Intense Preoccupation Research Articles

The aesthetic dimension of the psychoanalytic process

This paper brings out one perspective on the experiences of the analytic couple, and transposes it into a general perspective on the analytic process: its aesthetic dimension. It is a combined epistemological and emotional perspective that is open to both participants. By an intense preoccupation with and distance to the object, the subject tries to reconcile the object's exterior form with its imagined content. This perspective offers itself most advantageously in highly emotional situations, in which analyst and analysand feel the pain of being outsiders to each other. They are thrown back on making guesses about the other's intimations. It can bring them into indifference or despair—or it can bring out an aesthetic experience. A situation, until now unbearable, suddenly reveals its surprising potential. The theoretical discussion will be illustrated by a discussion taken from the Talmud and by two clinical examples: one from the psychoanalysis with an infant and her mother, the other with a latency girl. The paper also accounts for the aesthetic as a philosophical and psychoanalytic concept. Some recurrent topics, especially those of form and content, reflect the aesthetic experience as our continuous struggle to reconcile outward form with interior content. This struggle will be formulated as a continuation of the infantile aesthetic conflict, following Meitzer.

Selective working memory deficits in anorexia nervosa

Objective The study investigated the effects of anorexia nervosa (AN) on the three components of working memory, and the extent to which these could be attributed to preoccupying cognitions concerning food, weight and body shape. Method Participants were 24 young women with AN aged from 17 to 27 years. Their performance on the Double Span Memory task was compared against that of 24 dieting and 24 non-dieting controls. The Double Span Memory task presents a series of common objects in randomly chosen locations of a 4 × 4 grid, and requires participants to name the objects (phonological loop), point to the locations (visuo-spatial sketch pad) or both (central executive). Participants also completed a self-report measure of preoccupying thoughts about food, weight and body shape, as well as a measure of crystallised intelligence. Results Relative to non-dieting controls, dieters and AN patients performed significantly more poorly on the combined recall. AN patients alone showed impaired performance on the single recall of locations. Covariance analyses indicated that the group × recall type interaction was accounted for by self-reports of preoccupying cognitions. Discussion AN is associated with disruption of the functioning of the visuo-spatial sketch pad and central executive components of working memory. These deficits are at least partly attributable to an intense preoccupation with dieting-related thoughts, and may contribute to difficulties in processing complex information within the therapeutic context. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.

