il ruolo cruciale del padre, nel transfert, precedente al tentato suicidio.

Parole chiave: stato pre-suicidio, fantasia di suicidio, immagine corporale femminile e della pubertà, padre pre-edipico ed edipico, transfert, contro-transfert

Während eines prä-suiziden Zustands, ist das Ausagieren einer Suizidphantasie die motivierende Kraft. Die Eigenschaft und Funktion einer Suizidphantasie wird in diesem Artikel im Zusammenhang mit dem Einfluss der Pubertät auf das weibliche Körperbild und mit dem Hintergrund der prä-ödiplaen und ödipalen Beziehung des Vaters zu seiner Tochter exploriert. Es wird Fallmaterial aus der Analyse eines adoleszenten Mädchens vorgestellt, um die wichtige Rolle des Vaters in der Übertragung vor einem Suizidversuch zu illustrieren.

Keywords: Prä-suizider Zustand, Suizidphantasie, Pubertät und das weibliche Körperbild, prä-ödiplaer und ödipaler Vater, Übertragung, Gegenübertragung     

Feminism's Third Wave

Summary

“Third wave” feminists, raised in the wake of an established feminist movement as well as a strong anti-feminist backlash, are beginning to define their own feminist agenda. “Third wave” feminists are exploring the contradictions in their lived experience as feminists, and examining the inter section of feminism with their other identities. Young feminists' self-expression has been characterized (by feminists and non-feminists) as “self-obsessed” and “divorced from matters of public purpose” (Bellafante, 1998, p. 57 & 60). In this essay, we provide an alternative view of “third wave” expression, seeing young feminists' honesty in their struggles with various identities as a resurgence of grass roots activism; a return to “the personal.” In this essay, we call for an intergenerational dialogue between second and third wave feminists, and encourage feminist therapists to support and validate young feminists.     

Patient drawings of their melanoma: A novel approach to understanding symptom perception and appraisal prior to health care

Although previous research showed that the thin ideal provided by the media affects body image and eating behaviour in young children, less is known about specific media contents that are related to body image and eating behaviour. This study tested the associations between watching soaps and music television and body dissatisfaction and restrained eating directly, and indirectly through thin ideal internalisation. We conducted a survey in class, in which 245 girls (aged 7–9) completed scales on their television watching behaviour, thin ideal internalisation, body dissatisfaction and restrained eating. Additionally, height and weight were measured. Watching soaps and music television often was associated with higher thin ideal internalisation, which in turn was associated with higher body dissatisfaction and restrained eating. Furthermore, a direct association between watching soaps and music television and restrained eating was found. If watching other types of children's programmes or maternal encouragement to be thin were included in the models, watching soaps and music television remained an important factor, especially with regard to restrained eating. Therefore, our results suggest that if young girls watch soaps and music television often, this is related to higher restrained eating and body dissatisfaction, directly or indirectly, through higher thin ideal internalisation.     

Effects of a physical exercise session on state body image: The influence of pre-experimental body dissatisfaction and concerns about weight and shape

The effects of a physical exercise session on state body image and mood were examined. In a cross-over design, participants were randomised to two groups starting either with physical exercise (PE; experimental condition) or with reading a newspaper (RN; control condition). Before and after PE and RN, participants (N = 65) rated their body dimensions using a digital photo distortion technique and indicated their attitudinal body image and mood. Participants’ judgements of their ‘felt’ body dimensions and attitudes toward their own body were affected differently by PE and RN, indicating that participants felt slightly slimmer and were more satisfied with their bodies after PE. Exercise-induced changes in body perception were greater, the higher the pre-experimental drive for thinness, body dissatisfaction and weight/shape concerns were. Especially in those participants with higher body image disturbances, physical exercise can have a reinforcing effect on immediate body image and mood improvement.     

How highlighted utensils influence consumption in a dark setting

Abstract

Objective: Previous research has shown that people consume less food in the dark compared to normal vision conditions. While this effect is commonly attributed to increased attention to internal cues, it could also be caused by increased difficulty to maneuver in a dark setting. This study investigated this potential alternative explanation.

Design: A 2 (dark versus normal vision setting)?×?2 (highlighted versus non-highlighted utensils) between-subjects design was employed.

