The Anima as an Archetype of Human Resilience in the Face of Calamity1

This paper will provide a theoretical basis for looking at a dream in the analysis of a client during a calamity. Finding the archetype of the anima is a way of responding to a crisis, in this case to the COVID-19 pandemic period. With all the basic instincts disrupted by a catastrophe, the emergence of the anima, as archetype of life, is there to remind us how to survive and recover. The anima archetype, often representing psychological resilience in ancient myths, shows up in dreams to guide human transformation from the struggle to survive trauma to the art of living a full life.     

The seventh servant: The implications of a truth drive in Bions theory of 'O'

Drawing upon Bion's published works on the subjects of truth, dreaming, alpha‐function and transformations in ‘O’, the author independently postulates that there exists a ‘truth instinctual drive’ that subserves a truth principle, the latter of which is associated with the reality principle. Further, he suggests, following Bion's postulation, that ‘alpha‐function’ and dreaming/phantasying constitute unconscious thinking processes and that they mediate the activity of this ‘truth drive’ (quest, pulsion), which the author hypothesizes constitutes another aspect of a larger entity that also includes the epistemophilic component drive. It purportedly seeks and transmits as well as includes what Bion (1965, pp. 147‐9) calls ‘O’, the ‘Absolute Truth, Ultimate Reality, O’ (also associated with infi nity, noumena or things‐in‐themselves, and ‘godhead’) (1970, p. 26). It is further hypothesized that the truth drive functions in collaboration with an ‘unconscious consciousness’ that is associated with the faculty of ‘attention’, which is also known as ‘intuition’. It is responsive to internal psychical reality and constitutes Bion's ‘seventh servant’. O, the ultimate landscape of psychoanalysis, has many dimensions, but the one that seems to interest Bion is that of the emotional experience of the analysand's and the analyst's ‘evolving O’ respectively (1970, p. 52) during the analytic session. The author thus hypothesizes that a sense of truth presents itself to the subject as a quest for truth which has the quality and force of an instinctual drive and constitutes the counterpart to the epistemophilic drive. This ‘truth quest’ or ‘drive’ is hypothesized to be the source of the generation of the emotional truth of one's ongoing experiences, both conscious and unconscious. It is proposed that emotions are beacons of truth in regard to the acceptance of reality. The concepts of an emotional truth drive and a truth principle would help us understand why analysands are able to accept analysts’ interpretations that favor the operation of the reality principle over the pleasure principle—because of what is postulated as their overriding adaptive need for truth. Ultimately, it would seem that Bion's legacy of truth aims at integrating fi nite man with infi nite man.     

An introduction to the reading of Bion

The author suggests that a good deal of the confusion that arises in the course of reading Bion derives from the fact that Bion's analytic writing is comprised of two periods of work that involve markedly different conceptions of psychoanalysis. These two periods require of the reader very different ways of reading and generate contrasting experiences in reading. Bion, in passages in Learning from experience (1962) and Attention and interpretation (1970), offers advice to the reader regarding how he would like his 'early' and 'late' work to be read. The author treats the experience of reading these passages as ports of entry into the fundamental tenets underlying Bion's widely differing conceptions of the psychoanalytic enterprise. The experience of reading early Bion generates a sense of psychoanalysis as a never completed process of clarifying obscurities and obscuring clarifications, which enterprise moves in the direction of a convergence of disparate meanings. Incontrast, the experience of reading Bion's later work conveys a sense of psychoanalysis as a process involving a movement toward infinite expansion of meaning. The author offers a detailed account of an analytic experience which he discusses from a point of view informed by Bion's work, particularly his late work.     

MEASUREMENT OF FATHER–CHILD ROUGH‐AND‐TUMBLE PLAY AND ITS RELATIONS TO CHILD BEHAVIOR

Although there is increasing evidence of paternal influence on child outcomes such as language and cognition, researchers are not yet clear on the features of father–child play that are most valuable in terms of child development. Physical play such as rough and tumble play (RTP) is a favored type of father–child play in Western societies that has been linked to children's socioemotional competence. It is important, therefore, to determine the implications of this play for child development. In this review and meta‐analysis, associations between father–child physical play and child behavior were examined. The review also focused on study methods. Sixteen studies are reviewed, N = 1,521 father–child dyads, 35% boys. Study characteristics such as definitions of physical play, play settings, play measures, and coding were examined. The meta‐analysis found weak to moderate population effects for links between father–child physical play and child aggression, social competence, emotional skills, and self‐regulation. Research investigating the effect of father–child physical play on children's development will be improved when definitions clearly identify the nature of play, settings facilitate boisterous play, and measures include frequency and quality of play interactions. This play shows promise as an enhancer of positive father–child relationships and a catalyst for child development.     

