The Anima as an Archetype of Human Resilience in the Face of Calamity1

This paper will provide a theoretical basis for looking at a dream in the analysis of a client during a calamity. Finding the archetype of the anima is a way of responding to a crisis, in this case to the COVID-19 pandemic period. With all the basic instincts disrupted by a catastrophe, the emergence of the anima, as archetype of life, is there to remind us how to survive and recover. The anima archetype, often representing psychological resilience in ancient myths, shows up in dreams to guide human transformation from the struggle to survive trauma to the art of living a full life.     

Adapting Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up for infants and young children with intellectual disabilities and developmental delays in South Africa: Reflections and recommendations from local stakeholders

Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC) is an intervention targeted at enhancing the socioemotional and regulatory functioning of at-risk infants. However, to use the ABC for infants/toddlers with intellectual disabilities/developmental delays (ID/DD) and in novel cultural contexts, such as South Africa, adaptations may be required. This study aimed, therefore, to explore the opinions of clinical experts and perceptions of caregivers regarding the use of ABC for children with ID/DD in South Africa. It also sought to incorporate the experiences of families of children with ID/DD who received, and intervenors who delivered, ABC in its first implementation in South Africa. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 participants. Thematic analysis explicated 12 main themes: Intervention Strengths, Points of Concern, and Recommendations (Experts); Focus on Caregiver-child Relationship, and Intervention Targets and Duration (Caregivers); Benefits of ABC, and Cultural Considerations (ABC Recipients); Focused and Targeted, Value of Feedback, Supportive Supervision, Working Alliance, and Challenges Experienced (ABC Intervenors). Practice and training recommendations include psychoeducation for parents and training for intervenors that is ID/DD-specific, expanding supervision capacity, building intervenors’ cultural/linguistic sensitivity and competence, accessing referral networks, including local Community Health Workers as intervenors, and greater flexibility in how the sessions are organized.     

Pilot test of a measure to assess clients’ perceptions of their home visitors

Home visiting services for caregivers of infants and young children have been found to be an effective method for promoting child development. Unfortunately, such services suffer from high rates of attrition, suggesting the need to identify factors related to client retention in services. Research has indicated that the client-provider relationship is an important predictor of client retention in home visiting services; however, measures to assess this relationship are limited. This study reports on a pilot test of the Client Perceptions of Home Visitors Questionnaire, developed to assess home visiting clients’ perceptions of their relationship with their home visitor. The measure was completed by 39 diverse home visiting clients during pregnancy in a midwestern town in the United States. The scale was found to have good internal consistency. Validity analyses found that the scale was positively associated with client satisfaction with services and perceived provider cultural sensitivity. The scale was also positively associated with retention in services at an 8-month follow-up. Additional research should examine the measure's psychometrics with larger samples.     

The seventh servant: The implications of a truth drive in Bions theory of 'O'

Drawing upon Bion's published works on the subjects of truth, dreaming, alpha‐function and transformations in ‘O’, the author independently postulates that there exists a ‘truth instinctual drive’ that subserves a truth principle, the latter of which is associated with the reality principle. Further, he suggests, following Bion's postulation, that ‘alpha‐function’ and dreaming/phantasying constitute unconscious thinking processes and that they mediate the activity of this ‘truth drive’ (quest, pulsion), which the author hypothesizes constitutes another aspect of a larger entity that also includes the epistemophilic component drive. It purportedly seeks and transmits as well as includes what Bion (1965, pp. 147‐9) calls ‘O’, the ‘Absolute Truth, Ultimate Reality, O’ (also associated with infi nity, noumena or things‐in‐themselves, and ‘godhead’) (1970, p. 26). It is further hypothesized that the truth drive functions in collaboration with an ‘unconscious consciousness’ that is associated with the faculty of ‘attention’, which is also known as ‘intuition’. It is responsive to internal psychical reality and constitutes Bion's ‘seventh servant’. O, the ultimate landscape of psychoanalysis, has many dimensions, but the one that seems to interest Bion is that of the emotional experience of the analysand's and the analyst's ‘evolving O’ respectively (1970, p. 52) during the analytic session. The author thus hypothesizes that a sense of truth presents itself to the subject as a quest for truth which has the quality and force of an instinctual drive and constitutes the counterpart to the epistemophilic drive. This ‘truth quest’ or ‘drive’ is hypothesized to be the source of the generation of the emotional truth of one's ongoing experiences, both conscious and unconscious. It is proposed that emotions are beacons of truth in regard to the acceptance of reality. The concepts of an emotional truth drive and a truth principle would help us understand why analysands are able to accept analysts’ interpretations that favor the operation of the reality principle over the pleasure principle—because of what is postulated as their overriding adaptive need for truth. Ultimately, it would seem that Bion's legacy of truth aims at integrating fi nite man with infi nite man.     