Male Athletes and Eating Disorders

The vulnerability of male athletes to unhealthy weight management practices and eating disorder symptoms is controversial. A number of authors have suggested such a relationship, and some of the empirical literature supports these conclusions. Among wrestlers, researchers1 found that 52% reported binge-eating behavior, and 11% described symptoms suggestive of a subclinical eating disorder. Several researchers describe higher scores on the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT), a self-report measure of eating disorder pathology, among male athletes. Stoutjesdyk and Jevne2 found that nearly 5% of male college athletes scored in the EAT range suggestive of anorexia nervosa, which is considerably higher than the general male population. However, some of these abnormal findings may be transient and related to the seasonal demands of the sport rather than persistent and enduring eating pathology. If present, pathologic findings may be more common in sports that emphasize a lean body shape or low body weight.3 In contrast to the preceding observations, other investigators do not find a relationship among males between participation in athletics and eating disorder symptoms. Finnish researchers4 found that male athletes did not want to lose weight. In comparing aesthetic versus endurance and ball game participants, Hausenblas5 found no differences on eating disorder measures. Among undergraduates, Wilkins et al6 found that, compared with nonathletes, athletes actually relied less on dieting behaviors for weight control and were less likely to perceive themselves as overweight. Finally, Johnson et al7 surveyed 1445 student athletes and concluded that the prevalence of anorexia or bulimia nervosa among males was 0%. Collectively, the preceding studies suggest that while participation in sports may stimulate eating pathology among some males, few seem to develop bona fide eating disorders. However, there appears to be a small risk, and the reasons for the occasional intersection between athletic involvement and eating disorders remain unclear. Participation in sports that demand a lean or low body weight may be a risk factor; this does not exclude other contributory causes such as a perfectionistic personality; accessing less competitive weight classes through weight loss (eg, wrestlers); and external pressure from coaches, teammates, and parents for athletic success. Given that the authentic risk for eating disorders among male athletes warrants further clarification, a meta-analysis of current data would seem to be an initial starting place. However, the samples available in the literature represent diverse ethnic populations and types of sports, making robust comparison difficult. A future study of male collegiate athletes might include (1) large numbers of participants from several colleges (for regional comparison) as well as from both lean and nonlean body sports, (2) comparison with nonathletic male controls, (3) interview strategies rather than self-report measures, and (4) examination for the presence of eating pathology during the off-season. In addition to the assessment of eating pathology, additional measures might explore obsessive-compulsive personality, internal versus external loci of control (ie, responsiveness to internal and external expectations), and general body satisfaction. If future studies confirm that a substantial minority of male athletes is at risk for eating disorders, several approaches to intervention might be undertaken. First, coaches and their staffs can rely on established guidelines. Such guidelines exist at several levels: the National Federation of State High School Associations' wrestling rules book8 states that, “at anytime, the use of sweat boxes; hot showers; whirlpools; rubber, vinyl, and plastic-type suites; or similar artificial heating devices…is prohibited and shall disqualify an individual from competition” (p. 15). In addition, the National Collegiate Athletic Association9 has adopted new weight control rules that emphasize competition, not weight control; reduction of incentives for rapid weight loss; and the elimination of tools used to accomplish rapid dehydration. In addition, athletes, coaches, and related staff can foster an atmosphere in which appropriate nutritional practices and the dangers of eating pathology are emphasized. This can be readily achieved by providing educational in-services and placing informative posters in practice areas. All personnel need to be alert to the signs and symptoms of an eating disorder (eg, acute and excessive weight loss; light-headedness; cold intolerance; restrictive eating patterns; self-induced vomiting; the use of laxatives, diuretics, or appetite suppressants; intense preoccupation with weight), which can be reviewed regularly. Coaching staffs might also encourage young men to share their concerns about body image and weight. Some investigators believe that coaches may benefit from more training in the area of nutrition (there is evidence that only 36% of coaches ever attended a nutrition workshop10). Our knowledge of the risks of eating disorder pathology among male athletes is limited. We need to encourage further investigation of the prevalence of these disorders among male athletes and an exploration of interventions that might deter their development. As we prepare athletes for heightened performance, we need to protect them as well.

One Writer's Imagination: The Fiction of Eudora Welty (review)

