Hydrogen diffusion in ultrafine-grained iron with the body-centered cubic crystal structure

The role of grain boundaries in Fe on hydrogen diffusion has been investigated by electrochemical permeation tests using ultrafine-grained Fe produced by high-pressure torsion (HPT) processing. Permeation tests were also conducted on cold-rolled and water-quenched Fe to understand the trapping effect of dislocations and vacancies. Hydrogen diffusion was delayed in all these discs. However, the delay mechanism in the HPT-processed disc was different from that in rolled and water-quenched Fe. Grain boundaries do not act as trapping sites but slow the diffusion. The diffusion coefficients of hydrogen were significantly decreased by HPT processing on account of the high activation energy for hydrogen diffusion in grain boundaries.     

Psychoanalytic application and psychoanalytic integrity

In this article, the author offers an analysis of psychoanalytic application, defined as the breaking of new conceptual ground in some field of knowledge whereby the new idea is conceived, and later articulated, with the aid of reference to analogous phenomena in psychoanalysis. It requires apt analogy based on competent understanding of the applied field and of psychoanalysis. Only when the relevant differences between the applied and psychoanalytic fields are grasped can the extent of certain parallels emerge. The thinking by analogy that comprises psychoanalytic application may be intuitive and implicit, but should be susceptible of explicit theoretical elaboration that specifies, precisely, the point(s) of correspondence between psychoanalysis and the applied field in relation to a precise specification of their relevant differences. Applied psychotherapy at the interface of the internal and external worlds (historically rooted in casework) is employed as a model. By analogy with Donnet's concept of the analytic site, the author proposes the concept of the psychodynamic (case)work site, and elaborates it for that applied field in order to elucidate the proposed principles of psychoanalytic application.     

The basic traumatic situation in the analytical relationship1

The author attempts to develop a concept of psychic trauma which would comply with the nucleus of this Freudian notion, that is, an excess of excitations that cannot be processed by the mental apparatus, but which would also consider the functions and the crucial role of objects in the constitution of the psychism and in traumatic conditions, as well as taking into account the methodological positioning according to which the analytical relationship is the sole possible locus of observation, inference and intervention by the psychoanalyst. He considers as a basic or minimal traumatic psychoanalytical situation that in which a magnitude or quality of emotions exceeds the capacity for containment of the psychoanalytical pair, to the point of generating a period or area of dementalisation in the psyche of one or both of the participants, of requiring analytical work on the matter and promoting a signifi cant positive or negative change in the relationship. Availing himself of Bion's theory about the alpha function and the metapsychological conceptions of Freud and Green concerning psychic representations, he presents two theoretical formulations relating to this traumatic situation, utilising them according to the ‘altered focus’ model proposed by Bion. He presents three clinical examples to illustrate the concept and the relevant theoretical formulations.     

自我:从生物性到精神性

本文一方面从“生物性”与“精神性”两个人性层次透视自我,将自我视为一个由“生物自我”与“精神自我”组成的、以“生物自我”为基础“精神自我”为目标的对立统一体;另一方面又从“内容”与“功能”两个意识维度解析自我,将自我看成既是一个意义的存在又是一架认识的“机器”。自我便是一个由上述两个层次与维度有机组成的心理系统,这里的“有机”的涵义主要体现在,不仅生物自我与精神自我是相辅相成的辩证结构,而且这两个层次又都各自表现为内容与功能相互联系的认识主体。     

The use of dreams in the clinical context: convergencies and divergencies: an interdisciplinary proposal

This paper aims to define some unexpected convergences and foreseeable divergences regarding the conceptualization of dreams and their use as a research tool, specifically in clinical practice with non-neurotic patients. It includes a concise review of different lines of thought on the vicissitudes of dreams throughout the history of psychoanalysis: from their initial conception up to their use to examine transference and relational aspects in the context of a psychoanalytic process. The idea of the merely evacuative function of dreams from patients in certain diagnostic categories is discussed and compared with that of their potential communicative value. Lastly, the essay sets forth an interdisciplinary semiotic-pragmatic approach to the function of dreams and their clinical and technical use in the context of the intersubjective dynamic field. Based on the hypothesis that dreams related in the session are communicative signs, this proposal argues their significance as a symbolic matrix that generates processes of psychic semiosis. To do so, it combines certain lines of psychoanalytic thought with ideas coming from C. S. Peirce's analytic semiotics. Clinical material is included to illustrate this viewpoint.     

