Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration Among Sexual Minority People and Associated Factors: A Systematic Review of Quantitative Studies

INTRODUCTION

Intimate partner violence (IPV) among sexual minority people has been underestimated since few decades ago despite its spreading. The current systematic review aims to review and systematize studies on factors associated with IPV perpetration within this population.

METHODS

Data search was conducted on EBSCO and PubMed considering articles published until July 2022, and 78 papers were included.

RESULTS

Although methodological limitations can affect the results found, the data demonstrated an association between IPV perpetration and psychological, relational, family of origin-related and sexual minority-specific factors, substance use, and sexual behaviors.

CONCLUSION

The findings emerged highlight the importance of a multidimensional approach to tackle IPV perpetration among sexual minority people and limit relapses, while increasing individual and relational wellbeing.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

The empirical evidence emerged can contribute to the development of policies and services tailored for sexual minority people victims of IPV, to date still scarce and often ineffective.

Creating Alternative Reality: A Case Study

The sense of reality that underlie political beliefs are created through a group process that emerges from the intersection of the psyches of leaders and followers. An alternative reality is constructed by the demagogue's assertions which express or channel unconscious needs. Antecedents of the contemporary American situation are evident in earlier populist and Fascist movements, the hallmark of which were an attack on all "truth" except that which reflects the power of the leader. Faults in the social field and demagogic techniques lead to alternative narratives and "facts" that are maintained with fervor. Reality is characterized by a lack of complexity or ambiguity. Emotional investment is intensified by primitive needs of the self. Cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias guarantee a resistance to reflection. Evidence and logic give way to wish, loyalty and power as the criteria for truth. Ultimately a clash of realities results in complex social trauma.

The Leader's Hypnotic Influence and the Creation of Alternate Reality

Psychoanalysis has traditionally been an insular practice by analysts in their offices sequestered from any outside intrusion. However, in recent years a demand for psychoanalytic perspectives on the underlying dynamics of political figures and social phenomena has arisen. Media representatives have increasingly approached psychoanalysts for insight into such conditions as narcissistic personality disorder, compulsive lying, delusional thinking, when attempting to understand the irrational machinations of authoritarian leaders. Here, we will not be investigating the individual psyche, but rather the relationship between psyche and the culture of the populace (i.e., the polis). This paper considers the complex underlying dynamics of leaders' hypnotic influence and the creation of an alternate reality.

Afterwards-Forgetting, Remembering, Transmitting. Extreme Trauma and Culture in Post-National-Socialist Germany

Facing the rupture the Shoah marks in the history of humanity and in the life of survivors and their relatives, this article approaches long-term psychosocial consequences-after Auschwitz. The dimensions of "forgetting" in post-Nazi Germany are brought into focus by the remembering and passing on of extreme traumatic experiences of persecution. To gain insights into these processes, this article differentiates between traumatization and extreme traumatization. Survivors remember and pass on their experiences of persecution, especially through non-verbal communication and in the form of unconsciously shaped "scenes." This Scenic Memory of the Shoah is conveyed in relationships with descendants, to fellow human beings, to the environment and thus also in experiences of anti-Semitism in Germany today. The fact that extreme traumatization is expressed precisely in scenes of coexistence also means that it must be understood as an embedded factor in society, in culture-in forgetting and remembering "afterwards."

The nested hierarchy of self and its trauma: In search for a synchronic dynamic and topographical re-organization

The sense of self has always been a topic of high interest in both psychoanalysis and most recently in neuroscience. Nowadays, there is an agreement in psychoanalysis that the self emerges from the relationship with the other (e.g., the caregiver) in terms of his/her capacity to attune, regulate, and synchronize with the emergent self of the infant. The outcome of this relational/intersubjective synchronization is the development of the sense of self and its regulatory processes both in dynamic psychology and neuroscience. In this work, we propose that synchrony is a fundamental biobehavioral factor in these dialectical processes between self and others which shapes the brain-body-mind system of the individuals, including their sense of self. Recently in neuroscience, it has been proposed by the research group around Northoff that the self is constituted by a brain-based nested hierarchical three-layer structure, including interoceptive, proprio-exteroceptive, and mental layers of self. This may be disrupted, though, when traumatic experiences occur. Following the three levels of trauma theorized by Mucci, we here suggest how different levels of traumatic experiences might have an enduring effect in yielding a trauma-based topographic and dynamic re-organization of the nested model of self featured by dissociation. In conclusion, we propose that different levels and degrees of traumatic experience are related to corresponding disruptions in the topography and dynamic of the brain-based three-layer hierarchical structure of the self.

