Finding the Gift in the Horror

Summary

This brief article proposes an analysis of the risks society faces in coping with terrorism, and suggests broad outlines of a plan to increase national resilience through creating a national strategy for enhancing psychosocial security. The analysis is based on survival mode theory, which posits two survival sub-systems in human beings: the threat detection system and the human bonding and attachment system. It proposes to redefine the concept of national security policy to go beyond the traditional military aspects of defense to include establishing psychological countermeasures that define maintaining psychological safety as a key marker of the defense against terrorism.     

In defence of the Simplicity Argument

Advocates of occasional identity have two ways of interpreting putative cases of fission and fusion. One way—we call it the Creative view—takes fission to involve an object really dividing (or being replicated), thereby creating objects which would not otherwise have existed. The more ontologically parsimonious way takes fission to involve merely the ‘separation’ of objects that were identical before: strictly speaking, no object actually divides or is replicated, no new objects are created. In this paper we recommend the Creative approach as the best way of dealing with certain problem cases involving teletransportation. Our considerations yield novel takes on psychological-continuity theories of personal identity and survival, and on the puzzle of Theseus' ship.     

Psychotherapy with children in refugee families who have survived torture: Containment and understanding of repetitive behaviour and play

Children of refugee families who have survived torture often have emotional, psychosomatic and behavioural problems as well as problems with learning. In order to understand the difficulties of these children, we have to recognize the complicated interaction of cumulative traumatic strain and recurring exposure to shocking violence. The traumatic experiences of the child in the country of origin take place in the broader context of chronic danger and persecution, often to be followed in the country of exile both by recurrent family strain and social estrangement. In the transference this complicated mixture of repeated trauma and chronic strain may show as a pervasive tendency to retreat to defensive survival strategies combined with continual repetition of more specific traces of the impact of the trauma on the individual. This paper focuses on how the enacted survival strategies can be contained and understood in the transference. In due course the compulsive repetition can be given meaning as a precondition for better integration through symbolic thought and self-understanding.     

Friendship Dissolution Within Social Networks Modeled Through Multilevel Event History Analysis

A social network perspective can bring important insight into the processes that shape human behavior. Longitudinal social network data, measuring relations between individuals over time, has become increasingly common—as have the methods available to analyze such data. A friendship duration model utilizing discrete-time multilevel survival analysis with a multiple membership random effect structure is developed and applied here to study the processes leading to undirected friendship dissolution within a larger social network. While the modeling framework is introduced in terms of understanding friendship dissolution, it can be used to understand microlevel dynamics of a social network more generally. These models can be fit with standard generalized linear mixed-model software, after transforming the data to a pair-period data set. An empirical example highlights how the model can be applied to understand the processes leading to friendship dissolution between high school students, and a simulation study is used to test the use of the modeling framework under representative conditions that would be found in social network data. Advantages of the modeling framework are highlighted, and potential limitations and future directions are discussed.     

Attributions for physical activity in very old adults: predicting everyday physical activity and mortality risk

Objectives: Although physical activity is recognised as a health-promoting behaviour for older adults, notable barriers exist that may reduce physical activity in this age group. Limited research has explored causal beliefs (attributions) as a barrier to physical activity. Our study assessed associations between older adults’ attributions about physical activity and objective health outcomes. Methods: We examined the role of attributions as a predictor of everyday physical activity (EPA) and subsequent mortality risk over a 10-year period (2006–2016) in a sample of older adults (M_age?=?87, N?=?261). Results: OLS and Cox proportional hazard regression analyses revealed older adults who endorsed more internal and uncontrollable attributions for limited activity (physical incapacity) when feeling unwell had lower subsequent EPA (β?=??0.18), and higher 10-year mortality risk (HR?=?1.46). Other attributions with different dimensional properties (e.g. internal and controllable) were not associated with EPA or mortality. Discussion: Findings suggest that causal beliefs older adults have about their physical activity can influence their future behaviour and longevity. Psychological treatments designed to discourage maladaptive attributional thinking for older populations who face barriers to physical activity may be an important avenue for future research.     

LOVE AS SACRIFICE,LOVE AS MUTUALITY: RESPONSE TO JEFFREY TILLMAN

Jeffrey Tillman is perceptive in noticing that certain Protestant theologians have used evolutionary theory to become more sympathetic to Roman Catholic views of Christian love. But he is incorrect in saying that these formulations deemphasize a place for self‐sacrifice in Christian love. Christian love defined as a strenuous equal‐regard for both other and self also requires sacrificial efforts to restore love as equal‐regard when finitude and sin undermine genuine mutuality and community.     

