Differential aggressiveness and litigiousness: Social support and social status hypotheses

The Qolla Indians have high rates of involvement in agonistic forms of interaction. In previous reports the author suggested that ecological and physiological factors are causally associated with intracommunity differential participation in aggressive behavior. The present article described tests of hypotheses using other variables to explain this behavioral differentiation. The hypothesis that aggressiveness and participation in litigation are a function of the amount of social support the individual can potentially mobilize is tested. The relationships between indicators of social status (wealth, education, age, political activities, and ritual participation), on the one hand, and aggressiveness and litigiousness, on the other, also are examined.     

Support groups for parents with an adult child suffering from bipolar disorder

Confronted with the disconcerting behaviour exhibited by their children, parents of bipolar patients are in severe distress. Research focuses on the study of the ‘burden’ that the pathology puts on caregivers, owing to their experience of depression, sometimes combined with the presence of hostile attitudes and negative affects. In France, parents of adult patients encounter an initial specific difficulty: they are not systematically included in the care management system. Thanks to the initiative of an association of psychiatrists and psychoanalysts, the authors set up a psychoanalytic support group for the parents of ‘bipolar’ adults. The diagnosis of a bipolar disorder is established by a psychiatrist within a medical structure. Support groups for parents do exist in France, but their experiences have not led to scientific publications on this specific topic. Existing publications focus on other types of pathology and other therapeutic approaches. In this article, we will highlight how this type of psychoanalytic support group, with operating rules based on the theoretical work of Anzieu, can help parents of patients with bipolar disorders. Group participants accepted the principle of a research study that maintained their anonymity. We collected and analysed qualitative data from the first year of the group, so we highlight the specific difficulties of these parents, faced with chronic disease. The relevance of our qualitative study also resides in the data collected over a period of time, enabling us to see the progress made, and encouraging us to reflect on the place of psychoanalytic groups for parents, as well as on the care management of this pathology.     

Psychiatric chrono‐epidemiology: its relevance for the study of aggression

Chrono‐epidemiology is the study of the distribution of health events according to time. The time intervals taken into account have cyclic patterns and include circadian, weekly, seasonal, and circannual rhythms. In the behavioural field, chrono‐epidemiology can be and has been applied to studies concerning the causes of death (suicide and homicide), clinical events such as admissions to and contacts with mental healthcare services, and the seasonal distribution of crime involving the use of violence. Frequently reported findings include clear circadian and seasonal rhythms present in the phenomenon of suicide (rhythms more evident in the case of violent suicide); seasonal rhythms in the expression of aggression by patients hospitalised for mental illness; and a circannual recurrence of crimes with a violent component. The intrinsic circadian and seasonal rhythms of some neuronal systems, particularly those of serotonin, involved in the control of mood and impulses, are thought to favour the behavioural rhythms observed, although the contribution of socio‐environmental factors, such as the fluctuation of supportive networks according to time, is also acknowledged. By demonstrating non‐casual recurrence of certain behaviour and by exploring the socio‐biological basis of the rhythms beneath these recurrences, chrono‐epidemiology may offer important etiologic and preventive clues to the understanding of the biological and environmental correlates of aggressive behaviour. Aggr. Behav. 28:477–490, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Effect of competitor density on the aggressiveness of juvenile white seabream (Diplodus sargus cadenati de la Paz,Bauchot and Daget, 1974)

The number of aggressive interactions displayed by juveniles of Diplodus sargus cadenati increases progressively in proportion to the number of intruders, with an upper threshold of more than 16 to 18 intruder fish. Beyond this density, resident aggressiveness decreases. The number of aggressive interactions that the resident fish devotes to expelling each intruder shows a clear and significant tendency to decrease as competitor density increases. The resident fish is incapable of rapidly evaluating the outweighing of its capacity for defense. Moreover, the strategy of aggressive defense of the resource against the density of competitors does not seem to be only profitability criteria dependent, but rather there is also a significant influence of the ability to fight shown by the resident. Aggr. Behav. 29:279–284, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Effects of chronic administration with high doses of testosterone propionate on behavioral and physiological parameters in mice with differing basal aggressiveness

The effects of testosterone propionate, an anabolic‐androgenic steroid, on the behavior displayed during a social encounter by gonadally intact male mice were investigated. Animals were distributed into three groups according to their attack latency in a pre‐screening test (high‐, moderate‐, and low‐ attacking mice) and each group received weekly injections of 60 or 120 mg/kg of testosterone or sesame oil for 10 weeks. Behavioral tests were then carried out. Afterwards, organs were weighed and blood samples collected in order to obtain hormonal data. Treatment had a differential impact on attack in the three groups of animals. Only the high‐attacking testosterone‐treated mice showed lower total duration of attack than their controls. Those that received 60 mg/kg spent more time exhibiting exploratory behaviors. As an index of the anabolic activity of the drug, all testosterone‐treated mice had heavier kidneys and, as an index of the androgenic activity of testosterone propionate, they had heavier seminal vesicles, lighter testes, and showed higher testosterone levels in a dose‐dependent way than their controls. Hence, the effect of treatment on peripheral physiological parameters was similar in all three groups whereas behavioral effects differed depending on basal aggressiveness, considered a characteristic of coping style. Aggr. Behav. 29:173–189, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

On aggressiveness and violence in adolescence1

When considering aggressiveness and violence during adolescence, we must take into account multiple senses, which range from the healthy assertion of one's own space before others to the repetition of traumatic violent experiences such as the violation of bodily and spatial‐temporal boundaries. The author presents a survey of the views of different authors within psychoanalytical literature which allows us to question these terms, and turn then to the exploration of clinical practice. In studying the latter, acting out is brought to the fore, noting that not every adolescent act connotes a risk. The acts tackled in this case are those that, owing to their characteristics, may often endanger the very life of the adolescent. The author presents clinical material that focuses on adolescent acting out, highlighting the question of how to create, through the transference‐countertransference axis, a space within the analytic session where the patient's capacity to think may be incorporated, thus allowing the anticipation of action.     

20 Years is not long enough1

The author presents some Latin American sociopolitical vicissitudes exemplifi ed by Argentina, where she lives and where she trained and practices as a psychoanalyst. The exposition is based on the impact that her experience with two patients, Ana and Juana, had on her, and is presented in the form of clinical vignettes. The author refl ects clinically and technically on the transference and countertransference and on the ways in which self–analysis enabled her to distinguish between the countertransference related to the patient and that related to the psychoanalyst. Finally, the author discusses the traumatic effects of ‘the human condition’, ‘social violence’ and ‘Evil’, referring specifi cally to the ‘repetitive trauma’ individuals experience under the globalization of terror and to the use of mechanisms of disavowal that result in serious splitting. The author confronts the reader with totalitarian terror as something that attacks and destroys the main constitutive characteristic of human beings, namely, their ability to think, remarking that H. Arendt is the one who speaks about ‘radical evil’ as ‘the banality of Evil’. The author addresses the question of whether by tempering aggression and organizing levels of symbolization ‘words’ might prevent the emergence of ‘pure jouissance’ and be more powerful and signifi cant than violence, overriding it.     

关于服刑人员的内隐攻击性研究

本研究采用IAT测验探讨服刑人员外显和内隐攻击性。研究发现：服刑人员存在着内隐攻击性,且无性别差异;回归分析表明,在控制外显攻击性后,IAT测量的内隐攻击性与服刑人员刑期相关显著。研究并对内隐攻击性和外显攻击性作为独立心理结构的可能理论基础及其相应神经机制作了探讨。