From symbolizing to non-symbolizing within the scope of a link: from dreams to shouts of terror caused by an absent presence(1)

This article examines pathologies in the creation of symbols and those pathologies' ensuing consequences. It relies mainly on the vertices provided by Bion and Meltzer. It studies the different forms in which these lapses occur in symbolic processes, where they may create vacuums in symbolic networks or give rise to 'lies', and even destroy or de-symbolize established symbols. Based on Bion's concept of the minus-contained (-contained), I propose that when a symbol is attacked, a particular mental structure with its own peculiar characteristics comes about. This structure not only creates a vacuum in that mental zone, it ends up damaging the entire symbolization process. This contribution aims to describe that structure from the metapsychological point of view - contained. I end by synthesizing the possible widening of what could be a Bionian negative grid.     

Nature et significations des échanges entre domaines de vie : l’exemple des nouveaux cadres de l’Action Sociale

Accessing to a management position for the first time implies, for professionals, reflecting on their commitments in different fields and times of their socialization, on their articulation, and on their compatibilities. Referring to the model of an active socialization – active because plural and then conflicting – which rejects a dichotomous approach of the “work/non work” relations, the meaning people give to the relations between their different life spheres, communicating with others, orientates the organization of exchanges between life domains. Content analysis of interviews conducted with new social work managers brought us to distinguish six types of exchanges: temporal, informational, relational, emotional, axiological, ideological and symbolic.     

睡眠的同步EEG-fMRI研究述评

同步EEG-fMRI利用了脑电和功能磁共振在时空分辨率上的互补优势,为睡眠研究提供了多模态的无创手段.这使得睡眠的神经成像研究可以借助电生理方法进行睡眠分期和特殊脑电事件研究,为探讨不同意识状态下神经活动动态过程提供了条件.本评述从自发脑活动和睡眠中的知觉过程两方面介绍了目前该领域的最新进展,结合硬件构成、被试安全和数据质量等问题总结了同步记录应用于睡眠的优缺点.同步EEG-fMRI技术在睡眠研究中的应用对于阐明意识状态转换的神经机制具有深刻意义,并有可能为临床睡眠障碍的诊断和治疗提供全新的思路.     

How has Philosophical Applied Ethics Progressed in the Past Fifty Years?

Applied ethics is relatively new on the philosophical scene, having grown out of the various civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s, as well as the student demand that college courses be relevant. Even today, there are those who think that there are no philosophically interesting practical ethical questions, and that applied ethics is not a branch of philosophy at all. This article rejects that view, both because some of the most interesting and respectable philosophers in the world have worked in applied ethics and because applied ethics has been the source of many difficult conceptual questions in theoretical ethics and even metaphysics. These include the grounds for moral status, human identity, how to conceive rights in general and the right to life in particular, the question whether existence itself can be a harm (the nonidentity problem), and the nature of moral principles.     

High emotional arousal and failures in reality monitoring: Pathways to auditory hallucinations in non‐psychotic children?

Recent research has confirmed the presence of auditory hallucinations in non‐psychotic children, with this research also suggesting that such hallucinations may be more common than previously thought. While auditory hallucinations in children have frequently been associated with high levels of emotional stress, there is still a poor understanding of how this stress may precipitate hallucinations, and why some children experience hallucinations while others seem not to. The current study assessed the association between high levels of trauma symptomatology, anxiety and depression, and the presence of hallucinations against matched controls. Results indicated that hallucinating children had significantly higher mean anxiety, depression and, in particular, re‐experiencing scores than did the children in the control group. These results were examined within the framework of reality monitoring, that is, the ability to distinguish between externally or internally generated sources of information. The notion of high levels of emotional distress decreasing the efficiency of reality monitoring and leading to the possibility of confusion between internally and externally generated stimuli was discussed, with the conclusion advanced that the misattribution of an externally generated source – either held as a memory or as a traumatic re‐experiencing – as an internally generated one, underlies hallucinatory experiences.     

