La psychodynamique du travail : objet, considérations épistémologiques, concepts et prémisses théoriques 1

L’article définit l’approche de la psychodynamique du travail qui a été développée en France au début des années 1970 par Christophe Dejours. Il s’agit d’une approche interdisciplinaire qui s’intéresse à l’organisation du travail comme source de plaisir et de souffrance et comme lieu d’émergence de stratégies défensives permettant aux individus de transiger avec les exigences de leur situation de travail afin de demeurer en santé. La psychodynamique du travail s’inscrit dans le paradigme subjectiviste d’approche compréhensive et réfère à la philosophie herméneutique. L’auteur vise à mieux faire connaître cette approche dans l’espoir qu’elle soit davantage utilisée par les chercheurs qui s’intéressent à une meilleure compréhension des problèmes de santé mentale vécus par les personnes dans le cadre de leur activité de travail.

The role of cognition in classical and operant conditioning

For the past 35 years, learning theorists have been providing models that depend on mental representations, even in their most simple, deterministic, and mechanistic approaches. Hence, cognitive involvement (typically thought of as expectancy) is assumed for most instances of classical and operant conditioning, with current theoretical differences concerning the level of cognition that is involved (e.g., simple association vs. rule learning), rather than its presence. Nevertheless, many psychologists not in the mainstream of learning theory continue to think of cognitive and conditioning theories as rival families of hypotheses. In this article, the data pertaining to the role of higher-order cognition in conditioning is reviewed, and a theoretical synthesis is proposed that provides a role for both automatic and cognitively mediated processes.

An experimental analysis of the role of schema compensation in anorexia nervosa

It has been suggested that the relatively poor effectiveness of treatments for anorexia nervosa is due to a poor conceptualisation of the disorder. One hypothesis is that current models are mistakenly targeting superficial, instead of deeper level, cognitions and cognitive processes. A schema-based cognitive-behavioural model of eating disorder pathology suggests that the process of schema compensation is key to restrictive pathology-when there is the threat of experiencing negative affect, compensatory schemas are activated, reducing that affect. The current experimental study aimed to provide support for such a process. Eating-disordered and control women completed a computer-based task, measuring the compensation process in terms of speed and accuracy in response to subliminal threat cues. The results did not fully support the hypothesis, suggesting that the model and methodology need some amendment. Improvements to the methodology are discussed.

Statistical Evaluation of Vial Design Features That Influence Sublimation Rates During Primary Drying

PURPOSE

Understanding tubing vial design features that influence sublimation rate provides insight into the development of a more time and cost efficient lyophilization cycle.

METHODS

A Plackett-Burman screening experiment was initially used in evaluating multiple design features to predict those that have a statistically significant effect on sublimation rate. Sublimation rates of vials with intentional nominal and extreme dimensions were measured and directly correlated to glass vial design features using conservative and aggressive lyophilization parameters to amplify subtle differences in rates. Purified water, USP was used to alleviate the inhibition to mass transfer due to the presence of excipient and drug substances. Further studies quantified the effect of bottom concavity on sublimation rate while using model preparations to illustrate the impact of processing crystalline and amorphous material.

RESULTS

The results from the Plackett-Burman statistical screening experiment indicate that sublimation rate is influenced by glass type, vial diameter, bottom radius, and fill volume. Results from further studies verify that the influence of concavity on sublimation rate is statistically insignificant.

CONCLUSIONS

The results from the Plackett-Burman screening experiment reflect that vial diameter has the greatest impact on sublimation rate. Further studies confirm that various bottom concavities do not substantially influence sublimation rate.

I Like Myself but I Don't Know Why: Enhancing Implicit Self-Esteem by Subliminal Evaluative Conditioning

On the basis of a conceptualization of implicit self-esteem as the implicit attitude toward the self, it was predicted that implicit self-esteem could be enhanced by subliminal evaluative conditioning. In 5 experiments, participants were repeatedly presented with trials in which the word I was paired with positive trait terms. Relative to control conditions, this procedure enhanced implicit self-esteem. The effects generalized across 3 measures of implicit self-esteem (Experiments 1-3). Furthermore, evaluative conditioning enhanced implicit self-esteem among people with low-temporal implicit self-esteem and among people with high-temporal implicit self-esteem (Experiment 4). In addition, it was shown that conditioning enhanced self-esteem to such an extent that it made participants insensitive to negative intelligence feedback (Experiments 5a and 5b). Various implications are discussed.

