BION'S “EVIDENCE” AND HIS THEORETICAL STYLE

The author discusses “Evidence” (1976), a brief but very intense and fascinating paper in which Bion provides a unique opportunity to see him at work in his clinical practice. In the story of a patient, Bion reconstructs two sessions that are all the more true for being imaginary—i.e., narrated (“dreamed”). The matter of language and style in psychoanalysis is of the utmost importance, according to Bion—one could say, literally, a matter of life or death. In Bion's discourse, writing, reading, and analysis converge in the same place, the author notes; all are significant if they involve an experience of truth and the ability to learn from experience.     

Levels of change in parent–infant psychotherapy

This paper offers a way of thinking about the process of parent–infant psychotherapy. I start by outlining some ideas as to what can go awry in troubled parent–infant relationships, and then a way of working with parents with pre-verbal babies. I suggest a model for understanding three interlaced levels at which change might occur if a psychodynamic, systemically sensitive, therapeutic intervention is offered. I describe a particularly challenging clinical case in which a mother and I also worked with video material of her and her son.     

Transcending the caesura: Reverie,dreaming and counter‐dreaming

The author reflects about our capacity to get in touch with primitive, irrepresentable, seemingly unreachable parts of the Self and with the unrepressed unconscious. It is suggested that when the patient's dreaming comes to a halt, or encounters a caesura, the analyst dreams that which the patient cannot. Getting in touch with such primitive mental states and with the origin of the Self is aspired to, not so much for discovering historical truth or recovering unconscious content, as for generating motion between different parts of the psyche. The movement itself is what expands the mind and facilitates psychic growth. Bion's brave and daring notion of ‘caesura’, suggesting a link between mature emotions and thinking and intra‐uterine life, serves as a model for bridging seemingly unbridgeable states of mind. Bion inspires us to ‘dream’ creatively, to let our minds roam freely, stressing the analyst's speculative imagination and intuition often bordering on hallucination. However, being on the seam between conscious and unconscious, dreaming subverts the psychic equilibrium and poses a threat of catastrophe as a result of the confusion it affords between the psychotic and the non‐psychotic parts of the personality. Hence there is a tendency to try and evade it through a more saturated mode of thinking, often relying on external reality. The analyst's dreaming and intuition, perhaps a remnant of intra‐uterine life, is elaborated as means of penetrating and transcending the caesura, thus facilitating patient and analyst to bear unbearable states of mind and the painful awareness of the unknowability of the emotional experience. This is illustrated clinically.     

Psychopathy,unconscious shame and attachment: Considering the psychodynamics of psychopathy

Recent psychopathy research has involved a critical re-examination of the construct. Absent from this research has been an analysis of the role unconscious shame might play in etiology, traits and behaviour. Outside of the domain of psychopathy research, the significant role shame plays in intra- and interpersonal dynamics has been comprehensively investigated for the past few decades. More recently, exploration into the role that attachment plays in the development of shame has been suggested. The extant shame literature has explored the connection between unconscious shame and a range of behaviours, many of which are characteristic of psychopathy. While there have been some investigations on the association between psychopathy and conscious shame, this paper suggests that the exploration of unconscious shame, and its development resulting from certain attachment dynamics, can potentially further enhance our conceptualisation of psychopathy with regard to etiology, traits, behaviour, assessment and treatment. After reviewing the literature on unconscious shame, attachment and psychopathy, recommendations for future research are suggested.     

心理对照策略的内涵、功能及其相关研究

心理对照是指人们在思维过程中首先想象目标实现后的收获,然后思考现实中阻碍实现目标的因素,通过对比目标实现后的收获和现实中的障碍,使未来和现实同时通达,在未来和现实之间建立起心理联结,激活个体达成目标(成功)的期望。心理对照策略不仅能够改变人们的认知和动机,还能够改变个体对于消极反馈的反应。文章系统梳理了心理对照策略的内涵、功能及其应用研究,在此基础上,提出了4点未来的研究展望。     

Priming Risky Choice: Do Risk Preferences Need Inferences?

The notion that subtle influences, often falling outside awareness, can bias behaviour has a strong grip on both theoretical perspectives and the public imagination. We report three experiments that examined this idea in the context of risky choice. Experiment 1 (N = 100) appeared to find evidence for an interaction whereby participants primed but not reminded of the prime showed an assimilation effect (e.g. participants primed to be risk seeking became more risk seeking) whereas those who were primed and reminded showed a contrast effect (e.g. became less risk seeking). However, two further experiments (N = 180, N = 128) failed to find any evidence for this interaction, and none of the experiments found evidence for the asymmetry in awareness predicted by an ‘unconscious’ assimilation but ‘conscious’ contrast account. The data were analysed using both Null Hypothesis Significance Testing and Bayesian methods, and the implications of the conclusions arising from each are discussed. Whatever one's statistical predilection, the results imply a reduction of confidence in the belief that risk preferences need no inferences. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reply to Doody

In an earlier paper, we appealed to various empirical studies to make the case that the unconscious mind is capable of robust self-deception. Paul Doody has challenged our interpretations of that empirical evidence. In this reply we defend our interpretations, arguing that the unconscious is engaged in strategic and flexible goal pursuit.     

焦虑情绪对图像信息意识提取和无意识提取影响的实验研究

采用加工分离程序,以不同性价图片为实验材料,考察了特质焦虑、启动焦虑和非焦虑三种焦虑类型对图片信息意识提取和无意识提取的影响,结果表明：（1）不同焦虑类型对图像信息的意识提取和无意识提取均有影响,其中特质焦虑对图像的无意识提取更敏感,非焦虑状态对意识提取更敏感;（2）特质焦虑明显促进了负性图片的意识和无意识提取且干扰了正性图片的提取,启动焦虑促进了对负性图片的意识提取。     

The 'secret cocoon': fantasies about the private self in the absence of consensual reality

Clinical material is presented from an analysand whose defense of withdrawal to 'a private internal space' was mobilized when she became confused, within her relationships and within the transference, about whose understanding of a shared event was 'real.' Analysis of the defense as resistance revealed a disrupted sense of connection to others and to the analyst in the face of the difficulty in determining a consensual reality. This was accompanied by emotional withdrawal, with a complex fantasy of retreat to a protective inner hiding place, or cocoon. The phenomenology and functions of such withdrawals, the fantasies accompanying them, and the ways in which they changed during the analysis are discussed in this paper. For the patient described, the analysis of her shifting 'cocoon' states and of the fantasies connected with them eventually enabled her to access her creative 'private self' more freely and with less conflict.