Comment on fitting MA time series by structural equation models

In a recent paper by van Buuren (1997) it is concluded that parameter estimates in pure moving-average (MA) models, obtained by software for fitting structural equation models (SEMs), are biased and inefficient. In this comment it is shown that this negative finding may be due to a particular feature of van Buuren's simulation experiment. A modified procedure for fitting MA models by means of SEM software is proposed, and some of its implications are discussed.     

Joint consistency of nonparametric item characteristic curve and ability estimation

The simultaneous and nonparametric estimation of latent abilities and item characteristic curves is considered. The asymptotic properties of ordinal ability estimation and kernel smoothed nonparametric item characteristic curve estimation are investigated under very general assumptions on the underlying item response theory model as both the test length and the sample size increase. A large deviation probability inequality is stated for ordinal ability estimation. The mean squared error of kernel smoothed item characteristic curve estimates is studied and a strong consistency result is obtained showing that the worst case error in the item characteristic curve estimates over all items and ability levels converges to zero with probability equal to one.     

教育和心理研究中的多层线性模型

多层线性模型是分析具有层次结构数据的一种新型统计分析技术,与传统统计方法相比,具有模型假设与实际更吻合、结果解释更合理等特点。近年来这一方法的应用逐渐在社会科学的研究中受到重视。文章从多层线性模型的基本假设入手,较系统地介绍了模型参数估计和假设检验的方法,并通过一个具体例子将这一方法与传统回归分析方法相比,进一步说明了多层线性模型在分析具有层次结构数据时的优点。     

Pentheus rather than Oedipus: On perversion,survival and analytic ‘presencing’1

Following an introductory review of the main developments in the psychoanalytic thinking on perversion, the author focuses on her own understanding of perversion and its treatment, based on the psychoanalytic treatment of patients with severe sexual perversions. This paper uses the term ‘autotomy’ (borrowed from the fi eld of biology) to describe perversion formation as an ‘autotomous’ defence solution involving massive dissociative splitting in the service of psychic survival within a violent, traumatic early childhood situation; thus, a compulsively enacted ‘desire for ritualised trauma’ ensues. The specifi c nature of the perverse scenario embodies the specifi c experiential core quality of the traumatic situation. It is an actual repetition in the present of the imprint of a past destructive experience which is pre‐arranged and stage‐managed; it thus encounters haunting scenes of dread or psychic annihilation while, at the same time, controlling, sanitising and disavowing them. Hence, the world of severe perversion is no longer oedipal, but rather the world of Pentheus, Euripides's most tragic hero‐a world dominated by a mixture of a mother's madness, devourment, destruction and rituals of desire. According to this view, the (diffi cult) psychoanalytic treatment of perversion focuses on patient‐analyst interconnectedness‐brought about by the analyst's ‘givenness to being present’ or ‘presencing’‐at a deep, primary level of contact and impact (the emphasis being on the ontological dimension of experience). This evolving therapeutic entity creates and actualises a new, alternative experiential‐emotional reality within the pervert's alienated world, eventually generating a change in the perverse essence. The author illustrate this approach with three clinical vignettes.     

Early trauma and narcissism—autism bipolarity1

The analyst makes a series of considerations taken a posteriori from the analysis of a small number of patients. These patients have saved themselves from an early narcissistic catastrophe by developing precocious mental processes, while affective relationships rudimentarily repeat the impact with the original trauma. Primitive defences, essentially denial and vertical splitting, dissociate the tear in the psyche and structure a narcissism–autism bipolarity, revealed in aspects of the character which oblige the patient to automatically repeat a single matrix of experience. In therapy, it is necessary to construct a rst time of the trauma, by pending and linking threads of the primary relationship and strengthening them in the analytic relationship. This reconstruction of the background, a screen to project what had originally been rejected, is the prerequisite for coming out, in deferred action, from the hold of the pathological identifications. The author dedicates particular attention to the undifferentiated background, the nature‐environment torn by the trauma, and to the need to reconstruct this fabric of experience in the analytical relationship, as a fundamental element to the recomposition of the dissociated nuclei. In the clinical case, the analyst describes in particular how the analyst's words encounter an unbridgeable gap, a failure in the capacity for representation when opening the autistic nucleus. Through a regression lasting for about a year, a patient was able to live the experience of primitive agonies and that of an unbearable helplessness and, at the same time, was able to feel how the analyst supported her sense of existence. Subsequently, the patient was able to give shape, through visual images, to deep states of being and start the process of metabolising and symbolising the trauma.     

Regression in Autistic Spectrum Disorders

A significant proportion of children diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder experience a developmental regression characterized by a loss of previously-acquired skills. This may involve a loss of speech or social responsitivity, but often entails both. This paper critically reviews the phenomena of regression in autistic spectrum disorders, highlighting the characteristics of regression, age of onset, temporal course, and long-term outcome. Important considerations for diagnosis are discussed and multiple etiological factors currently hypothesized to underlie the phenomenon are reviewed. It is argued that regressive autistic spectrum disorders can be conceptualized on a spectrum with other regressive disorders that may share common pathophysiological features. The implications of this viewpoint are discussed.     

降纤酶治疗急性脑梗死的临床疗效评价

采用随机同期对照的临床研究方法,对发病在24h内的90例急性脑梗死患者,分别进行降纤酶与常规治疗方法的治疗,观察其疗效,应用Logistic回归分析方法进行评价。结果显示,降纤酶可降低血浆纤维蛋白原的水平,有效地促进神经功能恢复,改善急性脑梗死患者的临床症状,有着与常规治疗方法相同的临床疗效。     

The educational boundary1

In this contribution, the authors defi ne and discuss the educational boundary in analytic training, which they believe is an often neglected and useful concept in psychoanalytic education. The framework on which their discussion rests includes the recent attention of psychoanalysts to issues of boundaries and ethics. Their understanding of how clinical work affects the mind of the analyst educator, as well as the ways the personalities of various analysts affect their dealings with faculty peers and students, are the other cornerstones of their discussion. The authors contend that many of the institutional problems encountered in the training of analysts can be better understood when viewed through the prism of the educational boundary. They present examples which illustrate several of the ways psychoanalytic educators complicate the training experience of candidates, offer specifi c explanations as to why analysts struggle as they try to manage their educational interventions, and indicate in a discussion of potential remedies that those behaviors might be avoided if the educational boundary is in focus. They also provide an example of how the educational boundary can be more effectively managed.     

On the edge: The psychoanalyst's transference1

Countertransference is a central topic in analytic work and in the literature. The concept of countertransference includes a basic question which has been understood in different ways. The author attempts to differentiate between the psychoanalyst's transference and his countertransference in the analytic process. It is hard to draw a line between them; analysts are always on the edge. The analyst's transference will be explored and described using three approaches: narcissism, regression profile and the analyst's phase of life. Regression profile is a new concept developed by the author, which may help us to understand the core of the analyst's transference in the analytic situation. She illustrates the topic by clinical vignettes.