Reviewed by: One Writer’s Imagination: The Fiction of Eudora Welty Sarah Ford (bio) Suzanne Marrs, One Writer’s Imagination: The Fiction of Eudora Welty. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002. xix + 280 pp. $59.95 (cloth); $24.95 (paper). Suzanne Marrs begins her comprehensive examination of Eudora Welty's work by discussing Welty's close and complicated relationship with her mother, a relationship containing conflicts that "paradoxically stemmed from the deep love mother and daughter felt for each other" (3). This proves to be an appropriate beginning, as Marrs then broadens her investigation of Welty's world from that of her immediate family and close friends in Jackson to larger cultural forces and historical events. By detailing the context of Welty's fiction, Marrs shows in One Writer's Imagination: The Fiction of Eudora Welty how Welty transforms the events and people around her through her imagination. Imagination, Marrs argues, "thus becomes a subject as well as a source of her stories, a subject and a source drawn from her most profound contemporary experiences" (20). The contemporary experiences that Marrs investigates shift from chapter to chapter as she examines individual works. At times the context is personal and made up of Welty's individual experiences, her close friends, and family. For example, in the chapter on A Curtain of Green, Marrs details the actual events Welty used in writing her story "A Whistle." While staying at a friend's house in Utica, Mississippi, in the 1930s, Welty heard a whistle warning farmers of an impending freeze. At other times the context is the general historical time period. The chapter on The Robber Bridegroom, for example, details Welty's intense preoccupation with the war in the 1940s while she was writing the work. Concern for the problems caused by fascism finds its way into Welty's examination of nineteenth and early twentieth century Mississippi. Marrs writes, "Welty may or may not have recognized the political relevance of her seemingly apolitical stories. The relevance is there nonetheless and is tribute to the transforming power of her imagination" (55). Examining the context, whether personal or political, always leads Marrs to argue for the primacy of Welty's imagination. The focus on context in the book at times leads Marrs to support traditional readings of texts as, for example, in her chapter on Losing Battles. Marrs examines the context of the Depression and the influence of agrarian values in the 1930s and concludes, "Thus, in Losing Battles, Welty allies herself with [End Page 137] traditional agrarian values while at the same time she sympathetically depicts modernist opposition to them" (209). The concern with agrarian values in Losing Battles is certainly already part of the scholarship, although Marrs adds ample evidence for this reading in her examination of the context. At other times in the book, the focus on context leads Marrs to suggest new readings, as in her chapter on Delta Wedding. By paying close attention to the context of World War II, Marrs is able to counter the critics of the novel who suggest that it is a nostalgic treatment of a racist southern past. Marrs shows that the emphasis in the book on family, love, and life's beauty is a direct reaction to the devastation of war. The one possible flaw in this study is that often we could use more connections between the context and the text. For example, the chapter on Delta Wedding ends with an interesting close reading of Partheny's spells contrasted with the white family's dismissal of their dangerous nature, which Marrs sees as an "implicit indictment of racism" (96). She then, however, quickly connects this indictment with the racist atrocities being committed by the Nazis and then too quickly concludes that "Welty portrays the attitudes that along with greater economic opportunity had led many black Mississippians to emigrate northward during the war years and that ironically failed to match the nobility of the American crusade again [sic] Nazism" (96-97). Marrs's close reading of Partheny certainly adds to her argument that Welty's novel answers concerns raised by the war, but the specific connections here are too undeveloped. The great strength...

Hidden Places: Hyper-realism in Björk’s Vespertine and Dancer in the Dark

Björk’s collaboration with the director Lars von Trier on the film Dancer in the Dark was marked by well-publicized personal and aesthetic differences. Their work nevertheless shares an intense preoccupation with the nature and quality of sound. Björk’s soundtrack systematically explores the boundaries between music and noise, and the title of von Trier’s film itself presupposes a heightened attention to aural detail. This paper proposes a theoretical context for understanding Björk’s music in the light of her work with von Trier. Whereas Björk’s soundtrack responds to the visual and narrative stimuli of von Trier’s film, the use of sound in her album Vespertine thematicizes more familiar Björk subjects: the relationship between music, landscape and the natural world, and Björk’s own (constructed) sense of Nordic musical identity. By placing Vespertine alongside Björk’s music for Dancer in the Dark, the sense of ‘hyperreality’ that defines both also emerges as a primary characteristic of her work.

BOOK REVIEW:ED. Abdul-Rasheed Na'allah. THE PEOPLE'S POET: EMERGING PERSPECTIVES ON NIYI OSUNDARE. Trenton: Africa World P, 2003.