Violência doméstica e saúde de mulheres migrantes bolivianas moradoras em oficinas domiciliares de costura na Grande São Paulo

Resumo A intersecção entre migração, violência doméstica e saúde é um assunto pouco explorado no Brasil. O objetivo deste artigo é discutir a violência doméstica enfrentada por mulheres migrantes bolivianas residentes em oficinas de costura domiciliares em São Paulo. Este texto é fruto de uma pesquisa etnográfica com migrantes bolivianas que trabalham ou trabalharam em oficinas na Grande São Paulo. Os dados evidenciaram a necessidade de promover campanhas contra a violência doméstica nas oficinas de costura considerando as condições únicas que muitas apresentam como espaços privados, públicos e transnacionais. A pesquisa destaca a importância do setor de saúde para promover estratégias de cuidados para trabalhadoras em oficinas e capacitar os profissionais em saúde que trabalham com essa população para reconhecer situações de violência e promover a segurança e saúde das vítimas da violência doméstica.

Using a mediating model of death attitude and meaning in life to understand nursing students attitude about hospice care

BACKGROUND

Nurse-led hospice teams are an emerging trend in contemporary health care practice in China. However, Chinese nursing students are often ill-prepared to work in hospice care. Study findings on the attitude of nursing students toward the care of people who are dying and death varied among different countries and regions.

OBJECTIVES

To propose and empirically test a mediating model that examines how death attitude and meaning in life interact to affect Chinese undergraduate nursing students and their attitude toward the care of people who are dying.

DESIGN

A cross-sectional study.

PARTICIPANTS

A convenience sample of 1410 Chinese undergraduate nursing students.

METHODS

Data were collected from July to December 2020 using Chinese versions of the Frommelt Attitude Toward Care of the Dying Scale, Form B (FATCOD-B-C), Death Attitude Profile-Revised (DAP-R-C), and Purpose in Life Test (CPLT-C). SPSS version 22.0 and AMOS version 24.0 were used for statistical analysis.

RESULTS

The average FATCOD-B-C score was 98.28 ± 8.02. Death attitude and meaning in life were positively correlated with attitude toward care of the dying (p < 0.001), but death attitude was negatively correlated with meaning in life (p < 0.001). Pathway analysis showed that fear of death was significantly and positively correlated with attitude toward care of people who are dying. A mediating role was found among neutral acceptance, escape acceptance, and meaning in life to some extent. Meaning in life suppressed effects among the model.

CONCLUSION

This study revealed that Chinese undergraduate nursing students' attitude toward care of the dying was a positive nurturing process. Future nurse education should first identity the fear of death, neutral acceptance, or escape acceptance of nursing students' death attitude, and then develop a hospice curriculum based on fear management.

The Narcissistic dynamics of submission: the attraction of the powerless to authoritarian leaders

Ferenczi's conception of identification with the aggressor, which describes children's typical response to traumatic assaults by family members, provides a remarkably good framework to understand mass social and economic trauma. In the moment of trauma, children instinctively submit and comply with what abusers want-not just in behavior but in their perceptions, thoughts, and emotions-in order to survive the assault; afterwards they often continue to comply, out of fear that the family will turn its back on them. Notably, a persistent tendency to identify with the aggressor is also typical in children who have been emotionally abandoned by narcissistically self-preoccupied parents, even when there has not been gross trauma. Similarly, large groups of people who are economically or culturally dispossessed by changes in their society typically respond by submitting and complying with the expectations of a powerful figure or group, hoping they can continue to belong-just like children who are emotionally abandoned by their families. Not surprisingly, emotional abandonment, both in individual lives and on a mass scale, is typically felt as humiliating; and it undermines the sense that life is meaningful and valuable.But the intolerable loss of belonging and of the feeling of being a valuable person often trigger exciting, aggressive, compensatory fantasies of specialness and entitlement. On the large scale, these fantasies are generally authoritarian in nature, with three main dynamics-sadomasochism, paranoid-schizoid organization, and the manic defense-plus a fourth element: the feeling of emotional truth that follows narcissistic injury, that infuses the other dynamics with a sense of emotional power and righteousness. Ironically, the angry attempt to reassert one's entitlements ends up facilitating compliance with one's oppressors and undermining the thoughtful, effective pursuit of realistic goals.