An introduction to the reading of Bion

The author suggests that a good deal of the confusion that arises in the course of reading Bion derives from the fact that Bion's analytic writing is comprised of two periods of work that involve markedly different conceptions of psychoanalysis. These two periods require of the reader very different ways of reading and generate contrasting experiences in reading. Bion, in passages in Learning from experience (1962) and Attention and interpretation (1970), offers advice to the reader regarding how he would like his 'early' and 'late' work to be read. The author treats the experience of reading these passages as ports of entry into the fundamental tenets underlying Bion's widely differing conceptions of the psychoanalytic enterprise. The experience of reading early Bion generates a sense of psychoanalysis as a never completed process of clarifying obscurities and obscuring clarifications, which enterprise moves in the direction of a convergence of disparate meanings. Incontrast, the experience of reading Bion's later work conveys a sense of psychoanalysis as a process involving a movement toward infinite expansion of meaning. The author offers a detailed account of an analytic experience which he discusses from a point of view informed by Bion's work, particularly his late work.     

Treatment of developmental stress disorder: mind,body and brain – analysis and pharmacology coupled

The schism between psychiatry, psychology and analysis, while long present, has widened even more in the past half‐century with the advances in psychopharmacology. With the advances in electronic brain imaging, particularly in developmental and post‐traumatic stress disorders, there has emerged both an understanding of brain changes resulting from severe, chronic stress and an ability to target brain chemistry in ways that can relieve clinical symptomatology. The use of alpha‐1 adrenergic brain receptor antagonists decreases many of the manifestations of PTSD. Additionally, this paper discusses the ways in which dreaming, thinking and the analytic process are facilitated with this concomitant treatment and hypervigilence and hyper‐arousal states are signficiantly decreased.     

MEASUREMENT OF FATHER–CHILD ROUGH‐AND‐TUMBLE PLAY AND ITS RELATIONS TO CHILD BEHAVIOR

Although there is increasing evidence of paternal influence on child outcomes such as language and cognition, researchers are not yet clear on the features of father–child play that are most valuable in terms of child development. Physical play such as rough and tumble play (RTP) is a favored type of father–child play in Western societies that has been linked to children's socioemotional competence. It is important, therefore, to determine the implications of this play for child development. In this review and meta‐analysis, associations between father–child physical play and child behavior were examined. The review also focused on study methods. Sixteen studies are reviewed, N = 1,521 father–child dyads, 35% boys. Study characteristics such as definitions of physical play, play settings, play measures, and coding were examined. The meta‐analysis found weak to moderate population effects for links between father–child physical play and child aggression, social competence, emotional skills, and self‐regulation. Research investigating the effect of father–child physical play on children's development will be improved when definitions clearly identify the nature of play, settings facilitate boisterous play, and measures include frequency and quality of play interactions. This play shows promise as an enhancer of positive father–child relationships and a catalyst for child development.     

EXPANDING INFANT MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT SERVICES TO AT‐RISK PRESCHOOLERS AND THEIR FAMILIES THROUGH THE INTEGRATION OF RELATIONAL PLAY THERAPY

The expansion of infant mental health (IMH) to at‐risk preschoolers and their families has contributed to the integration of relational play therapy (RPT) into IMH treatment services for this population. Integrating RPT allows access to specialized play and expressive techniques specific to preschool and family development, which improves the clinical ability to meet the multiple and complex needs of at‐risk parent–child dyads and their families. This article will examine the RPT literature and explore the similarities and differences between IMH and RPT. In addition, two case studies will highlight a five‐phase, integrative clinical‐treatment process and provide insight into how IMH clinicians are integrating RPT models and maintaining adherence to the IMH treatment approach.