Reviewed by: The People’s Poet: Emerging Perspectives on Niyi Osundare F. Odun Balogun The People’s Poet: Emerging Perspectives on Niyi Osundare Ed. Abdul-Rasheed Na’Allah Trenton: Africa World P, 2003. 629 pp. ISBN 0-86543-849-8 paper. Niyi Osundare's growth as a poet is perceived in most essays in this collection as evolutionary, with his latest volume, Waiting Laughter, seen, for example, in Abiola Irele's preface, as marking the highest peak in the poet's developmental progression [End Page 186] toward an artistic fusion of craft and content that has produced an increasingly dense poetic idiom. In an introduction to Songs of the Market Place, featured in this collection as "Afterword," the critic Biodun Jeyifo had earlier noted what is now uniformly acknowledged in most contributions to this book, that Osundare's intense preoccupation with poetic craft is what sets him apart from the other Nigerian poets of his generation, except that Odia Ofeimun is noted by Stewart Brown as also displaying similar poetic fastidiousness (102). Though Osundare is acclaimed as primus inter pares, many scholars in this collection equally emphasize his representativeness as a poet of his generation because the group of poets that emerged about the same time as he were responding to the same national artistic impulse. In protest against the poetry of opaque density, characterizing first-generation Nigerian poets like Clark, Okigbo, and Soyinka, the second generation sought to create a poetry that was marked by stylistic accessibility. Ironically, although Osundare's poetry exemplifies the trend for accessibility at its best, especially in his early poems which articulated this generational poetic manifesto, a number of the essays included here have validly observed that the more artistically proficient Osundare's poetry becomes, the more it is characterized by stylistic opacity. This phenomenon, it is pointed out, is a consequence of Osundare's love of stylistic experimentations, which in Irene Sywenky's opinion include a tendency that Osundare shares with the Ukranian poet Yuri Andrukhovych, to re-evaluate and recontextualize both received native oral tradition as well as borrowed Western literary models as a way of "writing oneself into the world culture while maintaining a distinct cultural identity" (375). Poetic density, in Adepitan's view, is also an inescapable consequence of Osundare's adoption of the oral poetic tradition, known for its mythic tendencies. "Osundare," he writes, "is not overly concerned with myth-making in The Eye of the Earth. Nonetheless, is it fair to ask a Yoruba poet to write a whole tome of invocations and salutations in obeisance to the earth without willy-nilly re-discovering that mystic, mythic association with the earth for which his forefathers were exemplars? The answer is no—not even for a poet with a materialist outlook." (72) A generous number of essays analyze Osundare's stylistic experimentations with various aspects of poetic composition, including morphology, metaphoric diction, and oral tradition's performance devices. If the adoption of the stylistic elements of orature and a preference for intensely committed social themes, as correctly pointed out in several essays, constitute traits that Osundare shares with other poets of his generation, it is equally remarked that his patronage of ecological themes as a poet of nature and his infusion of hope and optimism into the treatment of the ills of the society are qualities that also set him aside from his peers (see Adepitan, Brown, Burness). As much as Femi Oyebode admires the brilliance with which Osundare integrates elements of his native Yoruba poetic devices in his Nigerian English poetry, he nonetheless argues that all that Osundare can achieve in this regard is a qualified, limited success in as much as poetry, more than drama or prose fiction, requires a native language to adequately express a native reality. "The overall effect" of composing poetry on Nigeria in English rather than his native Yoruba, the scholar insists, "is of a language treating its subject as alien to the integrity of the language itself " (86). While it may be argued that English cannot strictly be regarded as an alien language to Osundare, considering his training in it as a linguist, as well as his amply demonstrated [End Page 187...

Demythologizing history: Jeanette Wintersone’s fictions and his/tories

«All the books speak to each other. They are only separate books because that’s how they had to be written. I see them really as one long continuous piece of work. I’ve said that the seven books make a cycle or a series, and I believe that they do from Oranges to The PowerBook. And they interact and themes do occur and return, disappear, come back amplified or modified, changed in some way, because it’s been my journey, it’s the journey of my imagination, it’s the journey of my soul in those books. So continually they must address one another» 1 . Winterson’s novels continually address one another. Just as she states in the interview, starting with Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit 2 we find themes ‘occurring, returning, coming back amplified or modified’ in her fiction. Among the themes that recur, an intense preoccupation with history is central. Yet none of her novels can be classified as historical in the traditional sense. In her own words, Winterson uses the past as an «invented country»; she «land[s] on some moment of history and re-discovers it». Theoretically speaking, she writes «historiographic metaficton» that blurs the line between fiction and history. Thus, her novels problematise the validity of history, as well as the validity of the traditional view that the historical and fictional are separate 3 . With the theory of historiography that Hayden White offered in the 1970’s, the separation of the once distinct realms of factual and fictional started to be questioned. The objectivity of historical knowledge seemed problematic. Realising that it was not the facts but the historian that speaks for the audience, White thought that the writing of history was then quite similar to the poetic process; thus he concludes that since historians are also preoccupied with the act of storytelling and with finding an appropriate narrative technique for

