Seductive symbolism: Psychoanalysis in the context of oncology.

Beliefs about what caused their cancer are a central facet of patients' experience of illness. These beliefs make up the patient's theory of etiology, which derives from various sources, including conscious and unconscious fantasy. This paper highlights this dimension of patients' experience, and the possible interaction between patients' psychogenic theories of etiology and their therapists' potentially generated psychogenic theories regarding patients' disease. It is suggested that a countertransferential pull for therapists exists to generate psychogenic theory regarding patients' cancer in the face of the threat of impotency it presents. This is discussed as a seductive pull into symbolism-based understanding of patients' cancer etiology—a pull this paper aims to characterize. It is suggested that the seductive pull results from the influence of psychoanalytic psychosomatic theory in the context of the dynamic between the ill patient and the therapist. Some psychoanalytic psychosomatic theory posits symbolism-based linear psychogenesis and the possible correction of soma via psyche in a great variety of illnesses and conditions, including cancer, and the hypothetical effect of this literature on the clinician's mindset and clinical work is considered. Specifically, it is suggested that this portion of our literature might serve a psychological function for clinicians, as it can help to shore up an omnipotence defense against the undertow of chaos inherent in cancer-related bodily dysfunction. More generally, it is argued that the context of existing psychoanalytic psychosomatic theory characterized by a focus on symbolism-based linear psychogenesis is potentially influential, and that this influence needs to be examined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Psychogenesis of the Self and the Emergence of Ethical Relatedness: Klein in Light of Merleau-Ponty.

This paper presents a theory of the emergence of ethical relatedness, which is developed through a synthetic reading of the developmental theories of Melanie Klein and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Klein's theory of the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions are found to roughly parallel Merleau-Ponty's distinction between the "lived" and the "symbolic." With the additional contributions of Thomas Ogden and Martin C. Dillon, the theories of Klein and Merleau-Ponty are refined to accommodate the insights of each developmental perspective. Implications of the paper's analysis include: Opportunities to clarify key concepts in object relations theory, including projective identification; insight into the development of self-conscious emotions such as shame, guilt, embarrassment and gratitude; the articulation of a phenomenologically oriented object relations perspective which allows for human agency and therefore genuine altruism and compassion; and, finally, a validation of previous assertions that theory cannot and should not be meaningfully distinguished from ethics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Possessiveness as a characteristic of mothers of schizophrenics.

Possessiveness in mothers of schizophrenics was compared with wives and other female relatives of schizophrenics, and mothers and wives of patients with nonorganic disorders. The results indicated that there was no difference in the quality of possessiveness between the groups studied, rejecting the notion that this is a significant factor in the psychogenesis of schizophrenics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The analytic environment in times of bodily dysfunction: The effect of psychoanalytic psychosomatic theories.

This article examines the analytic environment in which psychoanalytic work occurs when patients struggle with complex somatic experiences, such as disease or physiological dysfunction. Patients express fantasies and beliefs about the etiology of their somatic experiences; they elaborate theories about why infertility, irritable bowel disease, or some other disease, syndrome, or crisis is happening to them. I consider these to be patients’ multiply determined, fantasy-saturated psychosomatic theories, and suggest that the analyst’s understanding of patients’ ideas about their somatic experiences is organized by the analyst’s both articulated and not articulated psychosomatic theories. Using brief clinical vignettes, I highlight the potentially constricting effect of clinicians’ theories on their analyses of patients’ psychosomatic theories. I examine psychoanalytic theories of psychosomatics, suggesting that adherence to the theories we have, which often posit linear psychogenesis of somatic phenomena, can result in collusion with, rather than analysis of, the psychic stances reflected by patients’ theories. To address the problematic adherence to our theories, and characterize a less constricting clinical and theoretical stance, I critique aspects of the theories and suggest directions for replenishing them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

MATERNAL ATTITUDES IN SCHIZOPHRENIA.

"This study was undertaken in order to see whether or not mothers of schizophrenic patients are characterized by certain parent-child attitudes which might be assumed to be of significance in the psychogenesis of schizophrenia… What seemed to emerge as characterizing the mothers of schizophrenics were attitudes of self-sacrificing martyrdom, of subtle (rather than frank) domination, and overprotectiveness." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

建构主义视阈下的高等数学课堂教学探讨

高等数学教育的重点是培养学生的自我学习能力,使其成为具有创新能力的高素质人才.建构主义为此提供了可借鉴的学习理论和实践指导.从建构主义学习理论的视角,对如何提高高等数学课堂教学效果进行了探讨,提出了应用心理发生原理、设置情景性教学、开展意义的建构等相关策略.