Repression and splitting in the psychoanalytic process

The authors examine the concepts of repression and splitting and their interplay during the psychoanalytic process. Initially, repression was introduced by the clinical phenomenon of resistance, leading to the formulation of the association between intrapsychic conflicts and neurotic symptoms. Later, repression was linked to normal development and to personality organization. Splitting, on the other hand, has been defined in quite diverse ways. The two main definitions are of splitting within the ego, and splitting of representations of the self, and of internal and external objects. Repression and splitting are compared developmentally, dynamically, and with respect to their relationship to psychic functioning and energic conditions. Clinical material is presented from the analysis of a patient who presented with borderline personality organization and narcissistic features. During the initial phase of analysis, splitting associated with projection, projective identification and idealization were the main defence mechanisms. As the analysis progressed and the themes of omnipotence and mourning were explored with the simultaneous working through of drive derivatives expressed in the transference, repression gained ground over the more primitive defence mechanisms. The evolution of the case showed a gradual shift from splitting to repression and the association of repression with a more advanced psychic organization. This development reflected the dynamic movement from borderline to hysterical organization in psychoanalytic nosology.     

Impact Challenges in Community Science-with-Practice: Lessons from PROSPER on Transformative Practitioner-Scientist Partnerships and Prevention Infrastructure Development

At present, evidence-based programs (EBPs) to reduce youth violence are failing to translate into widespread community practice, despite their potential for impact on this pervasive public health problem. In this paper we address two types of challenges in the achievement of such impact, drawing upon lessons from the implementation of a partnership model called PROSPER. First, we address five key challenges in the achievement of community-level impact through effective community planning and action: readiness and mobilization of community teams; maintaining EBP implementation quality; sustaining community teams and EBPs; demonstrating community-level impact; and continuous, proactive technical assistance. Second, we consider grand challenges in the large-scale translation of EBPs: (1) building, linking and expanding existing infrastructures to support effective EBP delivery systems, and (2) organizing networks of practitioner-scientist partnerships-networks designed to integrate diffusion of EBPs with research that examines effective strategies to do so. The PROSPER partnership model is an evidence-based delivery system for community-based prevention and has evolved through two decades of NIH-funded research, assisted by land grant universities' Cooperative Extension Systems. Findings and lessons of relevance to each of the challenges are summarized. In this context, we outline how practitioner-scientist partnerships can serve to transform EBP delivery systems, particularly in conjunction with supportive federal policy.     

Gender characteristics of cerebral hemodynamics during complex cognitive functioning

Functional Transcranial Doppler sonography (fTCD) has been applied to assess peak mean cerebral blood flow velocity (MFV) with a high temporal resolution during cognitive activation. Yet, little attention has been devoted to gender-related alterations of MFV, including spectral analysis. In healthy subjects, fTCD was used to investigate a series of cerebral hemodynamic parameters in the middle cerebral arteries (MCA) during the Trail Making Tests (TMT), a means of selective attention and complex cognitive functioning. In females, there was a frequency peak at 0.375 Hz in both MCA, and we observed a dynamic shift in hemispheric dominance during that condition. Further, after the start phase, there was an MFV decline during complex functioning for the entire sample. These novel results suggest condition-specific features of cerebral hemodynamics in females, and it adds to the notion that gender is a fundamental confounder of brain physiology.     

BECOMING BELIEVERS: STUDYING THE CONVERSION PROCESS FROM WITHIN

Abstract Employing an extended case method ethnography ( Burawoy 1998 ), the researcher joined five new members forming a spiritualist's group under the leadership of an experienced advocate. Over a period of eighteen months, the researcher attended all the group's activities and events. Data were collected to reflexively interrogate the process theory of conversion proposed by Lewis Rambo (1993) . The data revealed conversion to be a multifaceted and dynamic process of cognitive change, mediated by structural, and contextual forces. The results provide a reconceptualization of Rambo's theory, presenting a theoretical expansion of the model emphasizing its mechanisms of action. The paper details the composition of the “Interaction‐Commitment” mechanism, operationalized within four submechanisms emanating from Rambo's roles, rituals, rhetoric, and relationships. This longitudinal study shows that most of the hard work toward conversion occurs before any formal interaction with a conversion advocate. Conversion operates most effectively under conditions of cognitive economy wherein the belief path follows a path of least cognitive expenditure.     

