Measuring sport fantasy proneness and deflated reality in sport and performance: Development and validation of two context-specific instruments

Fantasy-prone personalities and generalized states of pessimism and hopelessness have been linked to various behavioural, cognitive, and health related outcomes in the general population. Nevertheless, to date, knowledge of sport-specific fantasy proneness and athletes’ perception of deflated reality in sport is scarce, possibly due to a lack of appropriate psychometric instruments to examine these two important context-specific constructs. In this research, we developed the Sport Fantasy Proneness Scale (SFPS) and the Deflated Reality in Sport Scale (DRSS), first assessing the content validity of items for the instruments following a rigorous process. Through two cross-sectional samples (Study 1: Sample 1 N = 255, Sample 2 N = 260) and one longitudinal sample (Study 2: Sample 3 N = 118) of competitive athletes in the UK, we then examined factorial, convergent, discriminant, and concurrent validity and measurement invariance (Study 1), as well as internal consistency, and test-retest reliability (Study 2) of the two new scales. Results revealed robust construct validity and reliability of scores on the two instruments and suggested very good invariance when implementing the new scales to athletes from different sports and competitive levels and good invariance for cross-gender comparisons. The new scales fill a gap in the sport psychology literature and provide researchers and practitioners with robust psychometric instruments to examine new research questions and tackle issues relevant to athletes’ sport-specific fantasy proneness and perceptions of deflated reality.     

Mainstream body‐character breach films and subjectivization

The authors analyze a unique cinematic corpus – ‘body‐character breach films’ (one character, initially played by a certain actor, occupies the body of another character) – demonstrating Lacan's notion of traversing the fantasy, both on the level of the films’ diegesis and that of spectatorship. Breaching the alliance between actors and their characters perturbs the viewer's fantasy of wholeness enabled by this very alliance. Consequently, a change in subject/spectatorial position in relation to the lack in the Other is induced, enhanced through the visualization of various scenarios of unconscious fantasies (mostly incest). These are meant to unsettle the spectator into an awareness of how a conscious fantasy conceals another unconscious fundamental fantasy, thereby encouraging a change in spectatorial position (from ‘perverse’/fetishistic to ‘neurotic’). Conflating this change with Lacan's notion of traversing the fantasy, the authors contend that mainstream cinema has the capacity to induce a process of subjectivization (assuming responsibility for one's own desire). This process is contingent on four conditions: identification with the protagonist's fantasy to conceal the lack in the Other; dissolution of this fantasy, initiated by the body‐character breach; rhetorical strategies (the coding of unconscious scenarios cinematically); and an ethical dimension (encouraging the subject/spectator to follow her/his desire).     

REVISITING DESTRUCTION IN “THE USE OF AN OBJECT”

“The Use of an Object” (1969a) has been widely recognized as among Winnicott's great papers and has deservedly received a good deal of attention. Much of that attention has focused on the importance that the paper gives to the role of destruction in bringing about the experience of externality. Yet the nature of that destruction has too often been assumed based on Winnicott's earlier writings. In the view that follows from that, destruction is equated with the aggression that fails to destroy the object, and the experience of externality is regarded just as the result of that failure. In offering a rereading of “The Use of an Object,” the author suggests that, while this aspect of aggression/destruction indeed plays an important role in the establishment of externality, it is only part of the story, and that the central contribution of “The Use of an Object” is Winnicott's attempt to offer a new theory of primitive destruction, one that provides an impulsive basis for separation/externality itself. This theory and Winnicott's ongoing attempts to develop it after “The Use of an Object” led him to rethink the very nature of the drives.     

Maladaptive daydreaming: Evidence for an under-researched mental health disorder

This study explores the recently described phenomenon of Maladaptive Daydreaming (MD) and attempts to enhance the understanding of its features. It documents the experiences of 340 self-identified maladaptive daydreamers who spend excessive amounts of time engaged in mental fantasy worlds, in comparison to 107 controls. Our sample included a total of 447 individuals, aged 13–78, from 45 countries who responded to online announcements. Participants answered quantitative and qualitative questions about their daydreaming habits and completed seven questionnaires assessing mental health symptoms. Findings demonstrated that MD differs significantly from normative daydreaming in terms of quantity, content, experience, controllability, distress, and interference with life functioning. Results also demonstrated that Maladaptive Daydreamers endorsed significantly higher rates of attention deficit, obsessive compulsive and dissociation symptoms than controls. In sum, findings suggested that MD represents an under-acknowledged clinical phenomenon that causes distress, hinders life functioning and requires more scientific and clinical attention.     

An entire life in one glance: a psychoanalytic reading of Revolutionary Road

This article, starting from an analysis of the film Revolutionary Road (2009; director, Sam Mendes), addresses the topic of conflictuality in relationships between couples, especially in those characterized by intense violence and a relational configuration of the sadomasochistic type. In particular, the film – in highlighting sequential moments in the couple’s life, from its formation through to its tragic conclusion – seems to strengthen the hypothesis that the specific quality of falling in love is a contributing factor in determining the dramatic unfolding of a couple’s relationship. The relationship is characterized by an experience of intense, erotic sensoriality, and by the nature of the unconscious fantasy underlying the bond between the couple that began with the moment of falling in love, a bond in which deep needs for fusion predominate. The presence of this neediness impedes a more adequate working through of the conflicts and the transition to more satisfying ways of relating.     

The screen memory and the act of remembering

Screen memories, seen by Freud, Greenacre and other analysts of a past generation as a key source of data for the reconstruction of psychic and historical reality, have been relatively neglected in contemporary analysis. A fresh look shows that these durable, constant memories have a dual relation to childhood experience: they memorialize both a specific organization of trauma, wish and defense, and a private childhood act of remembering. Close attention to the screen memory itself and the context in which it appears indicates that both aspects of screen memory have meaning for the individual and are represented in fantasy. Both currents of meaning can be seen in a literary screen memory and in the clinical situation, where both play out in transference and countertransference.     

老年患者主动脉瓣置换术后不匹配对患者远期生存影响的研究

研究老年患者主动脉瓣置换术（AVR）后生存情况,评估人工瓣膜-患者不匹配（PPM）对患者远期生存率的影响.回顾性分析了自2000年7月～2005年7月的100例65岁以上实施单纯性AVR或同时行冠状动脉旁路移植术患者的资料.临床随访时间定于术后1个月、6个月、1年、3年、5年、7年及以上,收集并分析主动脉瓣位平均跨瓣压差（MGP）、左室射血分数（LVEF）、实际生存率等数据,比较患者的远期生存情况.患者术后30天病死率两组间差异有统计学意义.长期生存率自第7年开始在两组间表现出显著差异,组内差异表现在重度不匹配组.老年患者AVR术后PPM与术后早期病死率密切相关,重度PPM似乎影响远期生存率.     

Learning to say goodbye. An essay on Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass Volume 3 of His Dark Materials

This paper discusses the third volume of Pullman's remarkable trilogy. The two main child characters, Lyra and Will, are now entering adolescence, and the novel explores their intense and ambivalent feelings towards the parents and the variously protective or hostile parental figures who surround them. The novel devises remarkable imaginary worlds – for example the land of the mulefa, and the underworld visited by Will and Lyra – through which to explore issues of considerable intellectual and emotional depth. The ‘realism’ to which Pullman is committed is apparent in the conclusion of the book, where the two child characters, who have fallen in love with one another, have to accept the necessity of separation.