Sensory empathy and enactment1

The authors propose the concept of sensory empathy which emerges through contact between analyst and patient as they get in touch with an area concerning the primary bond. This area is not so much based on thoughts and fantasies as it is on physical sensations. Sensory empathy has to do with that instrument described by Freud as pertaining to the unconscious of any human, which enables one person to interpret unconscious communications of another person. The authors link this concept to that of enactment precisely because the latter concerns unconscious, early elements that fi nd in the act a fi rst meaningful expression. It involves both analyst and patient. In other words, the authors wish to emphasize the importance of the analytical process maintaining contact with that immense fi eld of human interaction that can be defi ned as primary sensory area and which becomes intertwined with the evolution of affects. Clinical examples are provided to clarify these hypotheses.     

The debate on the yan-yi relation in Chinese philosophy: Reconstruction and comments

The debate on the yan-yi relation was carried out by Chinese philosophers collectively, and the principles and methods in the debate still belong to a living tradition of Chinese philosophy. From Yijing (Book of Changes), Lunyu (Analects), Laozi and Zhuangzi to Wang Bi, “yi” which cannot be expressed fully by yan (language), is not only “idea” or “meaning” in the human mind, but is also some kind of ontological existence, which is beyond yan and emblematic symbols, and unspeakable. Thus, the debate on the yan-yi relation refers firstly to metaphysics, secondly to moral philosophy, and then to epistemology and philosophy of language. Guided by this view, this paper recalls the source of the debate on the yan-yi relation to Yijing and Lunyu, distinguishes four meanings of “yi” in Chinese philosophy, and reconstructs three arguments. These arguments are the “yan cannot express yi fully” argument, “forget yan once you get yi” argument, and “yan can express yi fully” argument. Finally, this paper exposes and comments on those principles, methods and the general tendency shown in the debate from the following five aspects: starting point, value-preference, methodology, texts (papers and books), and influences. __________ Translated from Jianghai Xuekan 江海学刊 (Jianghai Academic Studies), 2005 (3)     

Mental health and mediumship: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

There is a lack of research examining the mental health of practicing mediums, yet the nature of mediumship work inherently presents a number of challenges to the mental health of practitioners. In this study, we aimed to gain an understanding of how mediums experience their mental health in relation to their mediumistic practice and how they recognise and respond to psychological difficulties experienced by their clients. Fourteen mediums from the North West of England took part in one-to-one interviews, which were transcribed and subject to interpretative phenomenological analysis. Four themes were identified: from past traumas to mediumistic identity; spirit makes sense, mental illness is chaos; being resilient but vulnerable; and ethical mediumistic practice. The research highlights the value of not dismissing or attempting to change appraisals of valued aspects of mediums’ anomalous experiences. However, the findings do indicate that support for exposure to clients’ difficulties might be helpful.     

Mind,Consciousness, and Free Will

This commentary discusses how philosophy and science can collaborate to understand the human mind, considering dialogues involving three philosophers and three cognitive scientists. Their topics include the relation of philosophy and science, the nature of mind, the problem of consciousness, and the existence of free will. I argue that philosophy is more general and normative than science, but they are interdependent. Philosophy can build on the cognitive sciences to develop a theory of mind I call “multilevel materialism,” which integrates molecular, neural, mental, and social mechanisms. Consciousness is increasingly being understood as resulting from neural mechanisms. Scientific advances make the traditional concept of free will implausible, but “freeish” will is consistent with new theories of decision making and action resulting from brain processes. Philosophers should work closely with scientists to address profound problems about knowledge, reality, and values.     

Trauma,resilience and healthy and unhealthy forms of dissociation

This paper outlines the difference between healthy and unhealthy forms of dissociation following, and in response to, traumatic experience, in particular the experience of refugees, calling on 30 years’ experience in working with refugees in voluntary and public sectors, including 20 years at the Refugee Therapy Centre, London. It differentiates dissociation from repression, and looks at some of the specific traumatic experiences associated with refugees’ displacement and situation, particularly relating to loss. Four key characteristics of resilience are described: ‘psychic space’, ‘sense of self’, and the use of a ‘listening other’ and ‘healthy dissociation/resiliency’. Two vignettes are given to illustrate the difference between healthy and unhealthy dissociation.     

A Transpersonal Way of Relating to Clients

This theoretical paper argues that there are only three ways of relating to clients in therapy: the instrumental, the authentic, and the transpersonal. The transpersonal approach is explained by means of examples, and also by reference to the work of Ken Wilber. As with other approaches to therapy, the transpersonal way requires a form of Being (the state of consciousness necessary), a way of Doing (the actual techniques and methods used), and a form of Knowing (the theory of what is being done). All three of these are explained, and particular attention paid to the question of intuition.     

Testimonies in the Treatment of Genocidal Trauma

This article describes an approach to the treatment of genocide survivors that addresses both the personal and communal/historical dimensions of their experiences. I begin by outlining the characteristics of massive psychic trauma as background for using video testimonies in the treatment of Holocaust survivors. I then discuss videotaped interviews with perpetrators as an illustrative contrast to survivors' testimonies. The third section explains my position as a psychoanalyst encountering historical trauma and its relationship to my own experiences as a survivor. Following a brief history of videotaping as a medium for recording testimonies, I conclude by demonstrating the ways in which active listening can lead to the revelation of new dimensions of historical as well as personal truth.     

Theatres of the psyche

Fragments of the analytic voyage of a forty year old patient, haunted by the idea of her death since infancy when confronted with the anguish that accompanies the discovery of a potentially death dealing illness. In three years of intensive analytic work, her way of functioning psychically changed dramatically (her flight from imaginative life, total disaffectation of her emotional life, psychic deafness regarding her body and its messages ≡). These discoveries led to my analysand's resuming her psychoanalytic voyage in these words: 'Even if I am destined to die of this cancer, at least I shall have lived'.     

Kant on the original synthesis of understanding and sensibility

In this paper, I propose a novel interpretation of the role of the understanding in generating the unity of space and time. On the account I propose, we must distinguish between the unity that belongs to determinate spaces and times – which is a result of category-guided synthesis and which is Kant’s primary focus in §26 of the B-Deduction, including the famous B160–1n – and the unity that belongs to space and time themselves as all-encompassing structures. Non-conceptualist readers of Kant have argued that this latter unity cannot be the product of categorial synthesis. While they are correct that this unity is not the product of any particular act of category-guided synthesis, I argue that conceptualists are right to nevertheless attribute this unity to the understanding. I argue that it is a result of what we can think of as the ‘original’ synthesis of understanding and sensibility themselves – it is a synthesis, moreover, in which the whole is logically prior to the parts.