From Seeing to Being: Subliminal Social Comparisons Affect Implicit and Explicit Self-Evaluations

The authors hypothesize that social comparisons can have automatic influences on self-perceptions. This was tested by determining whether subliminal exposure to comparison information influences implicit and explicit self-evaluation. Study 1 showed that subliminal exposure to social comparison information increased the accessibility of the self. Study 2 revealed that subliminal exposure to social comparison information resulted in a contrast effect on explicit self-evaluation. Study 3 showed that subliminal exposure to social comparison information affects self-evaluations more easily than it affects mood or evaluations of other people. Studies 4 and 5 replicated these self-evaluation effects and extended them to implicit measures. Study 6 showed that automatic comparisons are responsive to a person's perceptual needs, such that they only occur when people are uncertain about themselves. Implications for theories of social cognition, judgment, and comparison are discussed.

Response priming by supraliminal and subliminal action effects

Theories assuming an effect-based coding of action predict that motor responses become activated by the perception of the responses' sensory effects. In accordance with this prediction it was found that responding to a visual target is faster and more accurate when the target is briefly preceded by the visual effect of the required response. Most importantly, this effect-induced response priming was independent of prime perceptibility and it occurred even when the prime was not consciously discriminable. Beyond ruling out alternative interpretations of earlier induction studies in terms of deliberate response biases, this suggests that effect codes evoke their associated motor patterns in a highly automatic manner not affording conscious mediation. The results accord with a functional dissociation between the consciousness-mediated implementation and the consciousness-independent realization of action goals.

On ugliness

Ugliness results from the emergence into consciousness of certain fantasies that alter the person's aesthetic sense in such a way that the formal qualities of the experience, the shape, texture, and color, appear to become the sources of our most disturbing and repulsive feelings. This paper reviews the psychoanalytic writings concerning the problem of ugliness and offers a psychoanalytic model of this universal phenomenon. Clinical vignettes illustrate key points. The paper closes with a discussion of how ugliness can be an opportunity for both the analyst and the artist--he or she confronts ugliness, and through the analytic and creative process, brings form and perfection to disintegration and disorder.

Subliminal processes, dissociation and the 'I'

The study of unconscious processes leads to the hypothesis of the limit of consciousness, which involves two main kinds of psychic activity. The first represents psychic contents which are subliminal for their low energy, the second subliminal contents which are inaccessible to consciousness because they are dissociated in the subliminal region. Dissociation is a concept introduced by Pierre Janet for splitting consciousness due to traumatic events or during hypnosis. It takes a more general form in Hilgard's neo-dissociation theory of hypnotic phenomena and also in Jung's theory of the collective unconscious. Further generalization links it to the modern findings of explicit and implicit perception, leading to a shift in dissociation from hypothesis to clinical, experimental and theoretical reality. Studies in hypnosis also point to the existence of an integrative psychic entity, that comprises the conscious 'I'. Hilgard called this the hidden observer, and his findings represent empirical confirmation of Jung's term for the Self as mirror 'I', which leads to many important consequences for self-discovery and the meaning of life.

Affective priming with subliminally presented pictures

Affective priming studies have demonstrated that subliminally presented prime words can exert an influence on responses towards positive or negative target stimuli. In the present series of experiments, it was investigated whether these findings can be extended to pictorial stimuli. Ideographically selected positive, neutral, and negative picture primes that were sandwich-masked immediately preceded positive or negative target pictures (Experiment 1) or words (Experiments 2 & 3). Evaluative categorization responses to these target stimuli were significantly influenced by the valence of the prime. First, it was demonstrated that high anxious participants were selectively slowed when the subliminally presented prime was negative (Experiments 1 & 2). Second, the affective congruence between primes and targets also exerted an influence on the responses, but in a direction that is opposite to what is typically observed in affective priming research. These reverse priming effects are situated within a series of recent similar findings, and implications for theories of affective priming are discussed.

Understanding women's anger: a description of relational patterns

Sixty women's narratives about their anger were coded for elements of anger expression. Their decisions regarding how and where to express anger are most strongly influenced by the anticipated reactions of others. Six patterns of bringing anger into relationships or keeping it out were identified. Women bring anger into relationship: (1) positively and directly, with the goal of removing barriers to relationship; (2) aggressively, with the goal of hurting another; and (3) indirectly, through disguising anger with the goal of remaining safe from interpersonal consequences, using strategies of (a) quiet sabotage, (b) hostile distance, (c) deflection, and (d) loss of control. Women keep anger out of relationship (1) consciously and constructively, choosing to express it in positive ways; (2) explosively expressing anger, but not in the presence of another; and (3) through self-silencing, which ranges from conscious to less-conscious awareness of anger and its suppression. Implications of differing patterns for women's health are discussed.

