Identity Problems,Ego Strengths,Perceived Stress,and Adjustment During Contextual Changes at University

We present a 2-year time-lag study in which Canadian and Spanish students’ perceptions of stress, identity problems, and psychosocial maturity (ego strengths) were examined in relation to academic, social, and personal-emotional adjustment to university under different conditions of macro-environmental disruption (i.e., academic and economic) and no disruption (stability). In the academic disturbance context, students reported increased stress and the economic disruption situation was associated with greater identity problems. The expected relationships were found among the variables in the study. Students reported greater social maladjustment at university related to economic disruption in comparison with the academic and no disruption contexts. Ego strengths moderated the relationship between perceived stress with academic and social adjustment, respectively. In other words, delayed psychosocial development in conjunction with high perceived stress was associated with deficient academic and social functioning at university. The findings are considered in terms of psychosocial development and the role of proximal and distal perception of stressors in the functional well-being of university students.     

Ego Development at the Crossroads: Identity and Intimacy Among Black Men and White Women in Cross-Racial Relationships

This study addressed the ego development of White women and Black men who were in cross-racial relationships. Twenty-one participants completed in-depth, individual interviews, focus group inquiries, and the Sentence Completion Test (SCT). The results indicate that a majority of the participants scored at the higher levels of ego development: 50% of the Black males and 67% of the White females were at the conscientious stage of ego development, 25% of the Black males and 22% of the White females were at the individuated stage. The results from the interviews and the focus groups substantiated the participants' scores on the SCT, exemplifying the complexity in which Black men and White women perceive themselves as individuals and others in relationships. Loevinger (1976, Ego development: Conceptions and theories. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.) contends that these higher stages represent a complex means of understanding oneself and of interacting in intimate relationships. The terms of African American heritage, African American, and Black are used synonymously and interchangeably, as are the terms of European American heritage, European American, and White.     

利他行为的自我控制过程模型:自我损耗下的道德情绪的正向作用

本研究通过3个实验验证和探讨了利他行为的自我控制过程模型。实验1采用自我损耗的双任务范式,考察了自我损耗对利他行为水平的影响。实验2考察行动控制导向在自我损耗和利他行为之间关系的调节作用。实验3通过诱发道德情绪,探讨了道德情绪对自我控制资源损耗个体的利他行为决策的作用。研究得到了以下结论:(1)自我控制资源损耗会对利他行为产生不利影响。(2)行动控制导向对自我损耗和利他行为之间的关系起调节作用。(3)道德情绪能够缓解自我损耗对利他行为的不利影响。     

On Musical Cognition and Archaic Meaning Schemata

In clinical psychoanalytic work, one often encounters psychical material that is devoid of form or shape. This kind of material is often manifest as concrete somatic sensations on the border of the body and mind. At the same time, it is a primitive body-related self-experience that functions as a background, an essential requirement for more developed, differentiated self-experiences. Bi-logic is a theoretical method by which one can outline these early, partially formless processes and states of mind. This paper includes an overview of the main hypotheses of Matte Blanco's bi-logical vertex, which focuses on the extreme symmetrization of mental phenomena that emanate from the body. Clinical vignettes illustrate ways in which analysis can gradually bring forth such form from the previously formless, dissociated traumatic material into the range of the conscious mind. In this way, the capacity for thinking and reflection increases and the early elements of self-experience are enlivened.     

ROY SCHAFER: A BEGINNING

The author provides a biographical overview of Schafer's life, culled from his published work and focused primarily on his professional development. This biography is used to demonstrate some of Schafer's central theoretical insights on narrativity and language, and reveals the consistency of his thinking over his long career. A brief discussion of his writing on King Lear provides a bridge between theoretical and biographical material.     

The association of religiosity,spirituality, and ethnic background with ego-pathology in acute schizophrenia

Studies have highlighted the impact of ego-consciousness, religiosity and spirituality on psychotic symptoms, although so far no study has investigated if and how these factors may be interrelated. In this exploratory cross-sectional study, involving 42 patients with a diagnosis of acute paranoid schizophrenia (DSM-IV), we assessed religiosity (Religious Orientation Test) spirituality (Spiritual Transcendence Scale) and ego-pathology (Ego Pathology Inventory) and analysed any relationship with these and psychopathological symptoms (Positive and Negative Symptom Scale). The subjects were divided into four ethnic groups (Caucasian, Afro-Caribbean, African, and Asian) and a structured, qualitative interview on religious needs and self-concepts was also conducted. Using a multivariate analysis, we found statistically significant negative associations between the scores on ego and common pathology and religiosity and spirituality as covariates. This was seen across all ethnic groups. The findings are discussed in respect of the potential clinical importance of ethnic, religious and spiritual factors for assessment and management of patients with schizophrenia.     

Consciousness and the self

With his notion of absolute consciousness, Sartre tries to rethink the relation between consciousness and the self. What is the origin of subjectivity in relation to a consciousness that is characterized as impersonal and as a radical lucidity? In this article, I attempt to question that origin and the nature as such of the subject in its relation to a consciousness that in its essence is not yet subjective. On the contrary, it is characterized by a selfpresence that is so radical that it threatens every form of self‐knowledge.     

Ego consciousness in the Japanese psyche: culture,myth and disaster

With globalization, modern Western consciousness has spread across the world. This influx has affected the Japanese culture but ego consciousness has emerged through a long history and different course from that of the West. At a personal level, I have been interested in the establishment of a subject in a culture that values homogeneity and to understand this, I reflect on my own history of living in both the East and the West and on my experience practising psychotherapy. To show Japanese collective functioning at its best, I describe the human inter‐connectedness and collaboration during the 2011 disaster. I explore the ‘Nothing’ at the centre of the Japanese psyche, through a reading of Japanese myth, especially the most originary and almost pre‐human stories that come before the anthropomorphized ‘First Parents’. A retelling of this founding story, reveals the multiple iterations over time that manifest in embodied being; this gradual emergence of consciousness is contrasted with Western myths of origin that are more clear and specific. This study attempts to bring awareness of the value and meaning of Eastern consciousness and its centre in the ‘Nothing’.     

Milieu therapy for neglected children: Treatment in a caring relationship

The central thesis of this paper is that treatment of neglected children can better take place in a caring relationship than in psychotherapy or analysis. In order to create the basis for this idea, Part 1 introduces a milieu therapy for neglected children, developed by the author. In Part 2 of the article, it is proposed that treatment in a caring relationship is in line with the child's dependence on a caring person. It is also argued that the traditional distinction between problems in the child's environment and internal psychological difficulties seems imprecise. Instead, it is proposed that a problem has both an external and an internal aspect. This supports the idea that it may be possible to solve problems that are traditionally considered internal through environmental strategies, for example milieu therapy. The article is hypothesis-generating and builds upon clinical experience inspired by works of, among others, Erikson, Bowlby, Winnicott, and Fonagy and collaborators. Part 1 of the article is the first presentation in English of the main points of the author's books on milieu therapy. The ideas in Part 2 are published here for the first time.