A MOTHER'S LOVE: GENDER,ALTRUISM, AND SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION

This article explores the concepts of altruism, spiritual connection, and shamanic healing as practiced by female curanderas in northern Peru. It suggests how coessence rather than transcendence is at the heart of the shamanic journey that both healers and patients embark upon in order to transform suffering. Using ethnographic and case‐study research, it describes how the metaphors of maternal care, shared suffering, and compassionate love are used by female healers in this region to shape their patients’understandings of illness and health as well as to construct their own understandings of the shaman's role in their healing process. The healers studied adopt attitudes of acceptance, empathy, spiritual connection, and altruism as integral to their work and encourage their patients to do the same in order to regain a sense of mastery over their own suffering. Parallels are presented between the model of spiritual connection and healing described here and that described by both scholars of feminist theology and feminist spirituality such as Rosemary Radford Ruether and popular lecturers/authors such as Marianne Williamson.     

具身认知的“七宗罪”

近二十年来,具身认知已逐渐成为认知科学研究的主流趋势,其理论主张已经辐射到心理学、哲学、语言学、计算机科学等许多领域,研究成果运用范围逐渐扩大。诚然,具身认知在某种程度上弥补了“离身”认知的不足,但其在方法论和认识论方面的问题也日益突显,如循环论证,解释不充分,完全的二元对立,文化、社会、语言因素的忽视等。因此,当务之急是改进研究方法,摒弃先入之见,使其真正成为多角度、全方位、综合性研究。     

Spirituality and transformation in a community-based group in the Bahamas

Understanding the specific contexts where spirituality may or may not be helpful has been identified as a priority in spirituality and health research. The study aims were to clarify the helpfulness of spirituality and the interrelationships among transformation, spirituality, and forgiveness in this community-based group offered in a societal context of violence. Sixteen group participants from the Bahamas were selected and interviewed. Nine participants were female (56%); 75% identified as Black and 25% identified as White/Caucasian. NVivo 11 software was used. Transformation and spirituality themes were prevalent: themes related to prayer, group connection, and compassion were prominent. Selected spirituality themes were proximal to transformation themes, particularly forgiving others. The group process themes were closely linked to transformation themes. Participants noted that modelling by the group provided support for them to forgive and change. These findings may inform future efforts to intervene in communities experiencing violence and societal fragmentation.     

Role as Norm,Role and Norm: Homer’s Hero,Hesiod’s Just City,and Plato’s Kallipolis

Role as Norm, Role and Norm: Homer’s Hero, Hesiod’s Just City, and Plato’s Kallipolis     

Pan‐African Women's Voices across Borders

This article is structured from the epistemological vantage point of framing theological education within the context of Pan‐African women's experiences of migration, where theological education is defined in the widest sense of creating knowledge, ethos, and practices from within different versions of Christian tradition, as opposed to transmitting a static corpus of knowledge. It begins by examining the deconstructive potential of Pan‐African female migrants, particularly with regard to gendered patterns and projections of theological education. It then describes and analyzes the impact of Pan‐African female migrants on the project of contextual theological education as an act of birthing and bringing to life the dimensions of seeing and interpreting the one life‐giving story through the lenses of the lamenting, celebrating, and transforming stories of many. The article concludes by presenting Pan‐African female migration as an opportunity to revisit theological education as a creative, ecumenical, and intercultural enterprise, seeing the empirical location of Pan‐African female migrants as a paradigmatic lens for revisiting theological education as intercultural enterprise, and not (exclusively) as a contextual – and hence exceptional – historic experience.