Problems in Silverman's work indicate the need for a new approach to research on subliminal psychodynamic activation

The basic assumption in subliminal psychodynamic activation research is that participants can unconsciously perceive the psychodynamic meaning of a complete message as it is intended by the experimenter. In attempts to account for negative findings Silverman contended that this assumption holds only under certain luminance conditions and visual field positions of a message. Paradoxically, almost all of his findings, his major evidence in support of the basic assumption, came from experiments in violation of those strictures. Further, Silverman never presented MOMMY AND I ARE ONE under a critical condition required for it to be effective. These and other considerations identify the need for an account of empirical findings other than his and for changes in his experimental method. Such research must take into account the encoding of subliminal stimuli, an area neglected almost completely by Silverman. Shevrin and his colleagues' 1996 work is outlined as a model for the use of subliminal stimuli to investigate psychoanalytically generated hypotheses.

Paradoxical and less paradoxical effects of thought suppression: a critical review

The process of consciously trying to avoid certain thoughts is referred to as thought suppression. Experimental research has documented that thought suppression may have paradoxical effects in that it leads to an increased frequency of the to-be-suppressed thought intruding consciousness. It has also been claimed that suppression has disruptive effects on episodic memory (i.e., a less paradoxical effect). The present article critically evaluates studies on the paradoxical and less paradoxical effects of thought suppression. More specifically, the issue of whether thought suppression plays a causative role in the development of various psychopathological symptoms is addressed. While laboratory studies have come up with highly consistent findings about the paradoxical effects of thought suppression, there is, as yet, little reason to believe that such effects are implicated in the etiology of obsessions, phobias, or other psychopathological conditions. Relatively little work has been done on the alleged memory effects of thought suppression. The studies that have examined this issue have found mixed results. Accordingly, the case for the amnestic power of thought suppression is weak. Alternative explanations and competing theories are discussed, and it is concluded that research concerned with the psychopathological consequences of thought suppression would benefit from development of better taxonomies of intrusive thinking and cognitive avoidance strategies.

Freud comes to Palestine. A study of psychoanalysis in a cultural context

The authors describe the founding of Hashomer Hatzair as a radical Zionist scouting movement in Eastern Europe between 1913 and 1919, a little known episode in the rich history of Freud's impact upon this century. As refugees in Vienna, the young adherents of the movement experienced enormous personal and collective turmoil. Desperate to construct new, viable identities, these intellectually vibrant young men and women were drawn to Freud as part of their project of self-creation. Beginning in the 1920s, as members of Hashomer Hatzair settled in agriculturally based collectives known as kibbutzim, the educational leadership of the movement argued that psychoanalytically informed education was the key to raising children free of bourgeois neuroses. They established strong ties with European analysts, translated and published psychoanalytic texts, insisted that educators be analysed or, at least, psychoanalytically informed, and built a complex educational system founded on their particular understanding of Freudian insights. For them, psychoanalysis was also seen as a general prophylactic guaranteeing the mental hygiene of the community as a whole. The authors examine the complex relationship between Hashomer Hatzair and psychoanalysis. In particular, they ask why these young adults were so drawn to Freud and what their particular reading of the psychoanalytic texts was, and demonstrate how these young pioneers created a 'usable Freud' as part of their project of designing and building a utopian society.

Compensation for subliminal timing perturbations in perceptual-motor synchronization

It is sometimes assumed that limits of temporal discrimination established in psychophysical tasks constrain the timing information available for the control of action. Results from the five perceptual-motor synchronization experiments presented here argue against this assumption. Experiment 1 demonstrates that subliminal (0.8-2%) local changes in interval duration in an otherwise isochronous auditory sequence are rapidly compensated for in the timing of synchronized finger tapping. If this compensation is based on perception of the highly variable synchronization error (SE) rather than of the local change in stimulus period, then it could be based solely on SEs that exceed the temporal order threshold. However, that hypothesis is ruled out by additional analyses of Exp. 1 and the results of Exp. 2, a combined synchronization and temporal order judgment task. Experiments 3-5 further show that three factors that affect the detectability of local deviations from stimulus isochrony do not inhibit effective compensation for such deviations in synchronized tapping. Experiment 5, a combined synchronization and detection task, shows directly that compensation for timing perturbations does not depend on explicit detection. Overall, the results suggest that the automatic processes involved in the temporal control of action have access to more accurate timing information than do the conscious decision processes of auditory temporal judgment.

Subliminal activation of abandonment- and eating-related schemata: relationship with eating disordered attitudes in a nonclinical population

OBJECTIVE

Previous research has demonstrated that subliminal abandonment cues can facilitate eating behavior. It is believed that such eating is a response to the activation of specific core schemata. However, the precise nature of those schemata has not been established. This study examined whether the presentation of subliminal abandonment and food/shape cues results in the activation of abandonment-related or food-related schemata.

