Ferenczi's “Confusion of Tongues” Theory and the Analysis of the Incest Trauma

Abstract

The tender-mother transference of Ferenczi's humanistic analytic orientation was as important an advance in pioneering times as was Kohut's selfobject transference in contemporary psychoanalysis. Ferenczi's clinical theory and method began a focus on pre-oedipal experiences, which eventually became an alternate to the oedipal theory. Freud was critical of Ferenczi's formulation, leading a successful attempt to suppress his work and remove it from mainstream psychoanalysis because he believed it was “regressive.” In actuality, Ferenczi's “Confusion of Tongues” theory and “Relaxation Therapy” were prophetic and pioneering attempts to understand and treat the incest trauma (ironically the clinical data upon which Freud founded psychoanalysis 100 years ago). In the case of Miss T., Ferenczi's ideas are applied to the contemporary analysis of the incest trauma.     

The Constructive Use of Power and the Philosophy of the Self in the Training of Family Therapists

Abstract

This article presents findings from an exploratory qualitative study, which used individual interviews and a focus group to investigate how women in Black-White interracial heterosexual partner relationships retrospectively described their racial identity development and the influence of gender identity development on this process. Social consrructionist, feminist, and racial identity development theories guided the grounded theory methodology. Participants described both constraining and empowering racial identities. Salient constraining racial identities were being a “sell-out” or “traitor,” being a “rule-breaker,” having a masked reference group orientation, needing to prove reference group orientation, and having minority family status. Empowering racial identities included refusing to take sides, being “not racial,” being neutral, identifying by respect rather than by race, having a multiple reference group orientation, being strong, and being an educator and mediator.

Gender identity themes of strength and resiliency emerged as significant influences in racial identity development. Suggested questions for use within a narrative therapy context provide a clinical application of findings from the study.     

The Intertwinement of Propositional and Doxastic Justification

One important distinction in the debate over the nature of epistemic justification is the one between propositional and doxastic justification. Roughly, while doxastic justification is a property of beliefs, propositional justification is a property of propositions. On a rather common view, which accounts for doxastic justification in terms of propositional justification plus the so-called ‘basing relation’, propositional justification is seen as the prior notion, and doxastic justification is explained in terms of it. According to the opposing view, the direction of explanation needs to be reversed, and doxastic justification should be seen as primary. I distinguish between two notions of priority, and I argue that they give different verdicts with respect to the issue of which notion of justification comes first. The lesson may be taken to be that propositional and doxastic justification are in a relation of intertwinement.     

Dialectics and practical wisdom

Dialectics is essentially the method or logos in which categories of forms are combined to explain things. Dialectics was developed because reason faces difficulties in grasping the sensible world. Practical wisdom is knowledge about some things or certain person or persons because of its variable objects. But it is not entirely specific or only about a particular thing and without universality in any sense. As one kind of dialectics, it combines various elements to accord with the right logos, similar to the way in which various forms are combined in theory. Therefore practical wisdom as a combination or polymerization of elements can be regarded as another kind of logic, namely practical logic or dialectics. __________ Translated from Zhexue Dongtai 哲学动态 (Philosophical Trends), 2005 (4) by Xie Yongkang     

汉代象数易学的理论价值与历史地位

易学发展史上的汉代象数易学,就其理论形态、思维方式、思想特征而言,具有鲜明、典型的时代性与范导性.作为汉代经学核心的有机组成部分的汉代象数易学,对汉代哲学与文化、社会与政治等方面,都产生了广泛与深远的影响.然而,长期以来,人们对汉代象数易学在易学与哲学史上的理论价值与历史地位的认识,或者未能引起足够的重视,或者缺乏客观公允的评判.本文从"立足《周易》象数系统,确立天人之学新形态"、"深化儒家社会政治思想,强化政治指导功能"、"深化整体性和谐理念,凸显和谐价值理想终极诉求"等方面,深入地分析并揭示了汉代象数易学的理论价值与历史地位.     