生存加工：一种独特而强大的记忆编码程序

记忆是进化的产物。生存是人类面临的首要问题, 在进化过程中生存压力可能塑造了记忆的有关特征。生存加工比控制条件使信息有更好的记忆表现, 产生稳定的记忆优势, 这就是所谓的记忆生存优势效应。而传统的编码程序, 如图式加工、关系加工、一致性、精细加工、努力程度、情绪激活、熟悉度、新异性及自我参照等, 均不能解释生存优势。因此, 生存加工很可能是一种新的独特而强大的记忆编码程序。最后文章指出未来研究应重视生存加工的神经机制、跨文化、儿童群体及错误记忆等方面的研究。     

Life within death: Towards a metapsychology of catastrophic psychic trauma

In this paper the author offers a phenomenology and a metapsychology for the effects on the mind of catastrophic psychic trauma, defined as the reaction of the psyche to an utterly external event, which the person is helpless to resist, and against which there is no possible defense. The author affirms that the experience of 'infinite affliction' produces a radical break in being which disarticulates the psyche and causes a headlong descent to the most primitive levels of psychic functioning. When there is a complete surrender to the process of disarticulation, it continues until it extinguishes even the most basic level of mental activity, contact with sensation, producing psychic and then psychogenic death. The author then offers a phenomenological and metapsychological analysis of how the process of disarticulation is stopped so that the state of survival is assured, affirming that, faced with this situation of utter emergency, the survival urge instantly mobilizes the organism in furious activity to preserve life and regenerates psychic activity by sensing the ongoing existence of the psychesoma. Then anguish precipitates on to the body and is sensed as psychophysical pain, which diverts conscious attention from the infinite destruction of utter affliction which is thus encapsulated so that, as an experience, it is no longer present to the mind. This assures survival, but it leaves the psyche in a state of non-integration and begins the unending battle for mastery over the deadly inner object which ceaselessly threatens to become present. This constitutes the precariousness of the state of survival.     

Nonadherence in Adolescent Oncology Patients: Preliminary Data on Psychological Risk Factors and Relationships to Outcome

Published nonadherence rates in the adolescent oncology population range from 33 to 60% though little is known about the psychological factors that contribute to adherence and the relationship between outcome and nonadherence. Our study was designed to investigate psychological and family factors related to adherence and the relationship between adherence and survival in this population. We evaluated 44 (27 males, 17 females) patients with cancer (13–17 years) who were at least 6-months postdiagnosis. Adherence with trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (TMP/SMX) was determined at one point in time, using serum assay. Twelve of the patients (27%) had no detectable TMP/SMX. Patients without detectable drug had higher levels of depression, lower self-esteem, and higher levels of parent–child incongruence. Survival rates, 6 years after the initiation of the study, were lower in the group of participants categorized as nonadherent. These findings, if confirmed, have implications for the management of nonadherence and mood in this population.     

LEISURE-DANCE INSTRUCTION FOR SEVERELY AND PROFOUNDLY RETARDED PERSONS: TEACHING AN INTERMEDIATE COMMUNITY-LIVING SKILL

We evaluated an approach for teaching an intermediate community living skill via a leisure-dance activity to institutionalized severely and profoundly retarded persons. The targeted skill was considered as intermediate in contrast to a community living skill per se because it was based on successful performances of higher functioning, noninstitutionalized retarded persons as opposed to nonhandicapped individuals. Definitions for appropriate dancing were established and then validated through observations of the performance of retarded persons living in the local community. The dance skills were then taught to four participants through serial training in leg movements, arm movements, and coordinated leg and arm movements, plus follow-up trainer supervision. Generalization was also programmed by way of multiple trainers and training settings. Results during structured assessments showed that all four residents acquired the dance skills and that both serial training and follow-up supervision were necessary for skill acquisition. Generalized increases in appropriate dancing at dances attended by the participants and retarded persons from the community were also demonstrated. However, in most cases some active supervision by caregivers was needed to enhance the generalized improvements. Results are discussed in terms of the applicability of this approach for validating goals when training other community-related skills to low-functioning populations.