The Silence of Psychologists

Unlike certain Israeli historians or sociologists who have developed a critical "post-Zionist" approach, Israeli psychologists display few signs of this critical trend. This is especially disquieting in light of the latest back and forth movement between warfare to the peace process—a movement that created many new social and individual dilemmas that would benefit from an open debate within social and clinical psychology. This paper tries to account for this deficiency by looking at its possible historical, political, and cultural roots. The historical aspects relate to the influence of European and American psychological traditions. Two political aspects are presented: (1) Israeli psychologists, through their involvement in the military and their acceptance of the Zionist claim for security, tend to belong to the political mainstream (Gergen, 1973, 1989); and (2) a hyper-political atmosphere scared Israeli psychologists into neutrality and objectivism. This provided a convenient rationale for apoliticism, especially when Israeli political polarization in the 1980s and 1990s was perceived as threatening psychologists' professional authority. Culturally, the psychologists, like the European social strata from which most of them originated, tended to adopt the American tradition of individualism as a reaction to the strong collectivist trend that dominated Israeli society during its early years. This may account for their weak and delayed social response of humanism, feminism, and constructivism. Exceptions to this general trend are highlighted, and the question of how Israeli psychology might become more politically sensitive and critical is explored. This discussion may have relevance for the development of political psychology in other societies, especially those going through transition of values or suffering from long, violent conflicts.     

Differentiating Two Kinds of Neutrality

Neutrality is a most important concept, yet a controversial one. Theorists of different analytic schools have defined it in their own terms, leaving behind them a legacy of disparate and often contradictory formulations. In this paper, the author reviews briefly some of these ideas about neutrality. Then, from a contemporary interpersonal/relational perspective, the author takes a new look at the idea of neutrality. The author points out how unacknowledged discrepancies among these ideas get in the way of understanding and so complicate analytic discourse, and argues that useful work with this concept requires that analysts differentiate between two aspects of neutrality, specifically operational neutrality and intentional neutrality. The theoretical discussion is followed by a case vignette illustrating the clinical usefulness of this differentiation.     

军事医学伦理中的友谊、群体和关怀

医学伦理禁止医务人员将患者划分等级.然而,在军事中,特别是战争境遇下,由于医疗资源匮乏,其医学伦理却要求首先救助同胞士兵.社群主义者、关怀伦理提出了针对同盟者、朋友和家人的特殊责任:在小群体成员有医疗关怀需求时,不管谁的伤势更重,道德都会要求优先治疗同胞士兵,而后才是同盟或敌方士兵.     

Neutrality And Feminist Perspective: Can They Co-Exist In Family Therapy?

An argument is forwarded for the integration of feminist and systemic perspectives, specifically focusing on neutrality. The position taken is that both feminist principles and systemic practice have indispensable merits when applied to relationship-oriented therapy. Issues of abuse in family therapy are presented by promotion of a view that judgment against the abuser and a neutral investigative process can both be achieved. A neutral stance and circularity contribute to process maps, hypothesis generation, and gaining influence with all family members. Cecchin's updated perspective of neutrality as curiosity about multiple perspectives is emphasized. A case example demonstrates integration of neutrality and a feminist perspective.     

Truth as a way of developing and preserving the space for thinking in the minds of the patient and the analyst

Clinical material from the analysis of a young patient diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and heavily dependent on drugs was examined to identify changes in setting that may be necessary to enable the psychoanalytical treatment of this type of patient. The article describes a lack of truth in the patient's life and the absence of a good enough space for thinking in her mind. In order to enhance the development of the capacity for symbolization in the patient's mind, the analyst had to become an object the patient needed. In order to do this the analyst had to manage setting alteration. Theoretical frameworks proposed by Ferenczi, Winnicott and Bion were used to guide the psychoanalyst's approach to this patient. The survival of the capacity for thinking psychoanalytically inside the analyst's mind when the setting has been significantly distorted by the disruptive behavior of the patient is guaranteed by the trueness of their link. It is suggested that maybe this is decisive for a successful psychoanalytical treatment of this type of patient.     