The People's Poet: Emerging Perspectives on Niyi Osundare (review)

Reviewed by: The People’s Poet: Emerging Perspectives on Niyi Osundare F. Odun Balogun The People’s Poet: Emerging Perspectives on Niyi Osundare Ed. Abdul-Rasheed Na’Allah Trenton: Africa World P, 2003. 629 pp. ISBN 0-86543-849-8 paper. Niyi Osundare's growth as a poet is perceived in most essays in this collection as evolutionary, with his latest volume, Waiting Laughter, seen, for example, in Abiola Irele's preface, as marking the highest peak in the poet's developmental progression [End Page 186] toward an artistic fusion of craft and content that has produced an increasingly dense poetic idiom. In an introduction to Songs of the Market Place, featured in this collection as "Afterword," the critic Biodun Jeyifo had earlier noted what is now uniformly acknowledged in most contributions to this book, that Osundare's intense preoccupation with poetic craft is what sets him apart from the other Nigerian poets of his generation, except that Odia Ofeimun is noted by Stewart Brown as also displaying similar poetic fastidiousness (102). Though Osundare is acclaimed as primus inter pares, many scholars in this collection equally emphasize his representativeness as a poet of his generation because the group of poets that emerged about the same time as he were responding to the same national artistic impulse. In protest against the poetry of opaque density, characterizing first-generation Nigerian poets like Clark, Okigbo, and Soyinka, the second generation sought to create a poetry that was marked by stylistic accessibility. Ironically, although Osundare's poetry exemplifies the trend for accessibility at its best, especially in his early poems which articulated this generational poetic manifesto, a number of the essays included here have validly observed that the more artistically proficient Osundare's poetry becomes, the more it is characterized by stylistic opacity. This phenomenon, it is pointed out, is a consequence of Osundare's love of stylistic experimentations, which in Irene Sywenky's opinion include a tendency that Osundare shares with the Ukranian poet Yuri Andrukhovych, to re-evaluate and recontextualize both received native oral tradition as well as borrowed Western literary models as a way of "writing oneself into the world culture while maintaining a distinct cultural identity" (375). Poetic density, in Adepitan's view, is also an inescapable consequence of Osundare's adoption of the oral poetic tradition, known for its mythic tendencies. "Osundare," he writes, "is not overly concerned with myth-making in The Eye of the Earth. Nonetheless, is it fair to ask a Yoruba poet to write a whole tome of invocations and salutations in obeisance to the earth without willy-nilly re-discovering that mystic, mythic association with the earth for which his forefathers were exemplars? The answer is no—not even for a poet with a materialist outlook." (72) A generous number of essays analyze Osundare's stylistic experimentations with various aspects of poetic composition, including morphology, metaphoric diction, and oral tradition's performance devices. If the adoption of the stylistic elements of orature and a preference for intensely committed social themes, as correctly pointed out in several essays, constitute traits that Osundare shares with other poets of his generation, it is equally remarked that his patronage of ecological themes as a poet of nature and his infusion of hope and optimism into the treatment of the ills of the society are qualities that also set him aside from his peers (see Adepitan, Brown, Burness). As much as Femi Oyebode admires the brilliance with which Osundare integrates elements of his native Yoruba poetic devices in his Nigerian English poetry, he nonetheless argues that all that Osundare can achieve in this regard is a qualified, limited success in as much as poetry, more than drama or prose fiction, requires a native language to adequately express a native reality. "The overall effect" of composing poetry on Nigeria in English rather than his native Yoruba, the scholar insists, "is of a language treating its subject as alien to the integrity of the language itself " (86). While it may be argued that English cannot strictly be regarded as an alien language to Osundare, considering his training in it as a linguist, as well as his amply demonstrated [End Page 187...

