On the psychodynamics of collecting

The urge to collect is a ubiquitous phenomenon which has anthropological, sociobiological and individual psychodynamic roots, but occurs far more frequently among men than women. The author examines the reasons for this gender difference and defines systematic collecting to distinguish it from addictive, obsessive and messy collecting, and from related phenomena such as perversion. The mode of collecting and choice of object are important indicators as to the unconscious psychodynamics of a collector and offer opportunity to describe his structural level. Collecting ranges across a broad spectrum, from an ego-syntonic integrated mode, i.e. sublimation, to a neurotic defence against pre-oedipal or oedipal traumas and conflicts. Alongside this drive-theoretical approach, object and Kleinian theory are also applied to the understanding of collecting. Collecting represents a specific form of object relating and way of handling primary loss trauma, which is different from addiction, compulsion, or perversion. Under certain circumstances collecting can also result in a successful Gestalt or way of life. The paper concludes with a case study showing how collecting develops from a pre-oedipal to a more integrated oedipal mode during the course of the analysis, which is reflected in changes in the transference.

Methodology in Subliminal Psychodynamic Activation: The Next Step in the Debate

Subliminal psychodynamic activation methodology has recently been the subject of an exchange of views between Birgegärd and Sohlberg (1999) and Fudin (2000). The agreements and some remaining points of contention are summarized here. The main difference of opinion appears to concern unconscious verbal encoding in relation to subjective experience in subliminal stimulation and whether subliminal psychodynamic activation results are unreliable until a full explanation of how verbal encoding works is at hand. We conclude that clarifying perspectives is important and that those suggesting alternative explanations of results on subliminal psychodynamic activation must now empirically investigate their claims.

Defense styles in Intermittent Explosive Disorder

The overreliance on immature and/or neurotic defense mechanisms, as opposed to more mature defensive functioning has been linked to several psychiatric disorders. However, to date, the role of defense styles among individuals with Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED) has not been examined. Given that individuals with IED display difficulties controlling their anger and aggression, one might expect these individuals to exhibit more immature and less mature defense styles. The current study compared participants with IED to a personality disorder (PD) comparison group, as well as to healthy volunteers (HV) on the Defense Style Questionnaire, a self-report measure that assesses the extent to which individuals endorse using mature, immature, and neurotic defense styles. Subjects with IED had significantly higher scores than both comparison groups on immature defense styles and exhibited lower scores on mature defense mechanisms. Hierarchical regression of significant defense style subscales showed that higher levels of acting out and lower levels of sublimation uniquely discriminated participants with IED from the PD and HV comparison groups.

Unconscious Desire: The Affective and Motivational Aspects of Subliminal Sexual Priming

Sexual arousal is thought to be the result of the processing of sexual cues at two levels: conscious and unconscious. Whereas numerous studies have examined the affective and motivational responses to supraliminal (consciously processed) sexual cues, much less is known regarding the responses to subliminal (processed outside of one's awareness) sexual cues. Five studies examined responses to subliminal sexual cues. Studies 1–3 demonstrated increases in adults' positive affect following exposure to subliminal sexual cues compared to control cues. Study 4 demonstrated that the positive affect resulting from exposure to subliminal sexual cues increased motivation to further engage in a neutral task. Study 5 provided evidence suggesting that the affect and motivation found in Studies 1–4 were associated with motivation to engage in sex specifically, rather than a general approach motivation. The implications of these findings for the processing of subliminal sexual cues and for human sexuality are discussed.

Unconscious Learning. Conditioning to Subliminal Visual Stimuli

The role of consciousness in Pavlovian conditioning was examined in two experiments in which visually masked neutral words were used as the conditioned stimuli (CS) and an electric shock as the unconditioned stimulus (US). The inter-stimulus interval (ISI) was established individually. A detection threshold was used in Experiment 1 and an identification threshold in Experiment 2. The primary dependent variable was the skin conductance response (SCR). Results showed that the conditioned response (CR) was acquired by 58% of participants who perceived stimuli above the identification threshold, 50% of participants who perceived stimuli below the detection threshold, and 11% of participants who perceived stimuli below the identification threshold, but above the detection threshold. These results suggest that consciousness of the CS-US contingency is not a necessary condition for acquiring a CR of the autonomous nervous system (ANS).

Sublimation and das Ding in Mahler's Symphony no. 8

This paper addresses sublimation in Gustav Mahler's Symphony no. 8 through Lacan's (1986, 1992) notion of das Ding, the Thing. The author reads Lacan as using das Ding, a term taken from Freud, as shorthand for archaic experience. Lacan provides a reference point when he states that "the Kleinian doctrine places the mother's body there" (1992, p. 117). Das Ding refers to unmediated contact with the Other, usually mother, in which traces of a primitive gratification mark the loss of immediacy, point to a lost object, and establish the trajectory of desire. Sublimation is an attempt to bring us into contact with das Ding.

