“My graduation is my mother's funeral”: Transformation from the paranoid-schizoid to the depressive position in fear of success,and the role of the internal saboteur

Abstract

Freud's conflation of neurotic and existential guilt is challenged in this paper. A study of fear of success in a female analysand is presented that illustrates the resolution of this syndrome through a mourning process in which the neurotic guilt of Melanie Klein's paranoid-schizoid position is transformed into the existential guilt of Klein's depressive position. An evolution within the depressive-position existential guilt is seen as the analysand mourns and separates from an internal mother and father, who are hostile to her developmental needs. This evolution involves the transformation of an idealizing transference, symptomatically enacted through gradations of vicarious living through the analyst, being profoundly transformed into the analysand's active creation of an identity in the world. Simultaneously, the internal world becomes alive in psychic fantasy. This transformation also involves the modification of an internal sabotaging psychic structure, which had been compelled by the dissociated punitive reaction of an internalized angry mother of separation trauma, employing the unconscious re-enactment of an early infant illness. Split-off envy and split-off self-sabotage become consciously owned through the grieving of existential guilt, as visceral experience is converted into symbolization.

Susan Kavaler-Adler. “Meine Graduierung ist das Begräbnis meiner Mutter”: Transformation von der paranoidschizoiden zu der depressiven Position in der Furcht vor Erfolg – und die Rolle des innerenSaboteurs.

Freuds Verschmelzung von neurotischer und existentieller Schuld wird in dieser Arbeit in Frage gestellt. Eine Studie der Furcht vor Erfolg bei einer weiblichen Analysandin wird dargestellt und sie zeigt die Auflösung dieses Syndroms durch einen Trauer-Prozess in dem die neurotische Schuld von Melanie Klein′s paranoid-schozoider Position in die existentielle Schuld von Klein′s depressiver Position umgewandelt wird. Eine Evolution innerhalb der depressiven Position und existentieller Schuld wird gesehen als die Analysandin trauert und sich von der inneren Mutter und dem Vater trennt, die gegenüber ihren Entwicklungsbedürfnissen feindlich eingestellt sind. Bestandteil dieser Evolution ist die Umwandlung einer idealisierenden Übertragung, symptomatisch inszeniert durch Abstufungen vikariierenden Lebens durch die Analytikerin und gründlich umgewandelt in die aktive Schöpfung einer Identität in der Welt der Analysandin. Simultan wird die innere Welt in psychischer Phantasie lebendig. Diese Umwandlung involviert auch die Modifikation einer inneren seelischen Struktur, die durch die dissoziierte strafende Reaktion einer internalisierten ärgerlichen Mutter eines Trennungs Traumas aufgezwungen worden war, wobei eine unbewußte Reinszenierung eines frühen kindlichen Traumas eingesetzt wurde. Abgespaltener Neid und abgespaltene Selbst Sabotage werden dem Bewußtsein zugänglich durch ein sich Grämen in existentieller Schuld so wie viszerale Erfahrung in Symbolisierung umgesetzt wird.

Susan Kavaler-Adler. “Mi graduación es funeral de mi madre”: La transformación desde la posición esquizoparanoide a la depresiva en el miedo al éxito, y el rol del saboteador interno.

La combinación de la culpa neurótica y la culpa existencial de Freud is puesta en duda. Se presentará un estudio sobre el miedo al éxito de una analizanda mujer para ilustrar la resolución de este síndrome a través de un proceso de duelo en el cual la culpa neurótica de la posición esquizo-paranoide de Melanie Klein se transforma en la culpa existencial de la posición depresiva de Klein. Como una evolución dentro de la posición depresiva la culpa existencial es vista mientras la analizanda hace el duelo y se separa de su padre y madre internalizados, quienes son hostiles hacia sus necesidades de desarrollo. Esta evolución involucra la transformación de una transferencia idealizada actuada sintomáticamente a través de gradaciones de formas de vida sustitutivas a través de la analista, para pasar a ser una de transformación profunda en la activa creación de la identidad de la analizanda en el mundo.Simultáneamente su mundo interno toma vida en la fantasia psíquica. Esta transformación también involucra la modificación de la estructura psíquica interna saboteadora, que había sido impuesta por la reacción punitiva disociativa de una madre enojada internalizada por el trauma de separación, empleando la reactivación inconsciente de una enfermedad de la infancia temprana. La envidia y el autosabotage escindidos se vuelven conscientes a través de la aflicción de la culpa existencial, así como la experiencia viceral es convertida en simbolización.     

Seduction,date rape,and aborted surrender

Abstract

This paper clarifies the dual-layered nature of the “demon lover complex,” with its background of both pre-Oedipal trauma and Oedipal-level desire. It draws on an object relations understanding of the unconscious and dissociated addiction to an internal demon object that has derivations in the personalities of the actual parents, and in the internalization of these parents. The dramatic case of early trauma compounded by adult date rape trauma serves to illustrate how a “developmental mourning process” in treatment can resolve such trauma. It also illustrates how reparation with the mother that partially heals pre-Oedipal trauma cannot immunize anyone against Oedipal-level attractions to a “demon lover” father, as represented in a displacement, resulting in victimized behavior, and in an aborted surrender to heterosexual desire. However, this victimization can be resolved, as seen in the clinical illustration, when the psychoanalyst has an understanding of the mourning process in developmental terms, working with a natural interaction between mourning and transference evolutions in treatment. The case also demonstrates the transitional object role of the psychoanalyst who is involved with the healing of pre-Oedipal trauma through mourning.     

