The hunger to fill an empty space: an investigation of primordial affects and meaning-making in the drive to conceive through repeated use of ART

This research aims to investigate the drive to conceive through repeated use of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) in relation to the affective and meaning-making processes related to this drive, through the use of the participants' memories of mother and being mothered, the choices they made regarding sex, intimacy and non-uterine activity in early adulthood and their fantasies of how a child would change their lives. Though prepared for an MSc dissertation it is a pilot empirical study using interpretative phenomenological analysis and applications of Jungian analytic and psychoanalytical theory. The collected data consists of three semi-structured interviews analysed through recurrent themes and amplification. Developmental and archetypal thinking has been suggested as a means of understanding. The results are strongly suggestive of two main themes across the interviews and further research is underway. The first theme is the importance of the relationship to mother and the quality of the mothering received in contributing to a woman's availability to become a mother at a time in her life when she is most fertile. The second theme of the pilot suggested that the crisis of infertility is a mask for another crisis of identity that also had links to the personal mother. At the core of these issues with mother there is an absence of father and an intra-psychic couple. Repeated infertility treatment becomes a transformative process necessitating repetition until something new can be created.     

Themes That Facilitate the Success of Female Counselors in Specialty Areas

As the profession of counseling continues to grow and expand, counselors’ careers are diversifying across specialty areas and practice settings often led by women. However, information regarding how these women accomplished this career expansion is lacking. The authors used a qualitative case study to identify 8 themes that influenced and empowered female counselors to develop careers that successfully extended into specialty areas: (a) managing family and career choices, (b) the importance of mentors, (c) overcoming career obstacles, (d) parental support with expectations, (e) integrating experiences with passions, (f) overcoming personal life challenges, (g) a sense of uniqueness, and (h) resourcefulness.     

炎症性肠病对育龄女性的影响及对策

炎症性肠病（IBD）临床表现为反复的黏液脓血便、腹痛、腹泻,甚至出现全身并发症。近年来其发病率呈逐年上升趋势。女性患者遗传给后代的几率高于男性患者,重症炎症性肠病往往需要手术治疗,影响女性患者的生育力,女性患者在妊娠、分娩期常常出现IBD活动或暴发加剧,使患者病情复杂化,严重影响育龄女性的身体健康。如何正确处理育龄女性IBD患者关系其生育力和妊娠、分娩安全以及胎儿安全。本文将从IBD对育龄女性生育力、妊娠、分娩、哺乳及胎儿的影响等方面进行综述,以帮助育龄女性IBD患者应对生育问题。     

OEDIPUS REX: WHERE ARE WE GOING,ESPECIALLY WITH FEMALES?

The Oedipus myth usefully informs triangulated object relations, though males, females, and “humankind” can become overly interchangeable. Freud's intentions to enlighten sexed gender are nowadays obscured. In 1931, he rejected Oedipus for females. Counterreactive gender blindness forecloses exploration about female development. Loewald's (1979) view of Oedipus Rex emancipates male heterosexuals from a recurring (universal), regressive pull back to mother. Ogden (1987) offers further insights into earliest female development. The author suggests a lifelong, progressive trajectory of mother/daughter closeness, in synch with a girl's shared slow body development into maturity and childbearing. Freeing the female dyad from obligatory pathological interpretation may inspire fresh sex and gender clinical theory.     

Suspicious circumcisions: a psychoanalytic exploration of the connection between Antisemitism and Misogyny

The historical dominance of Classical Greek attitudes, beliefs, and meaning structures has directly contributed to the “otherness” status of women, establishing an implicit misogynistic undercurrent in the history of Western society. The privileging of certain Greek ethos within the foundation of Christendom has likewise amplified and institutionalised Antisemitism, solidifying the Jew as an “other”, atavistic and vestigial nation of people. The biblical world view, in contradistinction, offers an important reappraisal of masculine and feminine ideals, undercutting misogynistic attitudes and in so doing delimiting space for an authentic feminine other to find expression. The alternative gender conceptualizations endorsed by the Bible and more generally embodied in Hebraic thought render Jews a target for displaced misogynistic rage. Particular attention is given to the domains of rationality vs. irrationality, activity vs. passivity, and the dramatically different ways that the Graeco-Roman, psychoanalytic, and Jewish traditions understand ritual circumcision, specifically how after being filtered through a Hebraic lens ritual circumcision, can be psychoanalytically re-conceptualised as a potent mechanism for forging intergenerational connectedness.     

The Freud–Ferenczi controversy in light of Emma Eckstein's circumcisio

Abstract

Emma Eckstein's circumcision trauma has been powerfully suppressed, denied, and dissociated from the history of the origins of psychoanalysis. Even though Freud did not categorize it as a trauma, he was deeply impacted by it in the period when he provided psychoanalysis with his foundation. Despite Freud's intellectual erasure of the trauma that Emma experienced, her “cut” never ceased to unconsciously break through Freud's fantasies and discourse, haunting the psychoanalytic building as a veritable ghost. Sándor Ferenczi became the recipient of what Freud could not consider in his own mind, and his revision of the “Bausteine” (building blocks) of psychoanalysis featured an attempt to heal the split embedded in the foundation of psychoanalysis.     

An exploration of the Self-Appraisal Questionnaire for assessing female recidivism in South Africa

This study profiled incarcerated female offenders’ criminogenic-oriented self-appraisals. Respondents were 77 female offenders between the ages of 20 and 56 years, serving custodial sentences within the South African Department of Correctional Services ranging from under a year to 25 years, and of whom 7 per cent were reoffenders. They completed the Self-Appraisal Questionnaire (SAQ: Loza, 2005 Loza, W. (2005). Self-Appraisal Questionnaire (SAQTM). Technical manual. Toronto: Multi-Health Systems. [Google Scholar]), which is a self-report measure for assessing violent and non-violent recidivism. Findings suggest offenders with a history of violence to be at risk for reoffending compared to non-violent offenders.     

Relationships Between Drinking and Type of Practice Among U.S. Female and Male Attorneys

Abstract

The author investigated the relationship between drinking and type of practice among U.S. attorneys. Participants were attorneys from 2 large midwestern cities, chosen through stratified random sampling from bar-association membership lists. Type of law practice was related to whether the participants drank in business-related situations but not to the frequency or the quantity of consumption. The participants in solo, corporate, or government practices were more likely than were those in private group practices to report no business-related drinking in the past 30 days. Female and male attorneys in similar practices reported similar abstention rates and quantities of consumption in business situations, suggesting that occupational norms were strongly salient for both genders. Criminal trial work was related to drinking only for the women. Results are discussed in terms of the influence of occupational culture on drinking.     

Miscarriage:

Miscarriage is the most frequent of all pregnancy losses, yet little is known of its impact on those who experience it. This exploratory study examines the relationship between the impact of miscarriage and nine variables: (a) length of pregnancy; (b) cause of miscarriage; (c) age at time of miscarriage; (d) intentionality of pregnancy; (e) duration of time since miscarriage; (f) other children; (g) other childbearing losses; (h) number of miscarriages; and (i) gender of expectant parent. Statistical analyses of data gathered from 120 participants indicated that gender, length of pregnancy, and one or more prior induced abortions contributed significantly to the prediction of current subjective distress. In a closer examination of the nature of that distress, gender and length of pregnancy were predictive of intrusive distress, while length of pregnancy and prior induced abortion(s) were predictive of predictive of avoidant distress. Implications for therapy with women who miscarry are discussed.