Collective Trauma,Implicit Memories,the Body,and Active Imagination in Jungian Analysis1

This presentation attempts to show the healing potential underlying the inclusion of the patient's body in the analytic process, while honouring and revisiting the understanding of the psyche-body connection described by Jung in his early work. In addition, the author offers reflections on the impact of collective trauma whose aftermath, among others, has been the disappearance of thousands of people, consequently breaking the family genealogy, leaving hundreds of children stripped of their roots and true identity. Referencing clinical material, the author describes how the process of translation and integration—from the sensory-perceptual to the conceptual-symbolic—can be halted on account of collective trauma occurring at an early stage in development. Moreover, it is shown how the potential of the archetype or image schema, linked to the somatic-affective early experiences encoded as implicit memories, can be recovered, when Embodied Active Imagination is included in the analytic work. The patient's bodily gestures and somatic experience may bridge the gap between the preverbal-implicit knowledge and the emergence of emotions and images that allow for the creation of a new symbolic narrative.     

‘If I knew where the enemy,or even Germany was,we could have fired in that direction’: Bion's experience of war

The role of a child psychotherapist's gender is not often considered in terms of treatment outcome. This paper discusses how aspects of being a male child psychotherapist influenced the successful treatment of a very young boy with Asperger's Syndrome. The paper highlights how the nature of his very early relationship with his mother and the absence of his father were the basis of his difficulties resulting in that diagnosis. It shows that his desire to seize the opportunity of working with a male enabled him to understand his feelings about his father, why it was so difficult to want to be with him and not his mother, and why he could not be without her.

Le rôle joué par le sexe du psychothérapeute d'enfants dans les effets du traitement est rarement pris en compte. Dans cet article, l'auteur montre qu'à un certain niveau le fait d'être un psychothérapeute homme eut une influence sur la réussite de la thérapie d'un très jeune garçon présentant un syndrome d'Asperger. Selon l'auteur, la nature de la relation précoce entre ce petit garçon et sa mère, ainsi que l'absence de son père, étaient à l'origine des difficultés qui conduisirent à ce diagnostic. Il montre que le désir de l'enfant de se saisir de l'occasion ainsi offerte de travailler avec un homme lui permit de comprendre trois éléments essentiels : ses sentiments à l'égard de son père, la raison pour laquelle il lui était tellement difficile de vouloir être avec lui plutôt que de rester avec sa mère, et ce qui faisait qu'il ne pouvait pas se passer de celle-ci.

Die Rolle des Geschlechts des Kindertherapeuten wird nicht oft bezüglich des Behandlungsergebnis in Betracht bezogen. Dieser Artikel diskutiert, wie Aspekte dessen, ein männlicher Kindertherapeut zu sein, die erfolgreiche Behandlung eines sehr kleinen Jungen mit Asperger Syndrom beeinflussten. Der Artikel unterstreicht, wie die Art seiner frühen Beziehung zu seiner Mutter und die Abwesenheit seines Vaters die Grundlage seiner Schwierigkeiten bildeten, die zu dieser Diagnose führten. Es zeigt, dass sein Wunsch, die Gelegenheit zu ergreifen, mit einem Mann zu arbeiten, ihm ermöglichte, seine Gefühle seinem Vater gegenüber zu verstehen, warum es so schwierig war, mit ihm und nicht seiner Mutter sein zu wollen und warum er nicht ohne sie sein konnnte.

Riassunto: Il ruolo che gioca il sesso dello psicoterapeuta infantile non è solitamente considerato in relazione al risultato del trattamento. In questo articolo si discute come il fatto di avere un terapeuta maschile abbia influenzato per certi aspetti il risultato positivo del trattamento di un bambino molto piccolo che soffriva della Sindrome di Asperger. L'articolo illustra come la natura della sua primissima relazione con la madre e l'assenza del padre furono alla base delle sue difficoltà che portarono alla diagnosi. L'articolo mostra come il desiderio del bambino di lavorare con un terapeuta maschile gli ha permesso di capire i suoi sentimenti verso il padre, perché era così difficile voler restare con lui e lo stesso non succedeva con sua madre, e perché non poteva restare senza di lei.     

