Thoughts about the internalised speaking object: psychoanalytic psychotherapy with children of delayed verbal development

This paper discusses the meaningful effects of intensive psychoanalytic psychotherapy on language development in children with verbal delay or disorder. Three clinical cases of children aged five to seven are presented; two of these display significant verbal delay and one exhibits unusually high verbal abilities. Following Meltzer, the author explores the concept of the ‘internalised speaking object’ – a good object speaking to the child, which has been internalised. This internal model is essential for the child’s development of language and speech. At times, these children experience this internal object as a persecutory object which must be warded off and avoided. Even more so, when the external object addresses the children verbally, language itself becomes a persecutor and they experience a fear of disintegration. During such times, the therapist must find new and creative ways for communication. The author describes his therapeutic efforts in dealing with these difficulties which stem both from the lack of a reciprocal verbal communication and from the therapist becoming a persecutory object to the child, and demonstrates the manner in which he facilitated gradual shifts in the patient, from an anxious and defensive position into a more relaxed one. These efforts set in motion a process of internalisation of a speaking object by the child and the development of internal language, that is, thinking along with expressive verbal language. The article furnishes some evidence to support the idea that verbal development relies significantly on establishing good, strong and healthy early object relations.     

Degrees of entrapment: living and dying in the claustrum

This paper explores Donald Meltzer’s concept of the claustrum, an unconscious phantasy of a space inside the body of the internal mother that has been forcibly entered and occupied. The author proposes that claustrophobic phenomena might be viewed on a continuum from the relatively ordinary to the severely pathological. Following a brief review of the characteristics of Meltzer’s claustral ‘compartments’, this continuum is explored through and illustrated by a psychoanalytic understanding of two films, Coraline, directed by Henry Selick and based on the novella by Neil Gaiman, and The Talented Mr. Ripley, based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith and directed by Anthony Minghella. The degree of entrapment in a claustrophobic world and the possibility of emerging from it into a world of authentic intimate relationships is shown to be influenced by the internal relationship to a parental couple.     

‘We’re all poor nuts and things happen,and we just get mixed in wrong,that’s all’ lessons for psychotherapy from Eugene O’Neill’s play,Anna Christie

Anna Christie, by the Irish American playwright Eugene O’Neil, is a powerful play, depicting hurt emotions, injured selves and the hardened exteriors that people fashion to blame and afford a measure of protection. It relays the story of an abandoned daughter and her reunion with her father, their (relative) reconciliation, and meeting a new man, and the consequences of her revelation of prostitution. From textual analysis of the play, the paper explores themes of shame, repudiation and self-protection, including the formidable, or ultimate defence of ‘unassailability’. It is argued that the psychotherapist has something valuable to learn from this harrowing and evocative work of literature.     

海洛因戒断者的时间知觉特征

本研究采用时间二分任务来探讨海洛因戒断者的时间知觉特征。结果发现: (1)戒断组的长反应比例在中间时距上显著高于对照组; (2)戒断组的主观相等点低于对照组且差异显著, 韦伯比例与对照组相比差异不显著。结论: 海洛因戒断者更容易高估时间, 并且对时间的高估更多体现在中间时距上。     

Personal Belief in a Just World and Conscientiousness: A meta-analysis,facet-level examination,and mediation model

Extensive research efforts have been devoted to understanding the nature of Conscientiousness, the only Big Five personality trait that has been robustly linked to professional achievement and longevity. We proposed that Conscientiousness is associated with Personal Belief in a Just World (PBJW), that is, the extent to which an individual believes that her or his efforts will be rewarded. To investigate this proposition, we undertook a meta-analysis synthesizing past findings regarding the relationship between PBJW and Conscientiousness; we confirmed a positive relationship between the two constructs (r = .16) based on 17 samples and 5,810 individuals. We further proposed a theoretical framework linking PBJW to specific facets of Conscientiousness. A survey of a representative sample of the US population (n = 311) confirmed that PBJW is positively correlated with the specific facets of Self-efficacy, Achievement-striving, and Self-discipline. Internal Locus of Control mediated these associations, elucidating the underlying processes linking PBJW and Conscientiousness.     

Attenuated Access to Emotions in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

The Seeking Proxies for Internal States (SPIS) model of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) posits that OCD is associated with attenuated access to internal states. Here we explored the implications of this model in the realm of emotions. Participants with OCD, anxiety disorders, and nonclinical control participants completed the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), assessing two domains of emotional intelligence: Experiential emotional intelligence (EI), reflecting the ability to perceive and feel emotions accurately, and Strategic EI, reflecting the ability to understand and manage emotions correctly. As only Experiential EI requires accurate perception of one’s emotions for adequate performance, we predicted an interaction between group and EI area. Specifically, we predicted that compared to both anxiety disorders and healthy control participants, OCD participants would show a larger deficit in Experiential area of the MSCEIT relative to the Strategic area. Results were fully in line with this prediction. Moreover, supporting the specificity of the hypothesized deficit to OCD, participants with anxiety disorders did not differ from nonclinical control participants in their performance, and findings were not attributable to anxiety or depression levels. These results replicate and extend previous findings obtained with analogue samples and suggest that OCD is associated with attenuated access to emotional states, which may be partially compensated for by reliance on semantic knowledge of emotion.     

客户支持对一线服务员工服务绩效的影响——基于自我验证理论的视角

基于自我验证理论, 文章探讨了客户支持能否通过组织自尊的中介作用促进员工服务绩效(角色内服务绩效和主动服务客户行为), 以及员工促进定向和内控的调节作用。针对3时间点的调查得到652名员工和139名主管的配对数据进行分析, 结果显示：(1)客户支持会显著正向影响员工组织自尊, 进而显著影响他们的角色内服务绩效和主动服务客户行为; (2)员工促进定向正向调节客户支持对员工组织自尊的影响; (3)员工内控负向调节客户支持对员工组织自尊的影响。研究结果拓展了员工服务绩效的机制研究, 为组织提升员工服务绩效提供了新的思路。     

Counting the Consequences

James's Fairness in Trade seeks to offer an account of fair trade that is “internal” to an existing practice he describes as “mutual market reliance.” This paper distinguishes several senses of the distinction between “internal” and “external” that occur in the book and asks how, in its various senses, the distinction shapes and influences judgments about the fairness of the practice.