Second Thoughts: Pseudo-reality Between Hypnosis and Spectacle

"Second Thoughts: Pseudo-Reality Between Hypnosis and Spectacle" expands the discussion of Endre Koritar's and Robert Prince's presentations in the 2021 International Sándor Ferenczi Network webinar series, Listening with Ferenczi (Koritar, 2022a; Prince, 2022). Beginning with a segue from Prince's reference to Thomas Mann's "Mario and the Magician," the present paper expands focus from the dynamics of leadership to the grooming of followership along the pathway of image as the American national addiction to pseudo-reality, a fascinating and omnipotently expected, always disappointing entitlement (Boorstin, 1961). Political spectacle, ascendant in American executive, legislative, and judicial performance since 2016, functions as image-supercharged, with its guarantee of gratification powerfully overcoming disappointment.

Anorexia nervosa and familial risk factors: a systematic review of the literature

Anorexia Nervosa (AN) is a psychological disorder involving body manipulation, self-inflicted hunger, and fear of gaining weight.We performed an overview of the existing literature in the field of AN, highlighting the main intrafamilial risk factors for anorexia. We searched the PubMed database by using keywords such as “anorexia” and “risk factors” and “family”. After appropriate selection, 16 scientific articles were identified. The main intrafamilial risk factors for AN identified include: increased family food intake, higher parental demands, emotional reactivity, sexual family taboos, low familial involvement, family discord, negative family history for Eating Disorders (ED), family history of psychiatric disorders, alcohol and drug abuse, having a sibling with AN, relational trauma. Some other risk factors identified relate to the mother: lack of maternal caresses, dysfunctional interaction during feeding (for IA), attachment insecurity, dependence. Further studies are needed, to identify better personalized intervention strategies for patients suffering from AN.

Managing Transference and Countertransference in Cognitive Behavioral Supervision: Theoretical Framework and Clinical Application

Dysfunctional patterns, beliefs, and assumptions that affect a patient’s perception of other people often affect their perceptions and behaviours towards the therapist. This tendency has been traditionally called transference for its psychoanalytical roots and presents an important factor to monitor and process. In supervision, it is important to put the patient’s transference in the context of the conceptualization of the case. Countertransference occurs when the therapist responds complementary to the patient’s transference based on their own dysfunctional beliefs or assumptions. Transference and countertransference provide useful insights into the inner world of the patient, therapist, and supervisor. Guided discovery is one of the most common approaches used by a supervisor and a supervisee to map all types and directions of transference and countertransference. Other options to map transference and countertransference are imagery and role-playing techniques.

Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy for Cancer Caregivers: A pilot trial among caregivers of patients with glioblastoma multiforme

Caregivers of patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) are at significant risk for existential distress. Such distress negatively impacts caregivers' quality of life and capacity to serve in their role as healthcare proxies, and ultimately, contributes to poor bereavement outcomes. Our team developed Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy for Cancer Caregivers (MCP-C), the first targeted psychosocial intervention that directly addresses existential distress in caregivers. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effects of MCP-C among caregivers of patients with GBM via a mixed-method pilot trial. Caregivers were randomized to seven sessions of MCP-C or Enhanced Usual Care (EUC), which included distress screening and the provision of targeted referrals and completed quantitative assessments at baseline (T1), after completion of MCP-C (T2), and at 2-month follow-up (T3). A subset of participants engaged in semistructured interviews at T2. Of 60 caregivers randomized, 55 were evaluable for preliminary efficacy analysis. Constrained linear mixed models indicated the MCP-C arm had statistically significant improvement relative to the EUC arm in the primary outcome of personal meaning and multiple secondary outcomes, including benefit finding, depressive symptomatology, and spiritual wellbeing. MCP-C demonstrated preliminary efficacy in facilitating caregivers' capacity to experience a sense of meaning and purpose despite the challenges and suffering associated with providing care to patients with GBM. Future studies are needed among more diverse samples of caregivers and should include the opportunity for concurrent patient enrollment to allow for a reciprocal and augmented experience of meaning among patient-caregiver dyads.