时间中立性与人格同一性批判——论帕菲特对实践理性二重性的解决

西季威克认为功利主义与利己主义是同样合理的,留下了实践理性二重性的难题。帕菲特分别从时间中立性与人格同一性两个角度对利己主义展开批判,力图消除实践理性二重性,但帕菲特的批判却面临着一些困难。文章认为,解决实践理性二重性的关键不是要证明利己主义是完全错误的,而是要创建正义的社会制度、辩证地处理好个人利益与普遍利益的关系。     

On Language Rights

In social and political philosophy, linguistic differences are usually seen as one item in the long and indefinite list of Cultural Differences; consequently, language rights are discussed and criticized together with other cultural rights. In this essay, it is argued that a right to use one's own language can be justified by appeal to the practical role of language in human life. The ability to communicate effectively is essential for human autonomy and well-being; thus there is no need to argue that linguistic groups, as groups, are entitled to special treatment, or that language rights are group rights. Because learning a new language is invariably a costly matter, by recognizing some languages as official languages the state (re)distributes burdens and benefits among its citizens. The task of language rights is to guarantee that these burdens are not distributed in a too unequal way.     

Discrimination and liberal neutrality

This paper examines the political philosophy of Liberalism with particular focus on the principles of liberal neutrality and value pluralism. These principles, which are advocated by the most prominent contemporary liberal theorists mark a significant departure from classical liberalism and its monistic approach to seeking truth and the good. I argue that the shift to neutrality and pluralism have done a disservice to liberalism and that the cultivation of discrimination skills is needed to deal with the complex tasks of making decisions intelligently and effectively.     

International Justice,Human Rights and Neutrality

A number of theorists have tried to resolve the tension between a western-oriented liberal scheme of human rights and an account that accommodates different political systems and constitutional ideals than the liberal one. One important way the tension has been addressed is through a “neutral” or tolerant, notion of human rights, as present in the work of Rawls, Scanlon and Buchanan. In this paper I argue that neutrality cannot by itself explain the difference between rights considered appropriate for liberal states and rights considered to be human rights proper. The central arguments used by neutralist theorists presuppose, rather than justify, this differential treatment. Instead, that difference can be understood only by reference to the purpose of human rights as distinct from the constitutional rights of a liberal state. This requires us to reassess the point and purpose of a theory of international justice, in contrast to justice for a domestic and politically separate society. In the case of a theorist like Rawls, human rights represent guides to the foreign policy of a liberal state, rather than to principles by which all states are expected to abide. That is because of Rawls’ acceptance that no common, authoritative, third-party, institutions capable of imposing duties on all agents uniformly exist or can exist. This also makes his theory inherently conservative about human rights, given that they are simply to act as a guide to which states can be treated as legitimate when it comes to liberal foreign policy: those that possess institutions that can be said to represent a peoples, rather than being imposed through violence. This standard is lower than the ideal set of rights extended to all in a liberal society. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Emperor's clothes: Some serious problems in psychoanalytic training

The author discusses some of the key problems in psychoanalytic training, in particular those problems that stem from the power differential between training analysts and students in training. One effect of this differential can be that some students feel a pressure to comply with their teachers and supervisors, even their training analyst, in ways that can be seriously detrimental to their development. Further, when something goes wrong in a student's training, how is this to be viewed by those in charge of the training? Also, how are complaints dealt with? Is suffi cient weight given to external reality? Too often training analysts, and training committees, get into pathologising a student in a process that should be recognised as ‘wild analysis in committee’, rather than considering more carefully the external realities that may be affecting a student's progress in the training. This ‘analysis’ in committee should never be allowed. There is an urgency for immediate changes to be made in psychoanalytic training so that the problems discussed, with more care being taken, should be prevented from happening. Too often, however, an institutional resistance to change dominates discussions in committee, and in society meetings, with the result that little or no change takes place even after years of debate.