Mental rotation of letters,pictures, and three-dimensional objects in German dyslexic children

This study examines mental rotation ability in children with developmental dyslexia. Prior investigations have yielded equivocal results that might be due to differences in stimulus material and testing formats employed. Whereas some investigators found dyslexic readers to be impaired in mental rotation, others did not report any performance differences or even superior spatial performance for dyslexia. Here, we report a comparison of mental rotation for letters, three-dimensional figures sensu Shepard and Metzler, and colored pictures of animals or humans in second-grade German dyslexic readers. Findings indicate that dyslexic readers are impaired in mental rotation for all three kinds of stimuli. Effects of general intelligence were controlled. Furthermore, dyslexic children were deficient in other spatial abilities like identifying letters or forms among distracters. These results are discussed with respect to the hypotheses of a developmental dysfunction of the parietal cortex or a subtle anomaly in cerebellar function in dyslexic readers.     

Found Voices:

This article explores the cultural consequences of disability on women. The author interviewed four women with disabilities and two mothers and shares some of her own experiences with disability. The relationship between disability rights and feminism and ethnic identity and the impact of disability on the sense of self and personal goals are considered, as is the transformative power of speaking to the larger culture about how disability experiences inform human perceptions and social practices.     

Lay concepts of health and illness from a developmental perspective

Abstract

The concepts of children, adolescents and their mothers with regard to different aspects of health and illness in general and five specific diseases were explored in this study. An exploration with fully standardised questions and open answers was subjected to a content analysis. A reliable rating system was developed to score the sophistication of the answers. The study included 99 Ss of the age groups 5, 8, 12 and 16 years, as well as 48 mothers of the children. Many children and adolescents were able to define health positively (well-being) and not merely as the absence of illness. The definition of illness in general was frequently composed of somatic symptoms and disorders, feeling poorly and things one would like to accomplish but can't. The causality explanations of illness in general were dominated by contagion. The concepts of the older children and the mothers were richer, more elaborated, less concrete and less action-oriented than those of the younger children. However, abstract formulations and complex aspects of illness were very rarely expressed. In addition, concepts regarding the characteristics (definition, symptoms, causality, treatment and prevention) of five diseases (cold, measles, heart infarction, cancer and AIDS) were measured. The pattern of results was strongly influenced by age. By and large, the development of most disease concepts was linear with significant differences between age groups. Conversely, within a given age group, significant differences were found in the cognitive level of disease characteristics, either with respect to the same disease or between different diseases (“horizontal shifts”).     

A Controlled Pilot-Outcome Study of Sensory Integration (SI) in the Treatment of Complex Adaptation to Traumatic Stress

This study tested whether sensory integration (SI) treatment combined with psychotherapy would improve symptom outcome over psychotherapy alone in the treatment of complex posttraumatic stress, as measured by the Disorders of Extreme Stress Not Otherwise Specified (DESNOS) clinical construct in a group of 10 adult patients with histories of childhood abuse. DESNOS symptoms were assessed at three time periods (T1, baseline; T2, after experimental group SI treatment; and T3, after wait-list control group SI treatment) using the Structured Interview for Disorders of Extreme Stress (SIDES). The Sensory Learning Program? (SLP), developed by the Sensory Learning Institute of Boulder, Colorado, was used as the SI treatment modality. Results indicated significant differential improvement for the group treated with SLP in SIDES Total Score (T1/T2 and T2/T3), Self Perception (T1/T2 and T2/T3), Affect Regulation (T2/T3), and Alterations in Meaning (T1/T2).     

Self-Knowledge and the ‘Inner Eye’

Mutual perceptual knowledge is a prevalent feature of our everyday lives, yet appears to be exceptionally difficult to characterise in an acceptable way. This paper argues for a renewed understanding of Stephen Schiffer's iterative approach to mutual knowledge, according to which mutual knowledge requires an infinite number of overlapping, embedded mental states. It is argued that the charge of ‘psychological implausibility’ that normally accompanies discussion of this approach can be offset by identifying mutual knowledge, not with the infinite iterations themselves, but with the finite base which Schiffer proves is capable of generating those iterations. An understanding of this finite base as a primitive, relational property holding between two or more people, allows us to understand the iterations as an implicit and ‘harmless’ intrapersonal feature of what is an interpersonal phenomenon. The paper concludes by relating the account to joint attention in infant interaction.     

Combining Ericksonian and Sandplay Approaches to Therapy with Children who Manifest Depression as a Developmental Barrier

This study reports on the use of the Ericksonian approach combined with sandplay therapy to assist children who present with depression, a troublesome developmental barrier. Participants were six children and/or adolescents with depression (two males and four females; age range 7 to 18; ethnicity: five white and one black). The intervention occurred once a week over a two-month period (eight 60-minute sessions in total). Outcome data were collected using qualitative interview and thematically analyzed. The Ericksonian approach to sandplay therapy had an overall positive effect on children who experienced depression as a developmental barrier.     

Adolescents as “producers of their own development”: Correlates and consequences of the importance and attainment of developmental tasks

In a four-wave longitudinal study, 228 adolescents from seven age cohorts were investigated annually regarding the importance and subjective attainment of age-specific developmental tasks. Distal outcomes (educational trajectory and residential independence) were examined when the adolescents were 21 years old. The results of latent growth models (LGM) showed that there was no mean level change in the importance of developmental tasks, whereas perceived attainment of developmental tasks increased over time. In general, whereas the importance of developmental tasks was more impacted by family factors, the attainment of tasks was more influenced by individual factors. Adolescents with more parental support for autonomy had higher developmental aspirations. Adolescents with unemployed fathers showed greater increases in the importance of developmental tasks, which subsequently predicted a higher educational trajectory. Only a small proportion of adolescents perceived a high initial level of attainment of diverse tasks; for 85% of the sample, the typical growth pattern with respect to overall attainment of developmental tasks was a moderate initial level, which increased over time. Girls, early maturers, and first-born adolescents reported higher perceived attainment of developmental tasks.