Through a Glass Darkly: a clinical journey

The use of the empathic mode for engaging and communicating with patients has become widely accepted by many psychoanalytic psychotherapists since Kohut’s early formulations (Kohut, 1971; Atwood & Stolorow, 2014). However, diagnostic understanding based on ongoing empathic immersion with our patients is often complicated because it is continually being modified as we know them more deeply and as transference and countertransference factors influence our perceptions. To illustrate the complexity of diagnosis when it is grounded in ongoing empathic engagement with our patients, I describe in detail my treatment of an elderly woman who initially presented with severe and acute symptoms of psychological, cognitive, and physical impairment. As the treatment has progressed, my diagnostic understanding has been continually modified to include a combination of psychodynamic and organic factors including PTSD, intense unresolved grief, and extreme feelings of guilt and need for punishment. Adding further to this conundrum, I have been frequently challenged by my own responses to the fluctuations in her progress, especially to periods of hopefulness followed by periods of despair and regression.

Psychoanalytic psychotherapies and the free energy principle

In this paper I propose a model of the fundamental components of psychoanalytic psychotherapies that I try to explicate with contemporary theories of the Bayesian brain and the Free Energy Principle (FEP). I first show that psychoanalytic therapies require a setting (made up of several envelopes), a particular psychic state and specific processes (transference, free association, dreaming, play, reflexivity and narrativity) in order to induce psychic transformations. I then analyze how these processes of transformations operate and how they can be enlightened by the FEP. I first underline the fact that psychoanalytic therapies imply non-linear processes taking time to unfold and require a setting containing high entropy processes. More precisely, these processes are characterized by an interplay between extension and reduction of free energy. This interplay also favors the emergence of new orders of subjective experience, which occur following states of disorder, according to a certain energetic threshold allowing the modification and improvement of mental functioning. These high entropy states are also characterized by random functioning and psychic malleability which favors the exploration of subjective experience in an original manner. Overall, the approach proposed in this paper support the dialogue between psychoanalysis and other fields of research while underlining how psychoanalytical theoretical and conceptual constructs can also be useful to other disciplines, in particular the neurosciences of subjectivity.

Veterinary students' views on surgical entrustable professional activities and the impact of COVID-19 on clinical competence development

Background

The primary purpose of this study was to understand veterinary students’ views on the described key surgical entrustable professional activities (EPAs) and to understand how COVID‐19 restrictions have impacted their clinical skill and competence development.

Methods

Final‐year veterinary students at a single institute completed a web‐based survey distributed by email. The survey aimed to characterise five constructs regarding EPAs, and a specific five‐point Likert‐like scale was created asking explicitly worded questions for each construct.

Results

One hundred and ten students responded. The cohort agreed that the previously described key surgical EPAs were clinically important and relevant, but over 50% of the respondents felt that they had no substantial experience with them and were not confident or comfortable performing them. Additionally, most students (95%) felt their clinical development was negatively impacted by COVID‐19.

Conclusions

The results of this study show that the key EPAs proposed are considered important skills by the undergraduate cohort described and that experience levels when entering the final year are lacking, potentially due to reduced exposure to clinical cases influenced by the COVID‐19 pandemic.

Chronic feelings of emptiness in a large undergraduate sample: Starting to fill the void

Chronic emptiness in borderline personality disorder (BPD) has received little empirical attention. We sought to examine basic properties of a single chronic emptiness item, including prevalence, reliability, validity, the relation of the emptiness item to other BPD criteria, and measures of personality. Undergraduates enrolled in psychology courses over 12 years' time completed the McLean Screening Instrument for Borderline Personality Disorder (MSI-BPD) (N = 22,217). Subsets of participants completed the International Personality Disorder Examination-Screening Questionnaire (IPDE-SQ) (N = 2732), The Revised NEO Personality Inventory (Anxiety, Angry Hostility, Depression, Positive Emotions [reversed], and Impulsivity facets) (N = 10,506), and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) (N = 1110) as validity indicators; 10.0% of respondents endorsed emptiness. Reliability indices suggested moderate levels of reliability between two emptiness items (r(2730) = 0.61, p < 0.001). Among BPD criteria, emptiness and identity disturbance correlated most strongly (r(22,215) = 0.81, p < 0.001). MSI emptiness was more correlated with depression on the NEO (r(10,504) = 0.43, p < 0.001) and DASS (r(1108) = 0.51, p < 0.001) than other facets of negative affect. Emptiness was more correlated with greater borderline pathology than any other MSI-BPD item (Sample 1, r_tet  = 0.87; Sample 2, r_tet  = 0.86). This criterion warrants further study and attention, especially related to assessment of BPD.