大力促进心理学的理论研究

虽然心理学作为一门独立的学科已有100多年的历史,但是心理学一直缺乏带有“范式”特点的心理学理论。这导致了心理学的破碎和分裂。探讨心理学的“元”理论,大力促进心理学的理论研究,是心理学发展的当务之急。     

Conditional discrimination and equivalence relations: A theoretical analysis of control by negative stimuli

A detailed analysis is presented of the ways in which control by the negative stimulus in two-comparison conditional discriminations may be expected to affect the outcome of tests for the properties of equivalence relations. Control by the negative stimulus should produce the following results: (a) no observable effect on symmetry tests; (b) reflexivity test results should look like “oddity” rather than “identity”; and (c) transitivity tests that involve an odd number of nodes should yield results that are 100% opposite to tests that involve an even number of nodes. The analysis also considers the effects of variation in the type of comparison-stimulus control between and within baseline conditional discriminations. Methods are suggested for experimentally regulating the type of control, and for verifying the predictions that the analysis generates. If suggested experiments continue to support the analysis, investigators who use two-comparison conditional discriminations to study equivalence relations will either have to control explicitly whether the positive or the negative comparison governs their subjects' choices, or they will have to abandon two comparisons and use three or more comparisons instead.     

Cognitive Acrobatics in the Construction of Worker–mother Identity

This study uses dialectical theory to explore the interaction of worker identity (perceived financial need and job/career identity) and intensive mothering expectations in mothers’ identity construction. This study is based on extensive interviews with 98 at-home, part-time employed and full-time employed mothers of one or more pre-school children from the Midwestern United States. The narrative analysis reveals that mothers embrace intensive mothering expectations. Because of these cultural expectations, mothers must modify either societal mothering expectations or worker expectations in order to construct an integrated worker–mother identity. We found that while at-home mothers can embrace intensive mothering expectations, employed mothers engage in cognitive acrobatics to manage the tension between employment and the dominant mothering ideology. Deirdre D. Johnston is Professor of Communication and Debra H. Swanson is Professor of Sociology at Hope College. This research was funded by grants from Hope College Frost Center for Social Science Research and the Ruth M. Peale faculty development fund.     

哲学的教化与教化的哲学——论儒学精神的根本特质

Edification 教化 is one of the central concepts of Confucianism. The metaphysical basis of the Confucian edification is the “philosophical theory” in the sense of rational humanism rather than the “religious doctrine” in the sense of pure faith. Confucianism did not create a system of ceremony and propriety owned by Confucians only. The system of ceremony and propriety on which Confucians depend to carry out their social edification is that of “rites and music,” the common life style of ancient China. After continual metaphysical explanation and elevation, the system of ceremony and propriety and that of rites and music have undergone a sort of ever-evolving historical fluctuation, and evinced a sort of openness and forgiveness comparable to that of any other religious form. Compared with typical religious practices, whose ceremonies and rituals that have their own special fixity and exclusivity, Confucian ceremonies and rituals are fundamentally different. The edification of Confucianism can be labeled as “edification in the sense of philosophy.” As a “philosophy”, Confucianism’s vision did not focus on cognition but on completion and realization. Translated by Lei Yongqiang from Tianjin Shehui Kexue 天津社会科学 (Tianjin Social Sciences), 2005, (6): 19–26     

形式显示的现象学--海德格尔早期弗莱堡讲座研究

本文讨论海德格尔早期弗莱堡讲座中的现象学。作者从题域和方法两个角度上探讨海德格尔这个时期的形式显示现象学。就题域来说,海德格尔试图突破胡塞尔现象学的“知识”或“理论”局限,深入到“前理论的”层面,即所谓前理论的“原始东西”;就方法来说,海德格尔沉思和实践了他所谓的“形式显示”的思路和言路,以此力求与传统哲学的形式化思想方法划界。作者认为,“形式显示”的现象学方法乃是海德格尔在《存在与时间》之前的现象学哲思的最富特色和创意的成分;而由于这种方法上的探索也影响到后期海德格尔的思想道路,因此一般而言,它也标志着海德格尔全部思想的现象学特质。