The uses of humor in life,neurosis and in psychotherapy: Part 2

Abstract

The first part of the paper focused on the dynamics of wit in life, literature, and psychoanalysis; the second part of this paper is devoted to the use of humor in therapy. The central concept is Freud's psychoanalytic method, as distinguished from Freud's various theories of disorder, or neurosis, with a further elaboration of Freud's inherently interpersonal conception of the analytic process, already present in the cathartic phase of the therapeutic technique. The cathartic, or discharge, function of humor is connected to reciprocal free association (a term coined by the author) to define the mutual and reciprocal free association in analysand and analyst, playing an essential role in the genesis of insight and interpretation. Humor has its role in loosening repression, facilitating the emergence of unconscious emotions and ideas, bringing to light character defenses, and thus driving the process of analysis.     

Some psychoanalytical experiences with the new fertility techniques

Abstract

The contingencies in life histories of one male and two female patients of their wish to engage in new techniques for fertility and procreation are explored. Remarkable denial strategies defending narcissistic vulnerabilities were found in all cases. Although they are in fact quite stressful and at best moderately succesful the new medical-technical solutions can acquire magic qualities warding off unresolved conflicts around omnipotence and gender differentiation. In the treatment-process transference undergoes distinct shifts in quality, intensity as well as object when oedipal and pre-oedipal conflicts tend to be acted out with the administering physician. As to the fate of the psychic development of children begotten in these new forms of procreation and parenting, e.g. lesbian couples, much is yet unclear; though complex and fluid defenses coloured by denial and magical qualities towards the father introject have been observed.     

Using Dichotic Listening to Study Bottom-up and Top-down Processing in Children and Adults

The study examined top-down attention modulation of bottom-up processing in children and adults under conditions of varying bottom-up stimulus demands. Voiced and unvoiced consonant-vowel syllables were used in a dichotic-listening situation to manipulate the strength of the bottom-up stimulus-driven right ear advantage when subjects were instructed to focus attention on, and report, either the left or right ear stimulus. We predicted that children would differ from adults in their ability to use attention to modulate a lateralized ear advantage, and particularly when there was a conflict between the direction of the bottom-up ear advantage and the direction of the top-down attention instruction. Thirty children and 30 adults were presented with dichotic presentations of consonant-vowel syllables. The results showed that the voicing manipulation affected the strength of the ear advantage, and that the children performed significantly below the adults when the voicing parameter caused a strong conflict between bottom-up and top-down processing. Thus, children seem to lack the cognitive flexibility necessary to modulate a stimulus-driven bottom-up ear advantage, particularly in situations where right ear advantage (REA) is enhanced by the acoustic properties of the stimuli and attentional demands require a left ear shift. It is suggested that varying the stimulus demands in a dichotic-listening situation may be a novel way to study cognitive development.     

Recovering Selves

SUMMARY

This is an ethnographic study of a therapeutic-community drug treatment program comprised of mostly court-mandated clients. It explores how women interact with treatment practices and the language of recovery. I argue that deep and inherent contradictions exist between treatment practice and the needs of drug-using women. In particular I investigate the gender and race implications of drug treatment as a moral project aimed at self-reinvention. I also examine tensions between normalizing power and punishment in the therapeutic community. Treatment is analyzed in the therapeutic community as reflective of broader cultural and neoliberal values that privilege notions of family, community, and responsibility. I claim that the treatment ideal of the self-reliant, active citizen is profoundly problematic for women and mothers     

Proactive and reactive sequential effects on selective attention

Sequences of events can affect selective attention either through proactive mechanisms, through reactive mechanisms, or through a combination of the two. The current study examined electrophysiological responses to both prime and target stimuli in a primed dichotic listening task. Each trial presented a distractor prime syllable followed by two simultaneous syllables, and participants were asked to report one of the simultaneous syllables. Trials where the participant reported the non-primed syllable showed more negative event-related potentials at prime presentation, which may indicate inhibition of the prime representation. Trials where the participant reported the primed syllable showed more negative event-related potentials at target presentation, which may indicate cognitive conflict and effortful response selection. In context of current theories, the data suggest that the interplay of a proactive inhibition bias and a reactive potential for conflict is involved in causing sequential effects on selective attention mechanisms.     

The way of authenticity and the quest for personal integrity1,2

The author reviews the respective conceptions of authenticity proposed by the existentialist philosophers, Fredrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger, each of whom situate it in the inherent difficulty of resisting the herd instinct in one's interpersonal relationships, then sets out to show how, despite the absence of authenticity as a technical term in the psychoanalytic lexicon, the technical principles of psychoanalysis enumerated by Freud are compatible with the views of both Nietzsche and Heidegger. The author then gives examples of other psychoanalytic authors who similarly embrace the spirit of authentic relating in their conception of the clinical situation, including the work of D. W. Winnicott, Wilfred Bion, and Jacques Lacan. The author concludes that in the psychoanalytic context the imposition and experience of suffering are invaluable components of authenticity and therapeutic change.     

Book Review

This article is based on Ulkuniemi's key-note lecture in the Congress of Photo Therapy and Therapeutic Photography. The lecture dealt mainly with the history of family photography and the uses of family photographs in art education. Here Ulkuniemi has put her ideas in dialogue with some of the themes presented in the Special Issue (11.1) of European Journal of Psychotherapy and Counselling. Thus this article also serves as a commentary to some of the texts in this journal. The main approach of this article is to offer some hints about possibilities for using photographs in therapy by giving practical examples from the field of art education and art – Ulkuniemi's own visual-pedagogical installations. Another aim is to offer a general view of how a family photograph is constructed. Ulkuniemi will ‘break the frames’ by showing the various factors existing outside the frames that have influence on the outcome of the picture.     

The fieldwork model: An anthropological perspective on the process of change in long-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy

The question of what takes place in the psychoanalytic consulting room, and whether it has any therapeutic effect on the patient, has consistently been behind various criticisms of the long-term psychoanalytically informed therapies. When it comes to goal-oriented talking therapies –the only ones favoured by the state mechanism – statistical proof of their efficacy is thought of as proof of their scientific value. However, disciplines such as social anthropology have consistently based their complex understanding of social phenomena in qualitative data. This article draws upon the anthropological fieldwork model. It also looks at how anthropological theory has evolved as a result of the increasing centrality of the fieldwork model and a gradual acceptance of the inter-subjective process. It aims to highlight how lived experience, the paradigm on which the fieldwork model is based, constitutes a highly effective way of understanding in depth the patient and the patient's history. Such understanding is in turn the main factor behind profound and lasting psychological change. It is argued here that psychotherapy research and practice could be enhanced by following the example of anthropological qualitative research.     

Multiple intelligences and the therapeutic alliance: Incorporating multiple intelligence theory and practice into counselling

Many of the main theoretical traditions in the sociology of the emotions have limitations in their explanations of the institutionalized styles of emotional work, of the menu of emotions available to be felt in particular settings, and of the causal processes by which particular emotions are elicited in those settings. A promising way forward is to apply neo-Durkheimian institutional theory, which also overcomes some of the limitations of Durkheim's own theory of the emotions. Central to this approach is the distinguishing of affect styles and the identification of styles of social organization that elicit these affect styles. The theory puts great weight on ritual, understood in the post-Goffman sense which encompasses quotidian everyday forms as well as grand public ceremonial, as the principal causal process by which forms of social organization produce certain emotions and styles of managing those emotions within ‘affect styles’. The latent social function, in this tradition, of the elicitation of affect is to be understood in terms of the conflictual and rival mobilization of accountability. The theory meets, the article argues, the four key criteria by which sociological theories of affect should be judged.