Hostility ratings by parents at risk for child abuse: impact of chronic and temporary schema activation

OBJECTIVE

Two studies examined whether accessibility of hostility-related schema influenced ratings of ambiguous child pictures. Based on the social information processing model of child physical abuse (CPA), it was expected that CPA risk status would serve as a proxy for chronic accessibility of hostile schema, while priming procedures were used to manipulate temporary accessibility of hostility-related schema.

METHODS

Participants included 108 parents (79 low and 29 high CPA risk) in Experiment 1 and 88 parents (43 low and 45 high CPA risk) in Experiment 2. Parents were randomly assigned to either hostile or neutral priming conditions. Following the priming procedures, all parents rated pictures that depicted children who appeared ambiguous with regard to the extent to which they were being hostile/cooperative.

RESULTS

In both experiments, high, compared to low, CPA risk parents rated the ambiguous child pictures as more hostile. Further, both supraliminal (Experiment 1) and subliminal (Experiment 2) exposure to hostility-related words independently increased hostility ratings. In both experiments, the influence of chronic and temporary activation of hostile schema was additive and not interactive.

CONCLUSION

Findings from these experiments are consistent with the proposition that high CPA risk parents are more likely to infer hostility in response to ambiguous child cues. Further, accessibility of hostility-related schema in parents increases the likelihood of hostile inferences, which in turn may increase attributions of hostile intent and aggressive parenting behaviors.

Unconscious modulation of the conscious experience of voluntary control☆

How does the brain generate our experience of being in control over our actions and their effects? Here, we argue that the perception of events as self-caused emerges from a comparison between anticipated and actual action-effects: if the representation of an event that follows an action is activated before the action, the event is experienced as caused by one's own action, whereas in the case of a mismatch it will be attributed to an external cause rather than to the self. In a subliminal priming paradigm we show that participants overestimated how much control they had over objectively uncontrollable stimuli, which appeared after free- or forced-choice actions, when a masked prime activated a representation of the stimuli immediately before each action. This prime-induced control-illusion was independent from whether primes were consciously perceived. Results indicate that the conscious experience of control is modulated by unconscious anticipations of action-effects.

Exogenous spatial cueing modulates subliminal masked priming

An experiment combined exogenous spatial cueing with masked repetition priming. The task consisted of an alphabetic decision task (letter/pseudo-letter classification) with central targets and peripheral primes that were preceded by a valid or invalid spatial cue in the form of an exogenous abrupt onset. In an analysis including only participants who were not aware of prime stimuli, exogenous location cueing was found to reliably modulate the size of unconscious priming effects. These findings suggest that in early vision the exogenous cue boosts the signal at the location of the cue resulting in a higher gain for the subliminal prime. Our findings therefore suggest that exogenous cueing can affect the first feedforward sweep of information through the brain, a processing stream which is considered to be automatic and unconscious.

Perceptual learning can reverse subliminal priming effects

Masked primes presented prior to a target can result in inverse priming (i.e., benefits on trials in which the prime and the target are mapped onto opposite responses). In five experiments, time-of-task effects on subliminal priming of motor responses were investigated. First, we replicated Klapp and Hinkley's (2002) finding that the priming effect is initially straight (i.e., it benefits congruent trials, in which the prime and targets are mapped onto the same response) or absent, and only later reverses (i.e., faster responses in incongruent than in congruent trials). We show that the presentation of the mask plays a crucial role in this reversal and that the reversal occurs later if the mask pattern is very complex. We suggest that perceptual learning improves the recognition of task-relevant features. Once recognized, these features can trigger the preparation of the alternative response and/or inhibit the prime-activated response. These findings support an active role of the mask in priming.

Time, action, and consciousness

Time plays a central role in consciousness, at different levels and in different aspects of information processing. Subliminal perception experiments demonstrate that stimuli presented too briefly to enter conscious awareness are nevertheless processed to some extent. Implicit learning, implicit memory, and conditioning studies suggest that the extent to which memory traces are available for verbal report and for cognitive control is likewise dependent on the time available for processing during acquisition. Differences in the time available for processing also determine not only the extent to which one becomes conscious of action, but also provides the basis for making attributions of authorship to experienced acts. In this paper, we offer a brief overview of these different findings and suggest that they can all be understood based on the fact that consciousness takes time. From this perspective, the availability of representations to conscious awareness depends on the quality of these representations - the extent to which they are strong, stable in time, and distinctive. High-quality representations occur when processes of global competition have had sufficient time to operate so as to make the system settle into the best possible interpretation of the input. Such processes implement global constraint satisfaction and critically depend on reentrant processing, through which representations can be further enriched by high-level constraints. We discuss these ideas in light of current theories of consciousness, emphasizing the fact that consciousness should be viewed as a process rather than as a static property associated with some states and not with others.