Main outcome measures: Perceived difficulty of maneuvering and consumption of yoghurt were assessed as main outcome measures.

Results: Participants consumed marginally less in dark compared to normal vision conditions, and experienced higher difficulty of maneuvering. Importantly, both effects were qualified by a significant interaction with highlighting, which increased consumption and reduced perceived difficulty compared to no highlights. Difficulty of maneuvering did not mediate the interactive effect of vision and highlighting on consumption.

Conclusion: Difficulty to maneuver should be considered when investigating eating behaviour under dark conditions. In line with an embodied cognition account, results also reveal the necessity of visual information for interaction with objects in the environment and imply that detail-deprived object information may be sufficient for activation of the motor system.     

Electrical conductivity of Nd and Ce co-doped Gd2Zr2O7 ceramics

In this study, (Gd_{1? x} Nd _x )₂(Zr_{1? x} Ce _x )₂O₇ (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.5) ceramics have been prepared by pressureless sintering at 1973 K to investigate the influence of Nd and Ce co-doping on their electrical conductivity. The electrical conductivity of the ceramics was investigated by impedance spectroscopy measurements from 723 to 1173 K over the frequency range of 20 Hz to 2 MHz in air. The measured values obey the Arrhenius relation. For each composition, the grain conductivity gradually increases with increasing temperature from 723 to 1173 K. At a given temperature, it gradually decreases with increasing neodymium and cerium contents from x = 0 to 0.3; thereafter, the grain conductivity exhibits a slight increase with further increasing neodymium and cerium contents up to x = 0.5.     

Future Contradictions

A common and much-explored thought is ?ukasiewicz's idea that the future is ‘indeterminate’—i.e., ‘gappy’ with respect to some claims—and that such indeterminacy bleeds back into the present in the form of gappy ‘future contingent’ claims. What is uncommon, and to my knowledge unexplored, is the dual idea of an overdeterminate future—one which is ‘glutty’ with respect to some claims. While the direct dual, with future gluts bleeding back into the present, is worth noting, my central aim is simply to sketch and briefly explore an alternative glutty-future view, one that is conservative—indeed, entirely classical—with respect to the present.

The structure of the paper runs as follows. §1 briefly sketches the target gap picture of an indeterminate future yielding gappy claims at the present. §2 presents the direct dual idea—a glut picture of an overdeterminate future yielding glutty claims at present. §3 sketches the central idea, a more interesting glut picture in which the future contains contradictory states but the present remains entirely classical. §4 contains a general defence of the idea, leaving it open as to whether the gappy-future view enjoys substantive virtues over the proposed glutty-future view of §3.     

An observation on Carnapʼs Continuum and stochastic independencies

We characterize those identities and independencies which hold for all probability functions on a unary language satisfying the Principle of Atom Exchangeability. We then show that if this is strengthen to the requirement that Johnson?s Sufficientness Principle holds, thus giving Carnap?s Continuum of inductive methods for languages with at least two predicates, then new and somewhat inexplicable identities and independencies emerge, the latter even in the case of Carnap?s Continuum for the language with just a single predicate.     

Autobiographical Memory Specificity in Patients with Tinnitus Versus Patients with Depression and Normal Controls

Several studies show that patients with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder respond with fewer specific autobiographical memories in a cued memory task (i.e. the autobiographical memory test; AMT) compared to healthy controls. One previous study found this phenomenon among tinnitus patients as well (Andersson, Ingerholt, & Jansson, 2003). The aim of this study was to replicate the previous study with an additional control group of depressed patients and memory errors as measured with the AMT as an additional outcome. We included 20 normal hearing tinnitus patients, 20 healthy controls and 20 persons diagnosed with clinical depression. The AMT was administered together with self-report measures of depression, anxiety and tinnitus distress. Both the tinnitus and depression groups differed from the healthy control group in that they reported fewer specific autobiographical memories. There were, however, differences between the tinnitus and depression groups in terms of the errors made on the AMT. The depression group had more overgeneral memories than the normal control group, whereas the tinnitus group did not differ from the control group on this memory error. The tinnitus group had more semantic associations and non-memories than the other two groups, suggesting that executive functioning may play a role for the tinnitus group when completing the AMT. Clinical and theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.