The “Place” of Place‐Based Pedagogy in Teaching Religion: Brooklyn and Its Religions

Place‐based pedagogy offers students a distinctive way to be attentive to a particular expression of a given religion while enabling them to minimize generalizations on the basis of that experience. Place‐based pedagogies decenter the traditional classroom as the sole locus of learning and emphasize the value of learning within varied spatial frameworks including undeveloped natural environments and built environments in rural, suburban, or urban communities. This article, set in Brooklyn, New York, is a case study of place‐based teaching in an urban context. “Brooklyn and Its Religions” is a course that provides students with a place to explore diverse expressions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The article describes the course and analyzes students' field reports in two settings to demonstrate the value of place‐based learning for studying religion in Brooklyn.     

Escalation from Fetish Burglaries to Sexual Violence: A Retrospective Case Study of Former Col., D. Russell Williams

Criminal history narrative studies reveal an escalation in sexual offender behaviour from non‐contact to contact offending, with an ever‐increasing likelihood of sexual violence and homicide. In particular, researchers have found that sexual offenders often have a history of committing burglaries prior to contact offences. Accordingly, researchers have suggested that burglaries may be associated with an increased likelihood of future sexual offending, particularly when they have a sexual element to them. However, to date, there has been little quantitative research focusing on the mechanisms of escalation in sexual offences. This paper seeks to study factors associated with sexual offence escalation in terms of changes in offence seriousness and frequency. Specifically, case evidence was gleaned from a series of fetish burglaries and subsequent sexual assaults and murders committed by the former Canadian Colonel David Russell Williams (RW). Cluster analysis, chi‐square, ANOVA, and regression analyses were conducted on the crime scene information of RW's 82 cases of fetish burglary. Analyses revealed a significant escalation in the frequency and seriousness of RW's fetish burglary offences prior to committing acts of sexual violence and ultimately sexual homicide. Recommendations for future research predicting escalation of sexual offending by frequency and seriousness of offending behaviour are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bridging the reductive and the synthetic: some reflections on the clinical implications of synchronicity

When Jung introduced the concepts of synchronicity and the psychoid unconscious, he expanded analytical psychology into decidedly uncanny territory. Despite the early interest shown by Freud, anomalous phenomena such as telepathy have become a taboo subject in psychoanalysis. Today, however, there is an increasing interest in thought transference and synchronicity, thus opening the way for a fruitful exchange between different psychoanalytical schools on their clinical implications. I propose to examine some of the ambiguities of Jung's thinking, to clarify how we define synchronicity, the relationship between synchronicities and parapsychological events, and their clinical significance. At the present moment, we are still unsure if such events should be considered as normal and a way of facilitating individuation, or as an indication of psychopathology in the patient or in the analyst, just as we are uncertain about the particular characteristics of the intersubjective field that can lead to synchronicities. Making use of the typology of mind‐matter correlations presented by Atmanspacher and Fach, and the distinction they draw between acategorial and non‐categorial states of mind, I will use two clinical vignettes to illustrate the different states of mind in analyst and analysand that can lead to synchronicities. In particular I will focus on the relationship between analytical reverie and synchronicity.     

Alexithymia and Affect Intensity of Fine Artists

Research on creative artists has examined mainly their personality traits or cognitive abilities. However, it seems important to explore also their emotional traits to complete the profile. This study examines two emotional characteristics: alexithymia and affect intensity. Even if most research suggests that artists are less alexithymic and experience more intensively their emotions, Botella, M., Zenasni, F., and Lubart, T. (Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 5 , 251, 2011) observed that art students were as alexithymic as psychology students and more alexithymic than a normative population. The aim of this study was to examine these issues with artists and non‐artists and to compare artists to art students. Results indicate that artists are less alexithymic and present higher affect intensity than non‐artists. Moreover, results show that art students present more difficulties processing their emotions than artists.