Psychologie du criminel en col blanc: À la recherche de sa personnalité

The aim of this present conceptual analysis is to define the main analytical approaches of the particular form of organizational deviance: white-collar crime. Within the scope of the dispositional heuristic approach, the analysis explores the explanatory potential of a certain idiosyncratic factor: the narcissistic personality. The analysis proposes future avenues of research concerning the identification of personal dispositions underlying white-collar crime.     

Criminel en col blanc de grande envergure. Un renard bien cravaté

This discussion provides an archetypal psychological profile of individuals engaged in large-scale white-collar crime. A full review of white-collar crime research suggests the presence of narcissistic etiopathogeny in these criminals. As well, given the comorbidity of narcissism with primary psychopathy and Machiavellianism, this review hypothesizes possible lateral effects of these factors on narcissistic affect-control. Potentially this poor affect-control is decreased by primary psychopathy and Machiavellianism together, thereby revealing a facilitating condition for the successful completion of large-scale white-collar crime.     

CAREGIVER'S DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS AND YOUNG CHILDREN'S SOCIOEMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT DELAYS: A CROSS‐SECTIONAL STUDY IN POOR RURAL AREAS OF CHINA

Poverty and its associated factors put people at risk for depression. The aims of this study were to describe the prevalence of depressive symptoms (DS) of primary caregivers and socioemotional development (SED) delays of young children in poor rural areas of China, and to explore the association between them. Cross‐sectional data of 2,664 children aged 3 to 35 months and their primary caregivers were used for analysis. Characteristics of the child, caregiver, and family were collected through face‐to‐face caregiver interviews. DS were assessed by the Zung Self‐Rating Depression Scale (W.W. Zung, 1965, as cited in World Health Organization, 2016b ), and SED was evaluated by the Ages and Stage Questionnaires: Social‐Emotional (J. Squires, D. Bricker, & L. Potter, 1997). The χ² test, stratification analysis, and logistic regression analyses were used to explore the association. Among the caregivers, 40.3% (95% confidence interval [CI] [38.4, 42.1]), reported DS. Caregivers who were male, older and ethnic minorities as well as had a low level of education, a low family income, or more children were more likely to have DS. Of the children, 24.4% (95% CI [22.8, 26.0]) were recognized with SED delays. Older children displayed more delays than did younger children, but no significant differences between males and females were found. SED delays were significantly associated with mother outmigrating, male caregivers, older age, ethnic minorities, and low education or families with a single parent, low‐income, and having more children. Caregivers having DS, odds ratio (OR) = 2.40, 95% CI [1.99, 2.88], was a significant predictor of increased odds of SED delays; other factors were single‐parent family, OR = 1.99, 95% CI [1.37, 2.89], inadequate care, OR = 1.69, 95% CI [1.30, 2.21], physical punishment, OR = 1.61, 95% CI [1.33, 1.95], ethnic minorities, OR = 1.41, 95% CI [1.17, 1.71], and child age in months, OR = 1.03, 95% CI [1.02, 1.04], according to the logistic regression analysis. DS are prevalent among caregivers with young children in poor rural areas. Interventions to improve the mental health of caregivers and their parenting behaviors are needed to improve children's SED.     

Effects of an early reading intervention based on grapho-syllabic decoding and fluency training in French elementary schools

IntroductionStudies conducted in recent decades have led to the development of instructional interventions to help prevent or eliminate a large proportion of reading difficulties. However, few experiments have been conducted in French schools.ObjectiveAims for this research were to create, implement and evaluate a remediation program for French students with reading difficulties up to the end of elementary school.MethodThis paper examines the effects of a decoding-skills and fluency-based intervention on 133 struggling readers in second- to fifth-grade. Depending on the nature of their reading difficulties, students were given a year-long training based either on grapho-syllabic conversion — focusing on syllable units, rather than phonemic units, is considered a promising way of helping French-speaking beginning readers — or on repeated reading techniques, used to improve fluency.ResultsIncreases in written-word identification scores were greater for students who followed the program than they were for a control group of 184 students with reading difficulties who did not follow the program.ConclusionThe results show that programs combining early evaluation of written-word identification abilities followed by a year-long series of remediation sessions focusing on specific difficulties can help students progress in written-word identification. However, further research is needed to examine why our program was less effective with children from disadvantaged (“éducation prioritaire”) areas.     