Therapeutic Approaches to Body Dysmorphic Disorder

307 Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is an obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorder characterized by an intense preoccupation with an imagined or slight defect in appearance. BDD has posed a challenge to mental health professionals as a result of its complex clinical presentation, involving issues such as high overvalued ideation, comorbidity, suicidality, and severe impairment in daily functioning. This article reviews the appropriate psychological and psychopharmacological treatment approaches for BDD, and it offers clinical strategies to address the multiple array of symptoms. [Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention 3:307–322 (2003)]

Body Dysmorphia, the Plastic Surgeon, and the Counselor

Trauma repair, deformity, and unsightly blemishes may cause social embarrassment and take thousands of individuals to plastic surgeons. A few persons have endless preoccupation with a slight, real, or perceived appearance defect. Some of either gender, age 10 to 80, seek cosmetic surgeons for aesthetic correction. However, a minority continues to have intense obsessive preoccupation with an imagined body defect. Their concern is excessive and causes significant distress in social, work, or study functions not due to another clinical condition such as anorexia nervosa, in which subjects reject their body as obese. Misperceived ugliness is called body dysmorphia or dysmorphophobia, often only diagnosed after several discontented return visits to the surgeon who refers the patient for counseling—rarely welcome referrals by the patient when they are convinced the problem is physical and not psychological. Careful listening and patient acceptance are essentials in management.

TESTING THE GRIEF TO PERSONAL GROWTH MODEL USING STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELING

The belief that loss can result in growth has been hypothesized for centuries.Yet, traditional grief theories have viewed grief work as a process of resolving grief and returning to normal. Formal conceptualizations of grief to growth models have been recently delineated by several grief theorists.The Grief to Personal Growth model represents one emergent perspective of the qualitative changes resulting from the loss of a loved one.The model delineates a pathway through grief that indicates the bereft experience despair and detachment followed by intrusive thoughts and later avoidance of intense preoccupation with grief. Social support is shown to facilitate the bereft as they reconstruct their lives and find new meaning in life. A second path indicates that some bereaved individuals become mired in grief and need help to proceed toward personal growth.The model was tested in a sample of bereaved parents using structural equation modeling as a method of theory testing.The results of testing this model are presented within a framework of theory testing as a mechanism to bridge the gaps between theory, practice,and research. Implications for practice are considered.

The ?Mythological Sabra? and Jewish Past: Trauma, Memory, and Contested Identities

THE JEWS' INTENSE PREOCCUPATION WITH the examination of their collective identity was highly pronounced in the early years of Zionist settlement in Palestine. For a society of immigrants in the process of defining its distinct collective identity and national foundations this preoccupation is hardly surprising. Although Israel has since achieved national independence and experienced major demographic, ideological, social, cultural, economic and political transformations, Israelis' passionate interest in re-examining their collective identity has not diminished. As a new series of popular publications on "The Israelis" demonstrates, this topic continues to attract public attention and to be prominently featured in Israeli popular and scholarly forums. 1 Various segments of Israeli society continue to debate the opposing orientations of continuity and change between their pre-Israeli past and their Israeli present. This article sets out to explore one particular aspect of this broad and complex topic.

Neuroanatomical correlates and somatosensorial disturbances in body dysmorphic disorder.

