耻感与存在

本文从存在本体论维度审视耻与耻感。耻以否定性方式表达了人的内在规定性,耻感则是以否定性方式把握善。耻感形成于对善、自我及二者差距的自觉意识。耻感是一种积极的道德情感,它既是道德自律的内在根据,亦是道德义务、责任、良心的特殊存在方式。有耻无违是社会风尚清明的基本条件之一。     

“From war to peace”: Military festival visitors’ quality-of-life

The Voortrekker Monument Military festival is one of several military festivals held in South Africa. This study sought to determine the travel motives and life domain effects on the quality-of-life of visitors. Data were gathered from 330 visitors on their travel motives, overall life domains, and quality-of-life. Structural Equation Modelling analysis indicated a positive linear relationship between the visitors’ travel motives, life domains (social-life, leisure-life, and self-life), life domains overall, and quality-of-life; all of which attained good reliabilities. The findings indicate that a visit to a military heritage festival has a positive effect on visitors’ quality-of-life. This research adds to literature in the social sciences, positive psychology, and quality-of-life.     

Approaching Terra Incognita with James F. T. Bugental: An Interview and an Overview of Existential-Humanistic Psychotherapy

The purpose of this article is to report on the existential-humanistic approach to psychotherapy advanced by James F. T. Bugental. A brief biography is presented, along with an overview of the method, followed by an interview conducted with Dr. Bugental in November of 2002. Included is a discussion of key concepts such as subjectivity, presence, and the living moment. The major goals of this approach are outlined, along with suggestions and contraindications for use. Directions for future research and consideration are offered.     

World View Concepts in Existential Family Therapy

Essence oriented and existence oriented approaches to family psychotherapy are very different treatment forms. This article compares and contrasts these two orientations in an effort to clarify the basic world view beliefs in existential psychotherapy with couples and families.     

Fundamental Dilemmas in Contemporary Psychodynamic and Insight-Oriented Psychotherapy

Contemporary psychotherapists are being called on to provide treatment with increased degrees of brevity and efficacy. To meet these demands, the practice of brief psychodynamic psychotherapy has turned to (a) the increased emphasis upon a specific psychodynamic focus for treatment versus the more comprehensive goals of longer-term treatment, and (b) the augmented use of confrontation of psychological defenses versus the enhanced use of emotional support as in more nondirective psychotherapy. Other approaches to insight-oriented psychotherapy that have been influenced by this trend include: client-centered psychotherapy with its focus upon the therapeutic relationship; existential psychotherapy with its focus upon death anxiety; and, the revitalization of interpersonal psychotherapy from its original Sullivanian conceptualization. The clinical dilemmas that limitations of time and restricted therapeutic focus place upon each of these methods of treatment are the central issues of this discussion.     

Adolescent identity--a qualitative approach: self-concept, existential questions and adult contacts

In-depth interviews were performed with 12 adolescents (Swedish students, 16-19 years). Three questions were probed; what do adolescents say on the subjects of (a) themselves, (b) their existential questions, and (c) their adult contacts. The first two questions were aimed at elucidating the process of identity development, the last one at factors that may be influencing this process. The results showed that (a) balancing and controlling one's own needs and wishes in relation to others' was a central issue, (b) existential questions mainly concerned the personal future, (c) adult contacts outside the family were scarce and (d) all respondents expressed a need for adult contacts as sources of knowledge and experience. The conclusions are that identity formation during late adolescence consists of integrative issues where adults play a specific and important role.     

From Neurotic Guilt to Existential Guilt as Grief: The Road to Interiority, Agency, and Compassion Through Mourning. Part II

This study is a continuation of an article that was published in the previous issue of The American Journal of Psychoanalysis (Volume 66, Number 3, September 2006). The case of Helen is illustrated in terms of the analysand’s developmental mourning, countertransference, interiority, antilibidinal ego, and transformation of aggression into self-agency.Susan Kavaler-Adler, Ph.D., ABPP, is Founder and Executive Director, Training Analyst, Faculty Member, and Supervisor at the Object Relations Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, New York.     

Framing COVID-19 as an existential threat predicts prejudice towards Chinese people via anxious arousal

We tested the hypothesis that perceived existential threat stemming from COVID-19 elicits anxious arousal, which can manifest in prejudice toward the perceived source of the threat (Chinese people). Americans (n = 474) were randomly assigned to a condition in which COVID-19 was framed as a high existential threat to the United States or to a condition in which COVID-19 was framed as a low existential threat to the United States. They then completed self-report measures of anxious arousal as well as subtle and blatant prejudice towards Chinese people. As expected, participants in the high threat (vs. low threat) condition reported greater anxious arousal which, in turn, predicted greater subtle and blatant prejudice. The high threat (vs. low threat) condition also indirectly predicted greater subtle and blatant prejudice via greater anxious arousal. Results advance knowledge on the reactions people had to perceiving COVID-19 as an existential threat during the early phase of the pandemic.     

Some thoughts on the existential lens in group psychotherapy

Existential psychotherapy provides a useful perspective, or lens through which to view the practice of group psychotherapy. The field encompasses a variety of theoretical and practical points of view, many not usually thought of as existential. Some relate to the therapist, some to the enterprise of psychotherapy, and some to conceptions of psychic or external reality. This paper identifies several of these vertices, emphasizing especially (1) the importance of relationship in psychotherapy, (2) the problem of meaning (3) addressing existential concerns, especially the centrality of death as a problem in living, and (4) the task of the therapist. Attention is paid to the historical development of these ideas. The work of Martin Buber, Otto Rank, Wilfred Bion, and Viktor Frankl is especially emphasized, although proto-existential concepts from other waters are also noted. The heart of the paper deals with the application of these vertices to group psychotherapy. Extensive attention will be given to the differing viewpoints of Hugh Mullan and Irvin Yalom. Practical applications in group psychotherapy, including clinical vignettes, are offered.This paper was originally delivered, in somewhat different form, at the National Group Psychotherapy Institute of the Washington School of Psychiatry on April 23, 1995. It was dedicated to Hugh Mullan, who had been one of my teachers at the school two decades earlier.     

Concerning the integration of sciences: Kinds and stages

The detailed analysis allows to discern seven kinds of integration, namely: I₁ consisting in the synthesis of scientific disciplines from their elements, including disciplinary unification I₁; I₂ inclusion of a science in (reduction to) another, more general; I₃ — links between different sciences, especially establishing of common elements; I₄ — interdisciplines bridging various sciences; I₅ — combination of two (or more) disciplines into a new (complex) science; I₆ — a general approach to several domains or multidisciplinary unification; I₇ — transdisciplinary sciences about relations of the same type in various traditional domains. These kinds of integration are interwoven with processes of differentiation, viz. D₁ — internal differentiation of the sciences resulting of I₁; D₂ — interdisciplinary differentiation concomitant I₄, and D₃ — specialization of I₇ sciences in several sections. As a result integration and differentiation are combined in the pairs I₁ — D₁, I₇ — D₃, and D₂ — I₄. The processes of integration (and differentiation) may be presented schematically in the following (not strictly isolated one of another) sequence: in the 17th century started I₁ followed by D₁, and in the last decades by I₁ during the 18th and the 19th c. cases of I₂ and I₃ appear; I₄ (together with D₂) is unfolding since the late 19th century. Finally, I₇ (and D₃), as well as I₅ and I₆ pertain to the latter half of our century. Representative are for one thing I₁, I₄, and I₇ outlining the main stages of integration and at the same time connected with respective kinds of differentiation.