Analyse comparative du leadership transformationnel et du leadership narcissique

Following a comprehensive review of the literature, this analysis proposes a comparison between the characteristics of transformational leadership and narcissistic leadership. Such a comparison is important as these two types of leadership, although displaying obvious similarities, considerably differ in their intrinsic value. Indeed, whereas the transformational leader exercises an altruistically motivated power, the narcissistic leader opts for an egotistically motivated power.     

Emotion comprehension and attachment: A conversational intervention with school-aged children

IntroductionAs part of the flourishing line of enquiry into children's emotion understanding, we report the results of a conversation-based intervention study aimed at improving participants’ emotion comprehension, and exploring the intervention effect as a function of attachment security.MethodThe study was conducted at school with the participation of 98 second-grade children (mean age: 7 years, 7 months; SD: 3.4 months). Participants were assigned to experimental and control groups that were balanced with respect to attachment security and insecurity as evaluated using the Separation Anxiety Test (SAT). The experimental group was exposed to a conversational intervention, in which short story readings with emotional content were used to stimulate discussion on the nature, causes and regulation of emotion. The children in the control group listened to the same stories, but did not take part in the conversational activity. Children from both groups were individually pre- and post-tested on measures of emotional lexicon (ELT) and emotion comprehension (TEC).ResultsThe training was found to have a significant effect on the emotion comprehension of the children allocated to the experimental group. In addition, non-secure children displayed higher gains in emotion comprehension than secure participants. The implications of the findings for educational and school contexts are discussed.     

Editorial

This paper is a response to William Meredith-Owen’s paper presented at the inaugural joint conference on ‘Alchemy, a bridge to Jung’s objective psyche’, for The Society of Analytical Psychology and the West Midlands Institute of Psychotherapy in autumn 2020. The paper presents a way of understanding the collective unconscious through the functioning of the core self, and thus offers a bridge which addresses the indivisibility of the personal and collective psyche/unconscious, referencing Mary Williams’ (1963) classic paper. Specifically, this is applied to Winnicott’s dream of destruction that he had after reviewing Memories, Dreams, Reflections, as well as to parts of the psyche that were dissociated due to significant early deprivation – the primary narcissistic wounds. Alchemical metaphors are shown to relate to the analytic process, which allows the primitive core self (with its identificatory, participatory, connecting nature), when integrated through relationship, to sink back into the unconscious and function as the Self.     

Understanding injuries in sports: Self-reported injury and perceived risk of injury among adolescents

IntroductionAlthough exposure and perceived risk of injury in sports among adolescents is a well-known phenomenon today, their understanding remains poorly explored.ObjectiveThis study examines the relationships between demographics, sport motives, and sport-related characteristics in a sample of French adolescents involved in sports.MethodsThe sample included 394 adolescents involved in sports, between 13 and 19 years old. The adolescents filled out a questionnaire requesting information about their age, sex, sport motives, sport-related characteristics, the number of injuries, and perceived risk of injury in their preferred sport.ResultsThe findings showed that the number of injuries was related to age, sex, type of sport and the participant's motives. The will to play to the limit increased with the exposure to injury. Participation in risky sports and the will to play to the limit were predictors of the adolescents’ risk of exposure to sports injuries. Time devoted to sports appears to be a confounding factor. Moreover, boys exhibited higher number of injuries than girls, and they perceived their preferred sport as riskier.ConclusionExposure to the risk of injury in sports and the exacerbated perception of that risk may provide a means of enhancing one's self-image, procuring an emotional experience, and constructing one's masculinity.