The construct of the ‘mana personality’ in Jung’s works: a historic-hermeneutic perspective. Part I

According to Jung, the ‘mana personality’ represents an archetypal phase of the individuation process of remarkable interest in psychological, hermeneutic and theoretical terms. This figure is characterized by a high initiatic potential that fosters the approximation of the consciousness of the Self. At the same time, it entails a risk of psychic inflation or of ‘similarity to God’. In this article, divided in two parts, I deal with those aspects through a reconstruction of the development of this notion within Jung’s published works, adopting a primarily chronological and, secondarily, thematic approach moving from a textual analysis of relevant passages. In this first part, I consider some passages which deal mainly with the risks of the assimilation of the unconscious in ‘La structure de l’inconscient’ (1916) that preceded the successive proper treatment of the mana personality’s notion presented, and here examined, in ‘The relations between the ego and the unconscious’ (1928). Successively, I take into consideration some further issues related to it discussed by Jung in ‘The structure of the psyche’ (1928/1931), ‘Archaic man’ (1931), and ‘Nietzsche’s Zarathustra’.     

The construct of the ‘mana personality’ in Jung’s works: a historic-hermeneutic perspective. Part II

This is the second part of an article that tries to provide a framework of understanding of, and a seminal reflection on, a highly interesting yet little explored psychological construct of Jung’s analytical psychology, namely the ‘mana personality’. Here I take into consideration some issues around the ‘saviour complex’, discussed in Jung’s seminar on Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, concerning both the psychological analysis of the individual and the socio-political level related to the collective horizon of the 1930s. Moreover, I consider the continuity of Jung’s analysis of such issues in other works such as ‘Psychology and national problems’ (1936), Symbols of Transformation (1952), and Aion (1950). I finally make some suggestions concerning Jung’s apparent hermeneutic tendency to apply the construct of the mana personality to collective historical phenomena.     

Evaluating the desirability of meals: an illustrative multiattribute decision analysis procedure to assess portfolios with interdependent items

This paper presents an exploratory study designed to address complex scaling problems in applying value/utility theory to measuring preferences over alternative combinations (or portfolios) of multiattributed items. This application considers meals served to nursing home residents as portfolios of food items and seeks to maximize meal appeal. We consider food interrelation and link single food measurements to overall meal measurements in the process of constructing meal desirability scales. We test the resulting scales to capture one expert's professional judgments and discuss issues raised in this specific application in the context of general portfolio evaluation problems. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social genomics: genomic inventions in society. The nature of what's to come

This paper identifies several kinds of intellectual mistakes that proponents of genetic engineering make, in defending their views and characterizing the views of their opponents. Results from research in the social sciences and humanities illuminate the nature of these mistakes. The mistakes themselves play a role in allowing proponents to gather support from other protagonists in the social controversies involving science and technology. Understanding the controversies requires understanding that innovations are components of complex and ill-structured social problems; the "right answer" does not follow from scientific or technological breakthroughs. If the problems are identified correctly, issues of non-economic or non-market values and political and individual rights will need to be addressed.     

Jung's views on causes and treatments of schizophrenia in light of current trends in cognitive neuroscience and psychotherapy research I. Aetiology and phenomenology

Jung's writings on schizophrenia are almost completely ignored or forgotten today. The purpose of this paper, along with a follow‐up article, is to review the primary themes found in Jung's writings on schizophrenia, and to assess the validity of his theories about the disorder in light of our current knowledge base in the fields of psychopathology, cognitive neuroscience and psychotherapy research. In this article, five themes related to the aetiology and phenomenology of schizophrenia from Jung's writings are discussed:1) abaissement du niveau mental; 2) the complex; 3) mandala imagery; 4) constellation of archetypes and 5) psychological versus toxic aetiology. Reviews of the above areas suggest three conclusions. First, in many ways, Jung's ideas on schizophrenia anticipated much current thinking and data about the disorder. Second, with the recent (re)convergence of psychological and biological approaches to understanding and treating schizophrenia, the pioneering ideas of Jung regarding the importance of both factors and their interaction remain a useful and rich, but still underutilized resource. Finally, a more concerted effort to understand and evaluate the validity of Jung's concepts in terms of evidence from neuroscience could lead both to important advances in analytical psychology and to developments in therapeutic approaches that would extend beyond the treatment of schizophrenia.     

BALDEY: A database of auditory lexical decisions

In an auditory lexical decision experiment, 5541 spoken content words and pseudowords were presented to 20 native speakers of Dutch. The words vary in phonological make-up and in number of syllables and stress pattern, and are further representative of the native Dutch vocabulary in that most are morphologically complex, comprising two stems or one stem plus derivational and inflectional suffixes, with inflections representing both regular and irregular paradigms; the pseudowords were matched in these respects to the real words. The BALDEY (“biggest auditory lexical decision experiment yet”) data file includes response times and accuracy rates, with for each item morphological information plus phonological and acoustic information derived from automatic phonemic segmentation of the stimuli. Two initial analyses illustrate how this data set can be used. First, we discuss several measures of the point at which a word has no further neighbours and compare the degree to which each measure predicts our lexical decision response outcomes. Second, we investigate how well four different measures of frequency of occurrence (from written corpora, spoken corpora, subtitles, and frequency ratings by 75 participants) predict the same outcomes. These analyses motivate general conclusions about the auditory lexical decision task. The (publicly available) BALDEY database lends itself to many further analyses.     

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.     

生命性在句子加工中作用的ERP研究

生命性广泛地渗透到人类语言系统中发挥其作用。本文主要结合最新和经典的有关生命性的ERP研究探讨了生命性信息起作用的模式和时间进程。在句子加工过程中,生命性影响论元的加工并影响题元结构的建构和解释。以往研究表明,生命性违反有时引发的是N400效应,有时引发的是P600效应,少数情况还表现出N400-P600的双相模式。生命性在句子加工中的作用还跟多种变量存在交互作用,语境、题元可逆性、论元之间的语义关系、动词类型和其固有的题元结构都可能影响生命性信息起作用的模式。文章最后进行总结和展望,并提出未来研究仍有必要继续探讨生命性信息加工的时间神经动态性及其在句子加工中的具体作用机制。     

‘You were not born here,so you are classless,you are free!’ Social class and cultural complex in analysis

The unconscious impact of differences in culture and social class is discussed from the perspective of an analyst practising in London whose ‘foreign accent’ prevents patients from placing her within the social stratifications by which they feel confined. Because she is seen by them as an analyst from both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the British psycho‐social fabric and cultural complex, this opens a space in the transference that enables fuller exploration of the impact of the British social class system on patients’ experience of themselves and their world. The paper considers this impact as a trans‐generational trauma of living in a society of sharp socio‐economic divisions based on material property. This is illustrated with the example of a patient who, at the point of moving towards the career to which he aspired, was unable to separate a sense of personal identity from the social class he so desperately wanted to leave behind and walk the long avenue of individuation. The dearth of literature on the subject of class is considered, and the paper concludes that not enough attention is given to class identification in training.