Psychoanalysis with adults inspired by parent-infant psychotherapy: The analyst's metaphoric function

This paper investigates a phenomenon observed in parent-infant psychotherapy (PIP). Metaphors emerge in the analyst and, once voiced, they can become tools for understanding the present predicament of mother and/or child. The article contains vignettes from work with a mother and her son, four weeks old when PIP started. They are followed by a vignette of an adult analysand. In both settings, the analyst found himself in an impasse, until he came up with a metaphor expressed to the mother and the analysand, respectively. The paper investigates why PIP experiences might inspire an analyst to suggest metaphors to adult patients as well and thence to understand their suffering better. Aspects of linguistic theory underlining the infantile roots of metaphors are submitted as well as other analysts' views of using metaphors at work. It describes how the validity of a metaphor - whether it expresses something essential about the patient's internal world - should be assessed by following up his/her response to it. It defends the position that metaphor, if used with parsimony and sobriety, is a valuable tool in enabling the patient to map their internal world.

Using prosocial behavior to safeguard mental health and foster emotional well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic: A registered report of a randomized trial

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic, the accompanying lockdown measures, and their possible long-term effects have made mental health a pressing public health concern. Acts that focus on benefiting others—known as prosocial behaviors—offer one promising intervention that is both flexible and low cost. However, neither the range of emotional states prosocial acts impact nor the size of those effects is currently clear—both of which directly influence its attractiveness as a treatment option.

Objective

To assess the effect of prosocial activity on emotional well-being (happiness, belief that one’s life is valuable) and mental health (anxiety, depression).

Methods

1,234 respondents from the United States and Canada were recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and randomly assigned (by computer software) to perform prosocial (N = 411), self-focused (N = 423), or neutral (N = 400) behaviors three times a week for three weeks. A follow-up assessment was given two weeks after the intervention. Participants were blind to alternative conditions. Analyses were based on 1052 participants (Nprosocial = 347, Nself = 365, Nneutral = 340).

Findings

Those in the prosocial condition did not differ on any outcome from those in the self-focused or neutral acts conditions during the intervention or at follow-up, nor did prosocial effects differ for those who had been negatively affected socially or economically by the pandemic (all p’s > 0.05). Exploratory analyses that more tightly controlled for study compliance found that prosocial acts reduced anxiety relative to neutral acts control (β = -0.12 [95% CI: -0.22 to -0.02]) and increased the belief that one’s life is valuable (β = 0.11 [95% CI: 0.03 to 0.19]). These effects persisted throughout the intervention and at follow-up.

Conclusion

Prosocial acts may provide small, lasting benefits to emotional well-being and mental health. Future work should replicate these results using tighter, pre-registered controls on study compliance.

"Imagine, 7 Years Without a Future": A Qualitative Study of Rejected Asylum Seekers' Life Conditions in Norway

Asylum seekers are in an extraordinary situation as their future life depend on decisions made by authorities in a bewildering, bureaucratic system, with excessive waiting and unpredictable timeframes. Those that are not granted asylum, and not able to return to their country of origin, can neither spatially nor temporally visualize if, when or how a potential change is going to occur. This paper is part of a larger study based on narrative interviews with asylum seekers and refugees in asylum centers in Norway, exploring their experiences before, during, and after flight. As we found that the life circumstances for those being refused asylum, were highly different from other participants in the project, we chose to address this particular group in a separate paper. The participants in this part of the study consisted of 21 individuals (of a total of 78 participants) in the age range 18-44, of whom eight were female and 13 males. Trough qualitative interviews and participant observation the aim of this study was to explore and describe the life condition and mental health situation of rejected asylum seekers in Norway. We found that the gradual loss of rights, opportunities and finances are experienced as a form of violence that leads to extreme mental and social suffering. This policy clearly conflicts with Human Rights incorporated in the Norwegian constitution, and we argue that it legitimizes treating asylum seekers as a group of undesirable and underserving political bodies, with serious consequences for their mental health and wellbeing.

Art Therapy Open Studio and Teen Identity Development: Helping Adolescents Recover from Mental Health Conditions

Adolescent identity development is driven to a significant degree by peer interaction. However, when mental health conditions (MHC) or other crises separate teens from their peers, their identity development can be slowed or arrested. We developed a unique open studio intervention (OS-ID) that could facilitate identity development in teens recovering from MHC, and incorporated this intervention into a therapeutic day school catering to our target population. We utilized qualitative case study research to explore these students’ experiences. Over the 10-month period of our intervention, we saw positive changes in the participants’ identity development. Key elements in OS-ID include the therapists’ commitment to supported autonomy; the absence of participatory demands; the emphasis on creative process over product; the use of setting and materials to promote the healing process; the facilitators’ and participants’ witnessing the process; the privatization and protection of the participants’ creations; and the ubiquitous presence of non-threatening significant others. This OS-ID modality could be an effective mechanism for assisting socially isolated teens to manage their social anxiety, develop their identity, and transition back into their peer environments.

