Évolution du contrôle religieux la première année suivant l’annonce d’un cancer du sein : quels liens avec les stratégies de coping,l’anxiété, la dépression et la qualité de vie ?

The aim of this study was to examine the evolution of perception of religious control during the first year after breast cancer diagnosis and to establish how this evolution could have an effect on coping strategies, psychological distress and quality of life. One hundred and seventeen patients completed four self-reports questionnaires at surgery time and 1, 4, 7, 10, 13 months after the first assessment. Findings showed that religious control declined during the first 4 months treatment, although it is stable after. Furthermore, maintenance of religious control was associated with lower helplessness-hopelessness, denial, anxious preoccupations and avoidance and with better emotional and physical quality of life at all times of the study. We found no association with anxiety or depression.     

La représentation du but dans le contrôle exécutif chez l’enfant

Implementation of executive control over thought and action can only be guided by the goals that one desires to reach. Over the last decade, research has pointed out the central role of goal representation in executive control both during childhood and adulthood. The present paper reviews these findings, emphasizing the developmental dynamics observed during childhood. More precisely, it addresses the role of active goal maintenance in working memory, as it has been stressed by developmental and neurocognitive theoretical models. Beyond goal maintenance, the question as to how goal representations are formed in working memory has attracted research efforts lately. With age, children successfully process increasingly subtle environmental cues to infer the current task goal and when task goals need to be updated, as evidenced by the effect of cue transparency on switching and inhibition performance. In addition, the paper addresses how goal representation sheds light on the interplay between executive skills and conceptual knowledge, through the presentation of research in such domains as analogical reasoning, categorical flexibility, and class inclusion quantification. Taken together, these lines of research show that executive control development does not rely exclusively on a growing ability to implement appropriate actions, but it also depends largely on increasingly efficient identification of what such actions should be.     

The analyst and analysand as citizens in the world

Beginning with Jung's reflections on individuation as a starting point, this article examines the analytic relationship in the context of our current reality. The latter exerts pressures of all sorts that do not favour individuation. Indeed, geopolitical commentators see present‐day society as marked globally by excessive self‐love that seeks to dominate, at the expense of the other. Given that such forms of dominance are now also very prevalent in the workplace, this article examines how to help the increasing number of individuals with highly successful professional careers who suffer from this pressure and who then seek analysis. ‘Progressive movement’, an indicator of and incentive to change, is examined by studying the narrative processes emerging from dream activity ‐ including dreaming with the hands in the sand tray ‐ in the co‐transference. The article highlights how ‘progressive movement’, founded on narrative Competence and on the reflective function, may generate experiences of ‘realistic hope’. The latter signals the start of an individuation process in the analytic couple and, simultaneously, the transformation of both the analyst and the analysand into good enough ‘citizens in the world’.     

From active imagination to active life: at the roots of Jungian social activism

Our traditional Western worldview is often unconsciously based on a polarized, dichotomous perspective. However, many of Jung's ideas hint at a deep interrelation between opposites, such as inside and outside, which are, as the principle of synchronicity shows, rooted in a conceptualization of psyche and matter conceived as intertwined. Another pair of philosophical concepts, traditionally considered as opposites, needs further investigation: that between imagination and reality. If we are lucky in our daily practice as analysts, we can use imagination as a powerful tool to help people discover themselves as individuals and to get in deeper, more lively and responsible touch with reality. This paper explores the difference that Jung outlined between ‘active imagination’ and ‘passive fantasies’, and the transformative power of taking an active part in what imaginatively happens – he called it ‘active participation’ – rather than being passively overwhelmed by invasive fantasies. It is argued that it makes a great difference whether we become the actors and not just the spectators of our lives, and this is linked with the core of the individuation process in which, if individuals discover their particular place and meaning in the universe, they can live an ‘active life’, playing a heartfelt and responsible role in the collective world to which they belong. These ideas are at the heart of Jung's work, and they represent one of the roots of Jungian social activism.     

Moving into tummy time,together: Touch and transitions aid parent confidence and infant development

“Back to sleep” messages can reduce prone practice for infants, with potential for motor delay and cranial deformation. Despite recommendations for “tummy time,” young infants fuss in prone, and parents report uncertainty about how to help infants tolerate prone positioning. We hypothesized that a Child'Space Method lesson, teaching proprioceptive touch and transitions to prone, would facilitate prone tolerance, parent behavioral support, and parent self-efficacy. This randomized study recruited parents (N = 37) of 2- to 5-month-old infants. On two visits, parents answered questions about infant behavior and parent experience, and played with their infant. Lesson group parents had the lesson following the first free play. One week later, lesson parents reported that infants tolerated more prone time and that parents showed more supportive behaviors in bringing infant to prone, as compared to waiting parents. Lesson parents’ efficacy, and infant behavior during play, trended in the hypothesized direction. The study demonstrated how a lesson in preparatory touch, and gradual transitions, promoted infant prone tolerance and also parent support of rolling, side-lying, and prone positioning. The lesson could be incorporated in parent education and early pediatric visits, helping infants and parents negotiate the prone challenge and setting the stage for further parent support of infant development.     

Early childhood education and crime

This article presents new evidence on the crime-reducing impacts of a high-quality, intensive early childhood program with long-term follow-up, evaluated by a randomized controlled trial. Proportionately, more women than men decrease their criminal activity after participating in the program. This gender difference arises because of the worse home environments for girls, with corresponding greater scope for improvement by the program. For both genders, treatment effects are larger for the least-advantaged children, as measured by their mother's education at baseline. The dollar value of the social cost of criminal activity averted is higher for men because they commit more costly violent crimes.