THE TEXTURE OF TRAUMATIC ATTACHMENT: PRESENCE AND GHOSTLY ABSENCE IN TRANSGENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION

Work on the transgenerational transmission of trauma refers to unspoken stories across generations, but the actual mode of transmission has remained somewhat mysterious. Utilizing examples from her own life, the author illustrates how attachment patterns are a primary mode of transmission of trauma. When trauma revisits a person transgenerationally through dysregulated and disrupted attachment patterns, it is within the child's empathic attunement and search for a parental bond that the mode of transmission can be found. This will become the texture of traumatic attachment: how it feels to this child to feel connected to the parent.     

Missing what was true: Problems of seeing and knowing in Henry James's The wings of the dove

The author examines a central theme in this late novel by Henry James in relation to current psychoanalytic ideas that link the Oedipus complex with the child's developing perception of reality (both psychic and external), specifi cally through the experience of seeing and being seen. Britton visualises the oedipal triangle as a psychic structure through which the child may achieve recognition not only of its parents' sexual relationship, from which it is excluded, but also of itself being observed by one parent while the child is with the other. Thus, it both observes and is observed. The differing perspectives achieved‐of subjectivity and objectivity‐ promote the perception of objective reality, as the world of relationships grows and becomes more complex. James captures with great subtlety and penetration the experience of three characters living out a symbolic oedipal relationship in which the truth is evaded or perverted. A young couple in love exploit the situation of a dying heiress whose vulnerability is intensifi ed by her reluctance to acknowledge the truth about their relationship. At the same time, she shrinks from the gaze of others and consigns herself to isolation and ultimate despair. The author presents three signifi cant scenes in which seeing and being seen are central to the development. In each, the dying woman is forced to face, if momentarily, her exclusion from the sexual relationship. Increasingly this connects with her approaching death‐but also with the anguished recognition that the couple have cruelly befriended her only to betray her. It is suggested that James's late style and novelistic technique require the reader to tolerate confusion and uncertainty. As the perspective shifts from one protagonist to another, we ourselves are in danger of ‘missing what is true’ in this characteristic Jamesian scenario, where relationships are gradually perverted by manipulation, evasion and lies. In psychoanalytic theory, this would represent a failure to work through the oedipal situation, where the struggle of the child to face reality is met by a parental relationship that is too weak or too perverse to contain the pain and confl ict.     

Outcomes of training in supervision: Randomised controlled trial

There is little controlled research on the impact of supervisor training on supervision. The current study examined the effects of supervision training in a sample of 46 supervisor–supervisee pairs of mental health practitioners. It compared Immediate 2‐day workshop training of the pair, a wait‐list control in which workshop training was delayed 3 months, and a condition in which supervisors were trained 3 months before their partners (Split). Benefits of Immediate training were restricted to supervisors reporting fully specified agreements, and to reduction of some perceived problems. Self‐efficacy in providing effective supervision fell in the Split condition, relative to the other conditions. Across conditions in general there was a fall from baseline to post‐test assessment in the proportion of sessions where recommended supervision strategies were used, perhaps partly because the controlled trial extended across the summer vacation period. Results are consistent with other observations of the limited impact of workshop training on practice.     

A Test of Two Competing Explanations for the Attraction-Enhancing Effects of Counselor Self-Disclosure

The authors tested two theoretical explanations for the attraction-enhancing effects of counselor self-disclosure: the similarity hypothesis and the social exchange hypothesis. A counseling analogue was constructed to discriminate between these two explanations by varying the valence (positive or negative) of the counselor's disclosure and its relevance (relevant or irrelevant) to the client's presenting problem. Dependent variables were perceptions of the counselor's attractiveness, empathy, and level of regard for the client. Results were mixed, supporting the social exchange explanation for empathy and the similarity explanation for level of regard.