Ferenczian Elasticity in the Analysis of an Adolescent

Psychoanalytic work with adolescents poses a challenge for analysts who adhere to standard analytic technique as many adolescents who need analytic intervention resist such a structured approach to analysis. The author finds that elasticity of technique is currently widely used by analysts when working with this difficult age group even though they may be unaware that this is, in fact, a Ferenczian technique. Clinical examples are presented to illustrate how frequently the technique is used in cases of resistant, troubled youth. The author outlines an approach that is sensitive to these resistances and makes compromises in technique based on the principle that engaging a troubled youth in a therapeutic venture is preferable to refusing treatment based on the patient's not being able to adhere to standard analytic technique. In this sense, Ferenczi was an early herald of the type of contemporary analytic work that is practiced currently especially with a difficult population of patients.

Social Trauma and Testimony: A Reading of Maryan S. Maryan's Notebooks Inspired by Sándor Ferenczi

The purpose of this paper is to present the relational dimension of trauma according to Sándor Ferenczi, illustrating it by using the testimonial material produced during the analysis of Maryan S. Maryan, a visual artist, survivor of Auschwitz. Furthermore, a few formulations are proposed on being witness to traumatic experiences in psychoanalytic practice, as well as what can be considered as ethics and politics in psychoanalysis when facing situations of social trauma and violence.

Invasion of Ukraine: Observations on Leader-Followers Relationships

This paper illustrates how and when the personality characteristics of a political leader can initiate and/or become intertwined with societal and political processes. We are not suggesting that “real world” issues and secondary process calculations are not important or should be discarded in favor of psychological considerations. Instead, we suggest that psychoanalysts and psychodynamically informed mental health professionals can contribute to a more complete analysis of political or societal processes and the personalities of leaders who play major roles in them. Only through such interdisciplinary work can we fully understand the complex and intertwined nature of the crucial events that shape political leaders’ internal and external worlds.

The Unwelcome Child as a Dynamic Construct of the Terrorist Mind

Psychoanalytic discourse on the dynamics of the terrorist mindset has been challenged by the absence of clinical work with terrorists in the literature. This paper proposes Ferenczi's concept of the unwelcome child as a dynamic construct of the terrorist mind. Unwelcome children have weak life instincts and correspondingly high death instincts. Clinical material from the analysis of an unwelcome child is presented which suggests that a sense of anomie and alienation from social ties may lead to a fundamentalist mind set which may potentially lead to a search for meaning in terrorist acts. The struggle between life and death instincts is demonstrated in the clinical material, with life instinct tipping the scales in this instance. Self-preservative survival instinct is proposed as the theoretical construct for life instinct in contrast to Freud's libido theory. The unwelcome child represents an object relations theory of the death instinct. Unwelcome children are likely a widespread phenomenon with significant social consequences.

Social Trauma, Nostalgia and Mourning in the Immigration Experience

Immigration and exile can qualify as social traumas. The individual is deprived of a holding, secure environment in which to continue their life. The process of mourning is a necessary step to connect with "going on being." Another psychic experience in migration is nostalgia; it helps the immigrant defend against the aggression resulting from current frustrations. The feeling of nostalgia can also be used to protect the ego from inadequacy. The complex components of nostalgia come from positive ones such as joy and gratitude connected with sadness about the associated loss of security, familiarity, and historical continuity. At other times, nostalgia cannot evolve, particularly in forced migration or exile. In this case, the individual enters a depressed state with accompanying feelings of self-pity, resentment, envy, and guilt, which prevents the mourning process from developing. To deal with these painful experiences, the person resorts to linking objects or linking phenomena that help them continue having contact with the past, while adjusting to their new environment.

The Freud-Ferenczi dialogue after the formulation of the Second Topic

The author proposes to examine the scientific dialogue established by Freud and Ferenczi between 1920 and 1933 after Freud's formulation of the Second Topic, the Pleasure Principle. It is very informative to explore the closeness of some formulations of Freud with the more important clinical and metapsychological intuitions of Ferenczi. The role of repetition, the value of affects, the second theory of anxiety, the elasticity of the psychoanalytical technique and the problem of traumatism are some of aspects developed in this paper.

