Embracing figures of speech: The transformative potential of spoken language.

The author draws on H. Loewald's theory of language and therapeutic action to elaborate two related senses in which psychoanalytic work requires embracing figures of speech. First, an inherent but frequently unacknowledged capacity of language is to embrace different modes of experience, particularly verbal and sensorimotor experience. Second, the figures or participants of the psychoanalytic conversation must and do embrace each other, with speech. Speech bridges separate individuals, thus enabling interpersonal connection. Examining the operation of spoken language in psychoanalytic treatment with case material, the author illustrates the clinical utility of mobilizing the transformative capacities of the spoken word and concludes that elucidation of these intrapsychic and interpersonal bridging capacities of language explicates the therapeutic action of the talking cure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self- and other-directed aggression in child and adolescent psychiatric inpatients

OBJECTIVE: To examine self- and other-directed aggression in 89 children and adolescents on a psychiatric inpatient unit to determine ways in which aggressive and nonaggressive patients differ and to discover those factors associated with self-directed versus other-directed aggression. METHOD: Three types of data were collected: ongoing observations of aggressive behavior during hospitalization, Child Behavior Checklists completed by a parent or guardian at admission, and patient and family history data gathered from a retrospective chart review. RESULTS: Compared with nonaggressive patients, aggressive patients were more likely to have a history of antisocial behavior, to be victims of abuse or neglect, to have lived in a foster home, and to have had several primary caretakers. Both groups of aggressive patients engaged in three types of aggressive behavior with equal frequency and were strikingly similar on a host of other variables. Only the number of primary caretakers with whom a patient had lived discriminated self- from other-directed aggressive patients; patients who experienced frequent disruptions in caretaking were likely to engage in acts of self-injury during hospitalization. CONCLUSIONS: Whether a particular patient will engage in aggressive behavior during hospitalization can be accurately predicted from preadmission characteristics; however, the manner in which a patient is likely to aggress, i.e., toward others or self, is difficult to predict because of striking similarities between types of aggressive patients. Further investigations are needed to determine how self- and other-directed aggressive patients differ and to elucidate relationships between disrupted, unstable, or inadequate caretaking and aggression, particularly self-injury, in children and adolescents.     

Divergence and fuzziness measures

In an axiomatic way a divergence between fuzzy sets is introduced which extends the symmetric difference between crisp sets. Any fuzzy measure of the divergence between two fuzzy sets weighs their “distance”. The distance between a fuzzy set and the family of crisp sets is fuzziness measure.     

Toward autonomous desire: Women's worry as post-oedipal transitional object.

A woman's capacity for autonomous desire requires transformation of the maternal identification with which she dissolved the oedipal conflict as a girl. The challenge of womanhood is release from the inhibiting childhood identification without loss of the inner maternal presence which is both a treasured emotional bond and a vital source of self. This article describes how a woman may use worry, a disguised relic of maternal care, in her move toward autonomous desire. A new concept is introduced to elucidate the complexities of the process by which the childhood identification is transformed in adulthood: the post-oedipal transitional object. Like D. W. Winnicott's (pre-oedipal) transitional object, the post-oedipal transitional object fortifies an object relationship over separation and thereby facilitates development; moreover, the post-oedipal transitional object is the creation of an adult mind that reflects mature psychological capacities and embodies neurotic conflict. This article elaborates the contributions of worry, the prototypic post-oedipal transitional object of women, to attainment of the capacity for autonomous desire in adulthood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Siblings, transference, and the lateral dimension of psychic life.

The author considers developmental and transferential implications of the lateral dimension of psychic life, which entails the challenge to forge a unique and valued identity in a world of one’s equals, beginning with siblings. The lateral dimension intersects with the vertical dimension of hierarchical relationships, notably those between child and parent. Consideration of the lateral dimension and its particular developmental challenge promises to expand our understanding of the processes of identity development and of transferences involving both siblings and parents. Moreover, conceiving of psychic life as comprising two dimensions may help to contextualize existing psychoanalytic understanding of sibling-related processes in light of fundamental tenets of psychoanalytic theory. A detailed clinical case provides an opportunity to consider the entwined roles of siblings and parents in the developmental challenges of the lateral and the vertical dimensions, and the ways in which identifications with parents and siblings may address those challenges. The author concludes that attention to the lateral dimension and its sibling-centered processes rewards us with a more comprehensive view of identity development and transference. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parental attachment styles of late adolescents: Qualities of attachment relationships and consequences for adjustment.

Lack of a self-report measure of late adolescent parental attachment style has threatened to hinder expansion of the empirical basis of attachment theory. Two studies were undertaken that provided evidence of validity for a new classification of parental attachment style from patterns of scores on the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (G. C. Armsden & M. T. Greenberg, 1987). Discriminant function analyses differentiated among secure, ambivalent, and avoidant attachment with 2 empirically derived dimensions, which paralleled the essential attachment functions theorized by M. D. S. Ainsworth (1989). Overall, insecurely attached late adolescents reported greater depression, anxiety, and worry than their securely attached counterparts. For women but not for men, insecure attachment was associated with diminished college adjustment and lower intimacy development. These results portend the promise of investigations of parental attachment style to elucidate contributions of parental attachment to late adolescent development and adjustment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)