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a condition characterized by an intense preoccupation with an imagined or slight defect in physical appearance. Although there is a general consensus that psychosocial factors play a major role in the development of BDD, there is some evidence suggesting that an organic somatosensorial disturbance may also exist in this condition. Several psychiatric and neurological disorders, including the interparietal syndrome, Gertsman's syndrome, inferoparietal syndrome, phantom limb syndrome, genital retraction syndrome, panencephalitis, cerebrovascular syndromes, and pharyngeal streptococcia affecting the basal ganglia, can present with somatosensorial disturbances similar to BDD. The cerebral pathology in all these disorders appears to be localized in the parietal-occipital region, indicating that cerebral involvement may also be associated with BDD. An interdependence exists between cerebral regions through integrated neural networks that enable efficient processing of information. Disturbances in these association pathways can lead to an imbalance in the extensive cerebral loops. Therefore, it is possible that a defect in information-processing may play a role in the pathogenesis of BDD.

Ailleurs. Au même instant

The oeuvre of Germaine Beaulieu is throughout marked by a feminist engagement and an equally intense preoccupation with themes ofexistence, the real, love, sensuality, and absence. This is a writing of derive, of desire, of the call to the other, a writing in which life borders death in surges of metamorphosis and mutation. Committed to constant exploration, Beaulieu refuses to settle for truths that would stop the flow of this creative impulse.

Texture response patterns associated with sexual trauma of childhood and adult onset: developmental and recovered memory implications

Objective: Reduce texture sensitivity on the Rorschach is proposed as a sequela of early sexual abuse that is unlikely to be contaminated by situational variables. If this conceptualization has merit, texture attributes offer a roadmap for studying vying claims in the recovered memory debate. To explore this possibility, we examined the extent to which intense preoccupation with sexual trauma of childhood and of adult onset was related to reduced texture productivity. Method: Texture productivity was measured in 4 groups comprised of 108 patients using the Rorschach. Twenty-seven patients with recovered memory were compared with 27 patients with continuous memory of childhood sexual trauma, 27 post trauma stress patients with sexual trauma of adult onset, and 27 non-abused patients. Results: The study replicated previous findings of reduced texture productivity among patients who always remembered sexual trauma of childhood-onset. The same texture deficiency pattern was observed among patients who recovered memory of childhood sexual abuse. This pattern was not observed in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) patients intensely preoccupied with sexual trauma of adult onset despite the fact that they mimicked the recovered memory group in respect to enduring preoccupation with distressing thoughts of sexual abuse. Conclusion: The findings indicate that intrusive memories of sexual trauma do not shape patients’ response to textural cues on the Rorschach. Variations in texture productivity are primarily moderated by age of trauma onset. Dismissal of claims of recovered memories on the basis of intense sexual preoccupation is not warranted.

In Pursuit of Precision: The Calibration of Minds and Machines in Late Nineteenth-century Psychology

A prominent feature of late nineteenth-century psychology was its intense preoccupation with precision. Precision was at once an ideal and an argument: the quest for precision helped psychology to establish its status as a mature science, sharing a characteristic concern with the natural sciences. We will analyse how psychologists set out to produce precision in 'mental chronometry', the measurement of the duration of psychological processes. In his Leipzig laboratory, Wundt inaugurated an elaborate research programme on mental chronometry. We will look at the problem of calibration of experimental apparatus and will describe the intricate material, literary, and social technologies involved in the manufacture of precision. First, we shall discuss some of the technical problems involved in the measurement of ever shorter time-spans. Next, the Cattell-Berger experiments will help us to argue against the received view that all the precision went into the hardware, and practically none into the social organization of experimentation. Experimenters made deliberate efforts to bring themselves and their subjects under a regime of control and calibration similar to that which reigned over the experimental machinery. In Leipzig psychology, the particular blend of material and social technology resulted in a specific object of study: the generalized mind. We will then show that the distribution of precision in experimental psychology outside Leipzig demanded a concerted effort of instruments, texts, and people. It will appear that the forceful attempts to produce precision and uniformity had some rather paradoxical consequences.

Appetitive behavior, compulsivity, and neurochemistry in Prader-Willi syndrome.