Death Attitudes Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults in Japan: A Qualitative Study Based on Erikson's Theory of Generativity

There are few opportunities for ordinary people not familiar with death to think about it, whereas basic research on death attitudes is insufficient. This study thus examined the attitudes toward death among ordinary people through a qualitative analysis using Erikson's theory of generativity. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 middle-aged and older Japanese individuals. The results showed that death attitudes were individualized and consisted of seven components, mainly those related to agency and communion. The change in death attitudes manifested as a change in weight from agency to communion, a change in meaning and perspective, and an orientation toward well-being. In conclusion, the change in death attitudes is to become more generative by balancing agency and communion through the function of narration. This change might be termed "the maturity of death attitudes" because it is oriented toward eudaimonic well-being.

Therapists’ Experiences of Self-Transcendence: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

This study examines how seven counselors and psychotherapists in Aotearoa New Zealand made sense of their self-transcendent experiences (STE), and discussed how they see these experiences influencing their therapeutic approaches. The term “self-transcendent experience” is defined as a short-lived peak event that achieves a perceived connection beyond one’s sense of self, which can be difficult to describe in words. It is assumed that when STE occurs in the lives of psychologically healthy individuals, its aftermath is associated with increased well-being. Applying interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to seven semi-structured interviews, this study attempts to make interpretative sense of how participants understand transcendent phenomena. Results point to an interplay between participants’ perceived meaning of STE and its context, defined as the confluence of interpersonal and intrapersonal characteristics of lived experience preceding, during, and following the event. Participants couch ineffable phenomena of STE within more communicable narratives of grief and loss, shifting identity, struggling with insecurity, and undergoing transformational growth. Findings point to the role of intuitive states during therapy, where participants receive “pictures or sensations” and “pings of information.” Some participants reported sensing deep connection with clients, suggesting states of relational depth during therapy might be conceived of as low-key STE.

Sense of Relationship Entitlement of Aging Parents Toward Their Offspring (SRE-ao)-A New Concept and Measurement Tool

Our sense of entitlement influences our interactions and attitudes in a range of specific relational contexts, one of them being aging parents' relationships with their adult children. This study aimed to examine the factor structure of the Sense of Relational Entitlement-aging parents toward their offspring (SRE-ao), an 11-item questionnaire that assesses aging people's sense of relational entitlement toward their children, and examine the associations of its subscales with related personality and mental health constructs. One thousand and six participants (24.6% men), aged 65-99, with at least one child, completed the SRE-ao, Brief Symptom Inventory, Loneliness Scale, and General Belongingness scale. The SRE-ao demonstrated good construct structure using confirmatory factor analysis. Both SRE-ao subscales (restricted and inflated sense of entitlement) were significantly and positively associated with anxiety, depression, somatization and sense of loneliness and negatively with sense of belonging. When all variables were entered into a regression model, age, anxiety, and low sense of belonging, but not sense of loneliness, positively predicted both restricted and inflated sense of entitlement. Somatization negatively predicted inflated sense of entitlement. The SRE-ao is a reliable and valid scale that can be used in clinical practice and research to enhance our understanding of parent-child relationships throughout the lifespan.

"Call Me by Your Name": The Wrong Action: From Ferenczi to Enactment as a Process

It is always hard for psychoanalysis to connect free associations and action. With Freud, action could be interpreted only when it referred to the transference; otherwise, action was a resistance to the possibility of free association. Unlike Freud, Ferenczi recognized the importance of the analyst's acting-out as the patient's unconscious request for experiences of trauma to be mobilized. By presenting a clinical case, the author offers the analyst's error as the mobilization of a traumatic block. The error activates a "Process of enactment," whereas if the error is not considered positively, it is simply a mistake, or the loss of a creative opportunity.

The unwelcome child and a lack of acceptance of new ideas

Ferenczi's idea of the unwelcome child and his death instinct is used as a background for discussing the treatment of adult patients who do not expect to be received and understood and who turn their aggression back upon themselves, destroying their will to live. When these patients enter analysis, they are very difficult to reach because they have internalized an obstructive object (Bion, 1958). Further, I have linked the unwelcoming of a child to the hatred of the new idea. The paper highlights the deadening defenses that arise in response to awareness of premature separateness between mother and baby, inevitably experienced by an unwelcome child. Coming alive involves suffering the pain of the original loss. To avoid this pain, patients reject anything new, and become stuck in monotonous, seemingly lifeless, patterns where new ideas and new ways of being threaten the static order. This includes the threat that relationship with the analyst brings.

