Risk-Taking and Risk-Avoiding Behavior: The Impact of Some Dispositional and Situational Variables

The purpose of this research was to assess the ability of a decision making model to correctly predict subjects' preferences for one of two alternatives; one alternative was highly valued but risky, whereas the other was less valuable but more certain. The model was based on the assumption that an additive relationship exists among self-efficacy, self-worth, and parental expectations in influencing subjects' propensity to take risks. The results suggested that the model did not work as expected. Rather, self-efficacy emerged as the principle variable influencing the risk-taking and risk-avoiding decision-making behaviors of subjects when a variety of resources were involved.     

Discrimination of Visual Patterns Protracted in Time: A Preliminary Report on the VS Test

The present study, consisting of two experiments, was designed to examine the effects of list length and display time on the short-term retention of paired-associate material. In Experiment I, with 90 Ss, a three-by-three-by-five mixed analysis-of-variance design was used with three levels of list length (five, seven, and nine city-temperature pairs), three levels of display time (15, 30, and 60 seconds), and five trials per S. In Experiment II, with 20 Ss, four of the nine conditions involved in Experiment I were tested each week for 10 weeks, with 20 trials per week. The overall results indicate significant effects on storage-and-retrieval capacity as a function of list length, display time, and extended periods of practice.     

The uses of humor in life,neurosis and in psychotherapy: Part 1

Abstract

Joy and sadness, the comic and the tragic, making jokes and telling jokes, have been known in life, literature, the theater, and art since the dawn of civilization. Following in the footsteps of classical antiquity, Freud added to the philosophical analysis of humor the insights offered by the psychoanalytic method. The bridge was the cathartic method of treating neuroses, where discharge of affect was one of the foundations of technique, and the cathartic, or discharge, function of humor. Freud's analysis of humor, that “A joke … is the most social of all mental functions that aim at a yield of pleasure” introduces Freud's first explicit formulation of an interpersonal approach to the human situation in health and disorder.     

Principles of coparticipant inquiry: An introductory outline and implications for therapeutic action

Abstract

Historically, two paradigms have been dominant in clinical psychoanalysis: the classical paradigm, which views the impersonal analyst as objective mirror, and the interpersonal/relational model, which views the analyst as intersubjective participant-observer. An evolutionary shift in psychoanalytic consciousness has, however, been quietly taking place, giving rise to coparticipant inquiry, a third paradigm that integrates the individualistic emphasis of classical theory and the social focus of participant-observation, avoiding the reductionism of each. This new perspective, which is rooted in the radical teachings and clinical experiments of Sandor Ferenczi, represents a significant shift in analytic theory and has major clinical implications. This essay articulates the seven guiding principles of coparticipant inquiry and reviews its contribution to the psychoanalytic theory of therapeutic action. The curative process of reconstructive new experience in the analytic situation, referred to as the “living through” process, is seen to subtend curative change, for both patient and analyst. The inherent mutuality and bi-directionality of this beneficial “living through” process is examined in both its direct and its dialectic coparticipatory aspects.     

The problem of real trauma and the future of psychoanalysis

Abstract

Contemporary psychoanalysis emphasizes the role of “real” trauma, as it is well shown by recent sociological and theoretical developments (such as Kohut's Self psychology, object relation theory, renewed interest in Ferenczi's and Sullivan's contributions, etc.). To understand more clearly these developments, the author traces again the steps laid down by Freud in building the psychoanalytic edifice. The renewed interest in the environment, in real traumas, and in the vicissitudes of object relations could be a “paradigm change” in psychoanalysis: a return to Freud's original seduction theory. This development is seen as related to the difficulties of Freud's drive theory.     

Sandor Ferenczi: A Life Lived Dyadically

The life and theory of Sandor Ferenczi provide insight into both the historic admonition and the dangers of loving feelings in the therapeutic relationship. Ferenczi believed in the creation of mutuality in all analytic dyads. His refusal to subscribe to a hierarchical structuring of the treatment relationship led to his subsequent marginalization from the traditional psychoanalytic canon for nearly a century. On close inspection, however, he was a formative figure who laid much of the groundwork for current thinking about the intersubjective and relational approaches to treatment. Much of his life and theory can be understood through the lens of his relationship with Sigmund Freud. That relationship is closely scrutinized in the following historical examination.     

Attention Deficit Disorder,Anxiety Disorder,and Learning Disabilities

Abstract

This article details an individualized psychoeducational model designed to treat a child with interrelated psychological and developmental issues whose psychic functioning was deteriorating within the traditional educational system. The team had leeway to function outside of the educational system to create an individualized, remedial, psychoeducational program. At the time we began the program, her diagnostic picture included: Anxiety Disorder, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, and Learning Disabilities. The treatment team consisted of an education specialist, two additional part-time teachers, a clinical social worker, an occupational therapist, a consulting senior child psychoanalyst, and the child's mother. The results at the close of the first school year are examined. Perspectives informing the psychoanalytic aspects of this case include Winnicottian and Fairbairnian Object Relations Theory and therapeutic milieu model.     

The Therapist’s Needs: Beyond Mutual Recognition

Abstract

As early as 1965, Harold Searles argued that therapists’ needs for healing and growth are part and parcel of their work with patients. Since then, the relational movement has corroborated this idea by articulating the healing function of treatment for both patient and clinician. In this article, the authors examine therapists’ needs that have been overlooked or those that have not been considered fully in the literature. Using various ideas related to the concept of what the authors call therapeutic freedom, this article argues that clinicians must strive to adopt a therapeutic vision that aims to loosen their own ties to safe, familiar modes of engaging with patients, particularly in moments of enactment or impasse. The authors elucidate these ideas with case material from their clinical work and show how embracing various forms of therapeutic freedom results in a type of mutual surrender on the part of both patient and therapist, creating opportunistic conditions that generate therapeutic action and new possibilities for the dyad.     

Don't Let the Doorknob Hit You: A Relational-Intersubjective Exploration of Leaving and Remaining within the Therapeutic Frame

“Doorknob comments” is a concept that is not well represented in the professional literature. Through three case examples the author develops the theory that doorknob comments can fall within the internal structure of the session or outside of such a structure. In the former case, giving the internal element precedence by extending the session length to address the comments may be warranted. In the latter case, helping a client by scaffolding their ability to structure experience may require that the comment be processed at a later session. In either case, the ability to structure experience, which is the process of elaborating meaning, is an important aspect of treatment.     

Three Aspects of the Therapeutic Conversation in Couples Therapy

Abstract

Feminist scholars have revealed the importance of examining the influence of gender on the therapeutic process. Gender differences in the treatment of clients may reveal inequitable or traditionally Stereotypie treatment of clients by therapists. This study examined gender differences in three conversational strategies widely used by therapists: expressions of empathy or understanding, compliments or praise, and challenges or requests for change. Fourteen tapes of live therapy sessions conducted by “master” therapists were examined using an exploratory, qualitative methodology based on Conversation Analysis. Results of this exploration revealed that therapists who are not self identified as “feminist challenged female clients more than male clients, and complimented male clients more than female clients. Feminist therapists challenged male clients more than female clients, and complimented female clients more than male clients. Feminist therapists used more challenges designed to facilitate non-stereo-typic gender behavior in both male and female clients. Only male therapists used disrespectful challenges of female clients, and were more often disrespectful to female clients than to male clients. Implications for the therapist-client relationship and the feminist critique are provided.