Latina/o Children Living With an Immigrant Mother With Depression: Developmental and Cultural Nuances in Recognition and Coping

The psychological experience of maternal depression and its impact on immigrant Latina/o families often goes unrecognized and unaddressed. Children may feel especially helpless and confused about the changes they observe in their mothers’ mood and behavior, and about the deterioration of family relationships. Given the interdependence of family structures of immigrant Latina/o households, maternal depression can be detrimental to Latina/o youth attributions and coping strategies, and to their relationship with their mothers. The quantitative focus of most research on maternal depression in Latina/o samples limits our understanding of family processes in maternal depression. The current qualitative study explores the perceived impact of maternal depression on Latina/o youths’ attributions and coping strategies. This inquiry involved focus groups with 12 participants aged 9–16 years to explore their perspectives on maternal depression. All youth had participated in a 12‐week multifamily group intervention focused on building family and cultural strengths to address maternal depression on immigrant Latina/o families. Findings of the focus groups illuminated the essential experience of youth living with maternal depression, and indicated that there are developmental considerations for how youth recognize and make meaning of maternal depression, and cope with disrupted family life. Additionally, youth reported engaging in these culture‐specific ways of coping: using close sibling relationships and family structure as support, having fathers and extended family members engage in additional and restorative parenting practices, and participating in religious practices to seek refuge from family stress. We propose considerations for intervention and further areas of research.     

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’.     

Parenting and toddler self-regulation in low-income families: What does sleep have to do with it?

Toddlerhood is a sensitive period in the development of self-regulation, a set of adaptive skills that are fundamental to mental health and partly shaped by parenting. Healthy sleep is known to be critical for self-regulation; yet, the degree to which child sleep alters interactive child–parent processes remains understudied. This study examines associations between observed parenting and toddler self-regulation, with toddler sleep as a moderator of this association. Toddlers in low-income families (N = 171) and their mothers were videotaped during free play and a self-regulation challenge task; videos were coded for mothers’ behavior and affect (free play) and toddlers’ self-regulation (challenge task). Mothers reported their child's nighttime sleep duration via questionnaire. Results revealed significant Sleep × Maternal Negative Affect and Sleep × Maternal Negative Control interactions. Children who did not experience negative parenting had good self-regulation regardless of their nighttime sleep duration. For children who did experience negative parenting, self-regulation was intact among those who obtained more nighttime sleep, but significantly poorer among children who were getting less nighttime sleep. Thus, among children who were reported to obtain less nighttime sleep, there were more robust associations between negative parenting and poorer self-regulation than among toddlers who were reported to obtain more sleep.     

La explicación intencional: acciones,metas, representaciones

Resumen

En este artículo establecemos una tajante distinción entre explicación causal e intencional, sobre la base de sus relaciones temporales vistas desde una perspectiva pragmática. La explicación causal es determinística y se centra en acontecimientos («objetos») del pasado; en cambio, la explicación intencional se centra en el futuro, está abierta a la incertidumbre y se vincula a funciones y usos («interpretantes»), debiendo ser considerada una subclase de las explicaciones teleológicas y funcionales. El marco observacional para una explicación intencional es una secuencia triádica donde las condiciones previas de la acción intencional vienen seguidas por esta misma acción la cual, a su vez, precede una meta, ejecutiva o de estado. Se discuten los criterios operacionales para la acción intencional a lo largo de diversas dimensiones de direccionalidad a meta. Argüimos también que la explicación intencional no debe relacionarse con las representacionales intencionales en general, sino sólo con las intenciones, definiendo estas últimas como representaciones de meta en la mente de un sujeto. Bajo este punto de vista sugerimos que este tipo de explicación debe fundamentarse en el terreno de los comportamientos de engaño.