Priming of semantic classifications by novel subliminal prime words

Four experiments demonstrate category congruency priming by subliminal prime words that were never seen as targets in a valence-classification task (Experiments 1, 2, and 4) and a gender-classification task (Experiment 3). In Experiment 1, overlap in terms of word fragments of one or more letters between primes and targets of different valences was larger than between primes and targets of the same valence. In Experiments 2 and 3, the sets of prime words and target words were completely disjoint in terms of used letters. In Experiment 4, pictures served as targets. The observed subliminal priming effects for novel primes cannot be driven by partial analysis of primes at the word-fragment level; they suggest instead that primes were processed semantically as whole words contingent upon prime duration.

Subliminal affective priming in clinical depression and comorbid anxiety: a longitudinal investigation

In the present study, the sequential affective priming paradigm developed by Fazio et al. [Fazio, R.H., Sanbonmatsu, D.M., Powell, M.C., Kardes, F.R., 1986. On the automatic activation of attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 50, 229-238.] was applied for the first time to investigate automatic cognitive bias in depressed patients. Unipolar depressed patients (n=22) were tested on admission and after about 7 weeks of inpatient psychotherapy. Half of the patients (n=11) were suffering from a comorbid anxiety disorder. Twenty-two healthy subjects served as controls. Affectively polarized prime words were presented subliminally followed by positive or negative target words, which had to be evaluated. Subjects' affective state was assessed by self-report measures. In the course of psychotherapy, patients recovered significantly. Study groups exhibited qualitatively different affective priming effects: In non-comorbid depressed patients, no affective priming was found. Instead, a highly significant main effect of prime valence emerged, indicating a Stroop-like interference of negative prime words at time 1. This negative bias was associated with depression level at time 1 and could not be found after recovery. Affective priming was observed in controls and comorbid patients, but in opposite directions. Direction and strength of affective priming was directly associated with anxiety level at both times. The affective priming paradigm provides evidence for differential group effects regarding unconscious emotional information processing.

Test-retest reliability of subliminal facial affective priming

Since the seminal 1993 demonstrations o f Murphy an d Zajonc, researchers have replicated and extended findings concerning subliminal affective priming. So far, however, no data on test-retest reliability of affective priming effects are available. A subliminal facial affective priming task was administered to 22 healthy individuals (15 women and 7 men) twice about 7 wk. apart. Happy and sad facial expressions were used as affective primes and neutral Chinese ideographs served as target masks, which had to be evaluated. Neutral facial primes and a no-face condition served as baselines. All participants reported not having seen any of the prime faces at either testing session. Priming scores for affective faces compared to the baselines were computed. Acceptable test-retest correlations (rs) of up to .74 were found for the affective priming scores. Although measured almost 2 mo. apart, subliminal affective priming seems to be a temporally stable effect.

Differential processing of self-referenced versus other-referenced body information among American and Chinese young adults with body image concerns

Two experiments assessed the impact of self-referenced and other-referenced primes on processing of body-related information in samples of young adults from the United States and China. In Experiment 1, 46 American university students (41 females, 5 males) comprising groups higher and lower in body weight concerns engaged in a computer-based experiment wherein subliminal self-relevant (I) and other-related (He) primes were followed by positive and negative body words to be correctly classified as such. Relative to control group participants, those high in weight concerns had slower response latencies when classifying words presented with an I prime, especially positive I-primed words, compared to He-primed body words. This pattern was not observed for control words. In a second experiment comprised of 48 Chinese university students (45 females, 3 males), respondents high in weight concerns were again slower responding to I-primed body words relative to He-primed body words and control group participants. Consistent with cognitive perspectives identifying self-schemata as a central basis for body image disturbances, findings indicated both Chinese and American young adults with concerns about body weight experience interference in processing body information linked to the self.

Conscious, preconscious, and subliminal processing: a testable taxonomy

Of the many brain events evoked by a visual stimulus, which are specifically associated with conscious perception, and which merely reflect non-conscious processing? Several recent neuroimaging studies have contrasted conscious and non-conscious visual processing, but their results appear inconsistent. Some support a correlation of conscious perception with early occipital events, others with late parieto-frontal activity. Here we attempt to make sense of these dissenting results. On the basis of the global neuronal workspace hypothesis, we propose a taxonomy that distinguishes between vigilance and access to conscious report, as well as between subliminal, preconscious and conscious processing. We suggest that these distinctions map onto different neural mechanisms, and that conscious perception is systematically associated with surges of parieto-frontal activity causing top-down amplification.