灾后儿童心理创伤及危机干预

地震后,幸存下来的儿童可能比成人心理承受的压力更大,及时地对他们进行危机干预,帮助他们进行灾后心灵的重建是非常重要的。本文就儿童心理创伤反应、危机、危机干预、展开,针对儿童较成人的特殊性提出了对儿童进行危机干预的具体措施。     

Self and Other in Communication and Cognition: The Role of Auto-Communication and Intersubjectivity in Autopoiesis of Psychic Systems

By referring to Niklas Luhmann’s theory of self-referential systems, Aldo Mascareño (2008, submitted for publication) gives an account of system-environment interrelatedness, explaining how social and individual constitute each other through the process of communication and co-creation of meanings. Two possible extensions to his account are discussed. Firstly, auto-communication within the system that happens without any external reference needs to be taken into account while describing the existence and constant re-creation of psychic systems. Secondly, in order for the system and environment or two systems to communicate, an imagined and temporary intersubjectivity between the two needs to be assumed.     

Code of Ethics of the National Society of Genetic Counselors: Explication of Revisions

The Code of Ethics (COE) of the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) was adopted in 1992. In 2004, the NSGC leadership appointed the Code of Ethics Work Group (COEWG) to consider revisions to the NSGC COE based on advice from the NSGC legal counsel, and to consider additional changes given growth in the scope of genetic counseling practice since the adoption of the original COE. After input from the NSGC membership, changes to the COE addressing the recommendations of the NSGC legal counsel were approved in December 2004. The COEWG then reviewed ethical codes and codes of professional conduct from 22 professional organizations, deemed to have similar goals and philosophies to the NSGC, searching for themes that encompassed genetic counseling practice that might not yet be addressed in the NSGC COE. Additional revisions to the COE were proposed, and after feedback from the NSGC membership, the revised COE was approved in January 2006 by majority vote of full members of the NSGC. The explications for the 2004 and 2006 revisions are presented.     

The work of the psychoanalyst in the field of psychosis1

Psychosis questions the foundations of psychoanalytic theory and challenges our ultimate convictions about psychic functioning. Using her clinical practice, the author explores the foundations of representation and underscores the central position of sensoriality in constituting a representation. Psychoanalytical work with a psychotic subject requires a certain sharing of the psychotic experience which puts the analyst in touch with raw material grasped as a fragment of sensoriality that must consequently be shaped and figured so that the subject's representational activity can resume. The author thus uses the Freudian notion of figuration to specify this ‘raw material’ and its sensory texture. She then refers to Aulagnier's pictograms as a way of thinking about sensoriality under the sign of displeasure and pain rather than pleasure. In the light of this theoretical development, the author re‐examines the opening excerpts from her clinical cases to come up with a practice of interpretation as figuration that allows jointly for the shaping of the raw material and the identifying import of this shaping.     

On boredom: A close encounter with encapsulated parts of the psyche

The psychoanalytical literature has numerous scattered references to the analyst's experience of boredom, especially amongst writers working with primitive mental states. In the present paper, the author tries to gather some of these references in an attempt to integrate the various facets of this widespread phenomenon, and reflect on some clinical issues and dilemmas it raises. It is suggested that the experience of boredom in analysis may be a reaction to an encounter with a hidden, encapsulated part of the psyche, a bidimensional area of experience in which mental activity has been suspended, and experience remains meaningless. This is a barren area of lack, an encounter with the autistic core of the psyche. However, boredom may also be an experiential expression of despair, a re-living of primitive object relations with an emotionally non-existent primary object. Through bringing the emptiness and desolation into analysis, the individual makes room for the empty, blunt, dead inner object which resides within him, and that needs to be integrated into the psyche. This inner object is a vital part of the patient's inner world, part of his history, and can neither be erased nor filled in order to eradicate the emptiness. This is illustrated by clinical material from patients along the spectrum of autism, autistic reaction following trauma and autistic barriers in neurotic patients.