The pain-aggression relationship and its expression in naturalistic settings

Relationships between environmental events and aggression are briefly reviewed. Response-independent pain is a fundamental antecedent environmental cause of attack. Aggression-contingent pain decrease causes further attack strengthening, while pain increase following aggression can decrease attack and foster escape and avoidance behavior. Recent experiments that have questioned the pain-aggression relation and proposed, in the alternative, a pain-defense relationship are discussed. It is argued that this contradiction results from observational difficulties in naturalistic settings, discordance between field and laboratory terminology, substitution of behavioral taxonomy in the place of functional analysis, incomplete understanding of previous findings, and an absence of essential experimental control observations.     

Attack and defensive behaviors in the albino mouse

Attack by dominant male colony mice on intruders included chasing and lateral attack behaviors, while the corresponding intruder behaviors were flight, boxing, and checking. Both of these are similar to the attack and defensive behaviors of colony rats and intruders. However, mice did not show a significant constraint on bites to ventral areas, and the rat defensive behavior of lying on the back, which is effective because of this constraint, was rare; the corresponding “on-top” behavior of attackers was almost absent in mice. These findings strongly support the view that intraspecific attack and defensive behaviors, and target sites for bites, are interrelated factors facilitating effective but nonlethal agonistic interactions in muroid rodents.     

The behavioral bases of prolonged suppression of predatory attack in cats

The behavioral differences between rat-killing cats and non-rat killers were investigated. Killers and non-killers were found to fall at opposite ends of a continuum of predisposition to respond defensively to a variety of environmental threats. Non-killers were most defensive, displaying aggressive-defensive predatory attacks in contrast to the aggressive attacks of killers. The data support the hypothesis that suppression of killing among non-rat killers is the result of an enhanced sensitivity to external threat.     

Seeing and being seen in the experience of the client and the therapist

There is more to non-verbal communication than observing the client, although intense observation of the client has taken second place to listening to their words. After reflecting on the history of the use of sight in medicine and psychoanalysis, the author examines the significance for Freud and others of the ‘senses at a distance' (hearing and sight), and issues such as voyeurism and exhibitionism in the therapeutic relationship. The phenomenon of seeing and being seen is related through case examples to issues about distance and space, paranoid anxiety and communication disorders. Attention is also paid to illusion as a way of seeing, and its relevance in the counter-transference. The article concludes by looking at the way clients see therapists, tracing briefly the progression from self-pre-occupation to seeing the therapist as a separate other.     

镜像神经在药物心理渴求中的作用及机制

心理渴求是物质依赖者希望重新感受神经活性药物效应的渴望,其神经机制的早期影像研究,主要集中在前额皮质和奖赏中枢.镜像神经是新近发现的位于动作脑区,能理解、分析所观察动作的目的和性质,并通过内隐模拟,产生直接映射式的情绪和认知的神经.最新的研究发现尼古丁成瘾者在相关线索的刺激下,其镜像神经也能被激活.本研究旨在探索镜像神经参与相关线索下心理渴求形成的机制,为发展更可靠的依赖行为的生物学标记提供另一个重要目标,帮助人们更好地理解药物渴求形成的神经生物学基础与过程.     

模仿心理机制研究的历史、现状与展望

近年来模仿机制研究在深化皮亚杰理论的基础上,深入探讨了模仿与心理理解之间的发生、发展关系及其相互作用机制,并结合脑神经科学研究的最新进展,探讨模仿背后的脑神经机制。在梳理当前心理学、脑神经科学中TT理论、ST理论以及镜像神经理论研究的基础上,给出了进一步深化研究的展望。     

THE EXPLORATORY AND REFLECTIVE DOMAIN OF METAPHOR IN THE COMPARISON OF RELIGIONS

There has been a longstanding interest in discovering or uncovering resemblances among what are ostensibly diverse religious schemas by employing a range of methodological approaches and tools. However, it is generally considered a problematic undertaking. Jonathan Z. Smith has produced a large body of work aimed at explicating this and has tacitly based his model of comparison on metaphor, which is traditionally understood to connote similarity between two or more things, as based on a linguistic or pragmatic assessment. However, another possible approach is cognitive. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson have championed the view of “conceptual metaphor,” which regards metaphor as being pervasive not only in language, but also in thought and action. Indeed, according to them, it basically structures our conceptual operations and hence views of the world through partially mapping knowledge across ontological domains, generally from the concrete to the abstract. I shall argue that a similar mechanism can fruitfully be applied to comparing religious schemas, as based on the postulated relationship between the domains of human and divine, physical and abstract, and as realized through expressions of journeying and reflection.     

Embodied simulation: From neurons to phenomenal experience

The same neural structures involved in the unconscious modeling of our acting body in space also contribute to our awareness of the lived body and of the objects that the world contains. Neuroscientific research also shows that there are neural mechanisms mediating between the multi-level personal experience we entertain of our lived body, and the implicit certainties we simultaneously hold about others. Such personal and body-related experiential knowledge enables us to understand the actions performed by others, and to directly decode the emotions and sensations they experience. A common functional mechanism is at the basis of both body awareness and basic forms of social understanding: embodied simulation. It will be shown that the present proposal is consistent with some of the perspectives offered by phenomenology.     

Evaluations of Rebuttal Analogy Users: Ethical and Competence Considerations

Recent theorizing and research concerning the pragmatics of analogy in persuasion posits that it serves two communicative functions. Specifically, rebuttal analogy instrumentally functions as argument and also as a social attack device used to demean the competence or character of opponents. The study reported here empirically investigated message receivers' perceptions of rebuttal analogy users. Participants were exposed to one of four messages employing rebuttal analogy or to one of the same four messages with a nonanalogy version of the rebuttal argument. As anticipated, the findings revealed that participants perceived the communicator employing rebuttal analogy as less ethical and less competent than communicators using nonanalogy counterparts. These results are discussed and future research is proposed.     

The use of Skype in analysis and training: a research and literature review

Of recent years there has not only been an increasing use of Skype in analytic treatment, supervision and teaching, but also a number of writers have been endeavouring to assess its effectiveness. Whilst it is generally agreed that Skype can facilitate an analytic encounter where distance prohibits a face‐to‐face process, where continuity needs to be maintained and where analysands are in areas far from specialized centres, there is divergence in the literature as to whether analysis, as opposed to psychotherapy, can be successful using Skype. This paper reviews the literature and concludes that the essentials of a genuine analytic process are not necessarily precluded by Skype. One central reason is because there exists a cross‐modal communication channel between the human senses (underpinned by audiovisual mirror neurons) in addition to the recently discovered instinct for communication and interpersonal understanding, and these can override the need for physical proximity of the participants. The essentials of an analytic frame can thus be maintained, and the continuity that Skype enables means that containment is also facilitated and this counters the negative aspects of shuttle analysis. The critical issues for the profession then become the professional development for practitioners in the use of Skype and suggestions are listed.