Advances in genetic research have led to an increased understanding of genotype-phenotype relationships. Excessive eating and weight gain characteristic of Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) have been the understandable focus of much of the research. The intense preoccupation with food, lack of satiation, and incessant food seeking are among the most striking features of PWS. It has become increasingly clear that the behavioral phenotype of PWS also includes symptoms similar to obsessive compulsive disorder, which in all probability interact with the incessant hunger and lack of satiation to engender the intense preoccupation and food seeking behavior that is characteristic of this disorder. Several lines of evidence suggest that genetic material on chromosome 15 may alter synthesis, release, metabolism, binding, intrinsic activity, or reuptake of specific neurotransmitters, or alter the receptor numbers and/or distribution involved in modulating feeding. Among the likely candidates are GABAnergic, serotonergic, and neuropeptidergic mechanisms. This review summarizes what is known about the appetitive behavior and compulsivity in PWS and discusses the possible mechanisms underlying these behaviors. MRDD Research Reviews 2000;6:125-130.

Prozac Doesn't Cause Weight Gain

Given the intense preoccupation of Western women with body weight, potential weight gain as a side effect may reduce patient adherence to prescribed

Relations of Domination and Movements for Liberation: An Analysis of Power between Groups (Abridged)

This chapter is concerned with analyzing asymmetric power relations between groups. Thus, it will deal with two linked intergroup phenomena, domination and subordination.1 It will discuss how power processes create, maintain and perpetuate those intergroup relations that involve domination and subordination. Unquestionably, social psychologists have long been challenged by these phenomena, for under the general heading of ‘intergroup relations’ they have studied the more specific problem areas of ethnic, race or minority-group relations – often, in practice, interchanging these terms (Harding et al., 1969). Their intense preoccupation with these topics, as shown by their social action and research activities, can be well understood if we consider how social psychology’s subject matter is linked to society – and its ills. In particular, 20th-century, melting-pot American society presented a wealth of social problems – involving racial, ethnic and other groups – all revolving about questions of domination. Most of the research done on intergroup relations, however, has ignored the systematic analysis of the aetiology and functioning of the domination processes; rather, it has focused on the effects of these phenomena (for example, the effects of

Bad conversation? Gender and social control in a Kentish borough, c. 1450–c. 1570

The image of the nagging woman being ducked as a scold is firmly ensconced among popular images of women in the past, but the historical phenomenon of prosecutions for scolding, though it has been briefly touched on in many studies, has been the subject of only two substantial contributions, those of David Underdown and Martin Ingram. Underdown has maintained that from the 1560s there was increasing concern with scolds, which he links with the rise in witchcraft prosecutions and growing anxiety about domineering and unfaithful wives. Accepting the notion of a ‘crisis of order’ in the decades around 1600, he postulates as an aspect of this a ‘crisis in gender relations’ which he attributes to a decline in neighbourliness and social harmony resulting from the spread of capitalism. He bases his argument partly on literary sources, including plays, sermons and popular pamphlets (though conceding that literary evidence is not conclusive and that the misogynistic tradition in literature is a long one) and partly on a somewhat impressionistic survey of court records from around 1560 to around 1640. This period, he claims, witnessed an intense preoccupation with women perceived as threatening the patriarchal order, manifested by greater numbers of prosecutions of scolds and other disorderly women than in the preceding and subsequent periods, and by more severe punishments, notably the cucking-stool. Women accused as scolds, he maintains, were usually poor, widows, newcomers, social outcasts or ‘those lacking the protection of a family’, and were likely to vent their frustration on local notables as the nearest symbols of authority. He suggests that both the prosecution of scolds and their punishment by ducking were more common in towns and wood-pasture villages than in arable areas (such as that around Fordwich in Kent, the borough we will be looking at); however, he admits that rural records have survived less well than urban, and gives no quantified evidence for the alleged lenience of the authorities in arable villages towards ‘disorderly’ women.