METHOD

Eighty-two women were exposed to one of three subliminal cues- an abandonment cue ("lonely"), an appetitive cue ("hungry"), and a neutral cue ("gallery"). They subsequently completed Stroop tasks to measure activation of relevant schemata.

RESULTS

Subliminal presentation of abandonment cues led to the activation of food- and shape-related schemata. In contrast, subliminal appetitive cues resulted in an activation of abandonment-related schemata.

CONCLUSIONS

The results show preliminary support for a multilevel cognitive model, involving indirect links between subliminal cue type and the activation of eating-related cognitions.

Activating transference without consciousness: using significant-other representations to go beyond what is subliminally given

Two studies examined nonconscious transference in social perception, defined as inferences about a new person based on a subliminally triggered significant-other representation (e.g., S. M. Andersen & S. W. Cole, 1990). In a nomothetic experimental paradigm involving idiographic stimuli, participants believed they were playing a computer game with another participant while exposed to subliminal descriptors from either their own, or a yoked participant's, significant other. In an impression-rating task, participants were more likely to infer that their "game partner" had significant-other features not subliminally presented when the subliminal cues described their own, rather than a yoked participant's, significant other. Another control condition in Study 1 ruled out self-generation effects. A subliminality check confirmed that stimuli were nonconscious. Hence, subliminal activation of significant-other representations and nonconscious transference occur.

Further evidence for unconscious learning: preliminary support for the conditioning of facial EMG to subliminal stimuli

This study investigated the predictive validity of facial electromyograms (EMGs) in a subliminal conditioning paradigm. Two schematic faces (pleasant; CS- and unpleasant; CS+), were presented to eight right-handed males during supraliminal pre- and postconditioning phases. Subliminal conditioning consisted of 36 energy-masked presentations of each face pairing the CS+ with an aversive shock 800 ms poststimulus. A forced-choice recognition task established that the energy mask effectively precluded conscious recognition of stimuli. For the obicularis oculi and corrugator EMGs, significant face x condition interactions were found at 20-100 ms and 400-792 ms poststimulus. The results demonstrate the existence of an expressive motoric response related to affect operating in response to a learned but unconscious event. Subjects were not aware of a contingency between the CS+ and the US, suggesting emotional contingencies can be unconsciously acquired.

The elusive concept of 'internal objects' (1934-1943). Its role in the formation of the Klein Group

The author traces a debate about the concept of 'internal objects' that took place between 1937 and 1943 at a time when a group of British analysts was forming around Melanie Klein. The debate is set within a complex of personal, group and organisational dynamics, which the paper makes a start on unravelling. The history of the British Psycho-Analytical Society at this time exemplifies Bion's notion of group schism. The events in the Society's history demonstrate defensive aspects of the interaction between the opposed groups, which support members against various anxieties. These include the stress of the work of analysis, but also in this instance the particular anxieties deriving from the collapse of psychoanalysis in Europe, the state of war of the country as a whole, and the death of Freud shortly after he came to London. This psychoanalytic anxiety/defence model clarifies some aspects of the debate about internal objects, and demonstrates the way in which these various anxieties and defences become organised around a scientific debate in a scientific society.

The theory of seduction and the problem of the other

The author offers a survey of his general theory of seduction, elaborated in order to give an account of the origin of the psychic apparatus and the drives, starting from the adult-infant relation. This theory supposes that, in the sexual domain, such a relation is asymmetrical, the sexual message originating in the adult other. The author develops here the consequences of such an originary primacy of the other, especially for the notion of sublimation and the process of the analytic treatment. The analytic situation and method, as invented by Freud, implies a radical change of perspective in the philosophical and anthropological conception of the human being, in forcing us to move from a self-centred, 'Ptolemaic' vision, belonging to the old philosophy of the subject, to an other-centred, 'Copernican' vision.

Undoing the lag in the technique of conflict and defense analysis

When the individual skills of a psychotherapist or psychoanalyst coincide with what serves as a sublimation for the practitioner, the gratification in the clinical work is especially enhanced. If those moments of applied skill also are a part of the specific therapeutic action of that form of treatment, a fortunate combination exists. As Freud expanded the potential of psychoanalytic treatment when he reformulated the theory of anxiety, he also provided access to improved therapeutic actions in the course of analyzing intrapsychic conflict. This meant that some of the sublimations in practicing the earlier techniques no longer coincided with what could be the therapeutic actions characteristic of the more effective analysis of conflict. The lag in adding new technical measures to psychoanalytic methodology is more fully accounted for by a reluctance on the part of some analysts to sacrifice certain traditional sources of sublimated projection in interpretations and to seek other sublimations commensurate with Freud's more advanced view of analyzing defenses.