Art therapy for children: how it leads to change

The aim of art therapy is to facilitate positive change through engagement with the therapist and the art materials in a safe environment. This article will explore how art therapy is used to help children with emotional, developmental and behavioural problems. It will show how change occurs during the process of physical involvement with the materials; through the making of a significant art object; through sublimation of feelings into the images; and through communication with the therapist via the art object. The article is illustrated with case vignettes which demonstrate how the theories underpinning art therapy are put into practice, drawing attention to the changes that occur as a result.

[Creativity and visual expression]

The definition of the concept of creativity poses several difficulties and is further impeded by its vulgarizing use. It would be more suitable to apply "productivity" appropriately instead of using creativity in excessively wide sense. Creativity ought to be considered by a holistic approach, in which both conscious and unconscious factors play vital importance. Visual creativity is thought to consist of the following elements: originality, sensitivity, a special talent, as well as deeper dynamism of human personality, such as sublimation, reparative-compensating mechanisms and mentalization. All these capacities are utilised in self-healing and therapy (see art therapy). The above elements and mechanisms have important roles both in creativity and in artistic pleasure. The paper is illustrated by cases of dynamic examination of drawings.

The impact of subliminal abandonment and unification cues on eating behavior

BACKGROUND

Subliminal presentation of visual abandonment cues leads to greater levels of eating, despite a lack of conscious awareness of the information involved. The current study examined whether this behavioral impact can be countered by the subliminal presentation of contradictory, counterschematic information (unification cues).

METHOD

Ninety-six nonclinical women were presented with subliminal abandonment cues, either preceded or followed by neutral or unification cues. The dependent variable was the amount eaten after the task.

RESULTS

Presenting subliminal unification information before or after the subliminal abandonment cue significantly reduced the amount eaten (relative to the impact of neutral cues).

DISCUSSION

These findings are consistent with a model where preconscious processing of unification cues has the effect deactivating abandonment schemas, either through inoculation or restoration. Preconscious presentation of unification cues might play a role in the broader cognitive-behavioral treatment of bulimic behaviors.

In the Face of Emotions: Event-Related Potentials in Supraliminal and Subliminal Facial Expression Recognition

Is facial expression recognition marked by specific event-related potentials (ERPs) effects? Are conscious and unconscious elaborations of emotional facial stimuli qualitatively different processes? In Experiment 1, ERPs elicited by supraliminal stimuli were recorded when 21 participants viewed emotional facial expressions of four emotions and a neutral stimulus. Two ERP components (N2 and P3) were analyzed for their peak amplitude and latency measures. First, emotional face-specificity was observed for the negative deflection N2, whereas P3 was not affected by the content of the stimulus (emotional or neutral). A more posterior distribution of ERPs was found for N2. Moreover, a lateralization effect was revealed for negative (right lateralization) and positive (left lateralization) facial expressions. In Experiment 2 (20 participants), 1-ms subliminal stimulation was carried out. Unaware information processing was revealed to be quite similar to aware information processing for peak amplitude but not for latency. In fact, unconscious stimulation produced a more delayed peak variation than conscious stimulation.

Hypnotic emotional numbing: a study of implicit emotion

Twenty high hypnotizable and 20 low hypnotizable participants were administered a hypnotic induction and then presented with emotionally distressing and neutral visual images. Half the participants were administered a suggestion for emotional numbing. Participants were then asked to rate the valence of neutral words that were preceded by subliminal presentations of the negative and neutral images. Whereas highs who received the emotional-numbing suggestion reported comparable ratings of the words following presentations of the negative and neutral images, highs in the control condition and lows in both conditions reported more positive ratings of words that were preceded by the negative stimuli. These findings suggest that the subliminally presented negative stimuli led participants to rate the subsequent neutral words more positively. In contrast, hypnotic emotional numbing diminished this pattern in highs. These results are discussed in terms of the influence of hypnotic emotional numbing at a preattentive stage of processing.

Subliminality, consciousness, and temporal shifts in awareness: Implications within and beyond the laboratory

In his analysis of subliminal perception research, documented two important (but neglected) phenomena: subchance perception and temporal variability in stimulus availability and accessibility. This Commentary addresses three issues raised by Erdelyi's review: (1) the importance of distinguishing "micro" from "macro" temporal shifts; (2) the need to analyze perception without awareness data at the level of the individual as well as the group; and (3) parallels between the dissociations associated with neuroclinical phenomena (e.g., hemispheric isolation) and those observed in patients with certain forms of personality pathology. Continued integration of laboratory findings with in vivo observations of clinical syndromes will yield a more cohesive and heuristic approach to the study of implicit mental states.

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.