The analytic methods of Groddeck and Jung in light of the philosophy of nature

The philosophy of nature as Jung's background has been overlooked, despite its relevance for understanding the roots of analytical psychology. The German psychoanalyst Georg Groddeck shared such a background, so that a comparison is possible between his clinical view and Jung's. It is shown that natural philosophers Paracelsus, Johann von Goethe and Carl Gustav Carus had a major impact on Jung and Groddeck. Both of the latter followed Carus's theory of a creative, superindividual, and compensatory unconscious - continuing the Naturphilosophie tradition and rejecting reductionist biophysical medicine. Groddeck and Jung's holistic perspective led them to advocate natural healing, face-to-face dialectical analysis, and the uniqueness of each treatment. Thus, they were against using techniques, and instead established general methods for analytic therapy. Groddeck's thinking was closer to Jung's than to Freud's in both theory and practice. Therefore, two alternative strands should be considered within psychoanalysis: Freud's classical drive theory and Groddeck's underground two-person psychology. Thereby, Jung's analytic descendants and the relational psychoanalysts who stemmed from Groddeck's ideas could be regarded as 'cousins' due to the similarities arising from their common origin in the philosophy of nature.

Towards A Psychoanalytic Understanding Of War

Inspired by the Horneyan concept of a morality of evolution and applying the psychoanalytic method, I researched a body of scientific literature to understand the status of our society today. History, linked to natural history, is the narrative of my patient, the human species. I endeavored to find if there was a repressed trauma in the history of humanity that could explain the symptomatic, recurrent phenomenon of war. In Einstein's terms, we all condemn war and yet, paradoxically, we engage in it again and again allowing might to supersede right. I found, first, that war is not a natural but a purely historical phenomenon; second, that psychoanalysis is a qualified method to understand the phenomenon of war; and third, that, in the history of subjectivity, the slavery of women who had led the species for two-hundred-thousand years before and were then deprived of their transcendence in civil society, offered an answer to the puzzle. Most remarkable is the fact that academia has repeatedly ignored the issue when evidence is presented. I arrived at the conclusion that true gender parity in any society offers a model for substantive equality and space for peaceful expression of our inevitable differences.

The Tailor-Made Analysis: The Analyst's Adaptation to the Patient and the Question of Time

This paper considers Ferenczi's views about the need for an adaptation of the analyst to the patient through a flexible management of time during some periods of the treatment and compares his ideas to the ones put forward by Bollas regarding day-long sessions that provide a new experience of care to the patient. The author argues that changes regarding the expansion of the analytic hour, adapting it to patients' needs, is an old but still valuable theme for experiencing the boundaries of clinical practice that also brings countertransference aspects into play. Clinical material is used to illustrate the discussion in a contemporary encounter with Ferenczi.

Tales of COVID-19: Fear of Contagion and Need for Infection

The pandemic has been such a dramatic experience that it has newly illuminated the factors that can transform Hegel's necessary "infection"-a permeability to the other and the intersubjective foundation of the ego-into a contagion that alienates the subject. The dialectic between these two kinds of otherness represents what is truly at stake in any encounter-i.e., mutual recognition. Therefore, despite the terrible load of concreteness and suffering that bears directly on psychoanalysis, the theater of analysis still stands, so that the "tales of COVID-19" should also be listened to as fictional, that is, as unconscious communications in the here and now.

The Role of Sex in Intimate Relationships: An Exploration Based on Martin Buber's Intersubjective Theory

On the basis of Buber’s distinction between “I-It” and “I-Thou” relationships, this paper explores the role of sex in intimate relationships by analyzing research in the fields of psychoanalysis and attachment theory. In the “I-Thou” relationship mode, both parties are often able to fully participate in the current sexual behavior and respond wholeheartedly. When there is incoordination (or even conflict) in sexual activities, they can negotiate sincerely, and can even repair the relationship if it breaks down. In the “I-It” relationship mode, sex exists more as a tool to achieve a certain purpose (e.g., economic guarantee, sense of security and sense of control), and the intersubjective relatedness is abnormal: either the boundary will be blurred and others become my vassal (control strategy) or I become others’ vassal (compliance strategy); or the relatedness will be cut off, leading to loneliness or false independence (avoidance strategy).