The body of the analyst and the analytic setting: Reflections on the embodied setting and the symbiotic transference

In this paper the author questions whether the body of the analyst may be helpfully conceptualized as an embodied feature of the setting and suggests that this may be especially helpful for understanding patients who develop a symbiotic transference and for whom any variance in the analyst's body is felt to be profoundly destabilizing. In such cases the patient needs to relate to the body of the analyst concretely and exclusively as a setting ‘constant’ and its meaning for the patient may thus remain inaccessible to analysis for a long time. When the separateness of the body of the analyst reaches the patient's awareness because of changes in the analyst's appearance or bodily state, it then mobilizes primitive anxieties in the patient. It is only when the body of the analyst can become a dynamic variable between them (i.e. part of the process) that it can be used by the patient to further the exploration of their own mind.     

Living Independently as an Ethnic Minority Elder: A Relational Perspective on the Issues of Aging and Ethnic Minorities

This study examines the residential experiences of Korean ethnic elders in affordable housing in the greater Chicago area, focusing on how patterns of social relationships that evolved around a geographical location and its urban infrastructure enabled the elders to achieve their desire for residential independence. Based on the theoretical concept of activity settings and social capital, the study suggests an integrated theoretical model where social capital is understood as an embedded asset of an activity setting. Methodologically, this study uses a combined method of qualitative interviews with 138 Korean elders in affordable housing in the greater Chicago area and a geographic analysis of their social relationships in order to present associations among social relationships, urban infrastructures, and the shared value of independence within their residential communities. The study findings indicate that the elders mobilized ethnic businesses, urban infrastructures, and the collective efficacy of groups to achieve the shared goal of maintaining residential independence. In each community, a cultural broker acted as an important bridge between the community of ethnic minorities and the larger social networks coexisting within the community boundary. The relational perspective as a potent ground for understanding and further solving the issues of aging and ethnicity is highlighted.     

医院重点专科发展过程阶段论

讨论医院重点专科发展过程的阶段划分及特征,对于我们在重点专科建设中正确地把握方向、恰当地评估成效和有力地予以推进都有十分重大和现实的意义。本文把医院重点专科发展过程分为科室建设、学科建设、科学建设阶段,并从功能目标、效率效益、人才队伍、场地设施、技术设备、技术特色、教学培训、科学研究、文化氛围、能级水平十个方面对各阶段的特征进行归纳描述。三个阶段各具不同内涵特征,又存在相互内在关联,具有方向性、连续性、可加速性、交叉性和包涵性等规律。     

Reflections on the work of Hanna Segal (1918–2011),

This paper is based on a talk given at the conference to celebrate the Work of Hanna Segal and attempts to summarise her contribution to psychoanalysis. I suggest that in addition to being the important presenter of the work of Melanie Klein, she made major contributions to our understanding of many analytic ideas, for example, symbol formation, the usefulness of the concept of the death instinct and the relation between phantasy and reality. She was a pioneer in the analytic treatment of psychosis and sh wrote important papers on literature and aesthetics. She was a great teacher and emphasised the central role played by the analytic setting in representing the attitude of the analyst.     

The analytic setting today: using the couch or the chair?

This paper re‐visits Murray Jackson's 1961 paper in the Journal of Analytical Psychology, ‘Chair, couch and countertransference’, with the aim of exploring the role of the couch for Jungian analysts in clinical practice today. Within the Society of Analytical Psychology (SAP) and some other London‐based societies, there has been an evolution of practice from face‐to‐face sessions with the patient in the chair, as was Jung's preference, to a mode of practice where patients use the couch with the analyst sitting to the side rather than behind, as has been the tradition in psychoanalysis. Fordham was the founding member of the SAP and it was because of his liaison with psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts that this cultural shift came about. Using clinical examples, the author explores the couch/chair question in terms of her own practice and the internal setting as a structure in her mind. With reference to Bleger's (2013) paper ‘Psychoanalysis of the psychoanalytic setting’, the author discusses how the analytic setting, including use of the couch or the chair, can act as a silent container for the most primitive aspects of the patient's psyche which will only emerge in analysis when the setting changes or is breached.     

Increasing donations to supermarket food-bank bins using proximal prompts

There has been little research into interventions to increase participation in donating items to food-bank bins. In New Zealand, there has been an increased demand from food banks (Stewart, 2002). This study demonstrated that point-of-sale prompts can be an effective method of increasing donations to a supermarket food-bank bin.     

When (and When Not) to Make Exceptions: Links among Age,Precedent Setting Decisions,and Argument Evaluation

Negative precedents are set when, in the absence of mitigating conditions, social rules are not enforced by relevant authorities. This study examined the effects of normative (i.e., to enforce rules) and nonnormative arguments (i.e., to “make exceptions”) on decisions that could establish negative precedents and whether those effects differed for children and adolescents. As expected, on baseline problems, age correlated positively with decision-making performance. After receiving normative arguments, normative decisions increased and adolescents—but not preadolescents—transferred their understanding to novel problems. Nonnormative arguments led to decrements in normative decisions across ages. However, only for preadolescents did performance decrements following nonnormative arguments transfer to novel problems. Discussion focuses on the abilities to engage in “metacognitive intercession,” variability in children’s and adolescents’ decisions, and developments in the understanding of the consequences of violating the social rules.     

Beyond silence: working with Phoebe

This paper gives an account of a three-year period of silence that took place during the course of the intensive psychotherapy of a pre-adolescent girl with a diagnosis of ‘major depression’. The meaning and significance of silence in the therapeutic context is explored, as well as the importance of the ‘safety’ (Quinodoz, ‘The psychoanalytic setting as the instrument of the container function’, International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 73: 627–35, 1992) and containing function of the setting that allows patients with a similar pathology a much needed regression, eventually enabling the birth and development of mature ‘verbal’ object relationships. Challenges and changes in the countertransference during a silent period in the course of psychotherapy are also discussed.     

The relationship between employees’ experience of performance management and work engagement within a South African organisation

The study investigated the relationship between employees’ experience of performance management and work engagement. Participants were a convenience sample of employed adults (N=202; females=59%, middle management?=?48%, White?=?54%, tenure more than 9 years?=?48%) in an organisation in the vehicle and asset-based finance industry. They completed the Performance Management Questionnaire (PMQ) and Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES). Multiple regression analysis was used to determine the proportion of variance of work engagement that is explained by employees’ experience of performance management. Results revealed that only empowerment significantly predicted work engagement. These findings suggest that when employees experience performance management as empowering, they are also likely to have higher levels of work engagement.