Personal Journey Research Articles

The Development of an Analytic Mind, Analytic Identity, and Analytic Voice

ABSTRACT This article describes the process of development and discovery of an analytic mind, identity, and voice. This is seen through the author’s personal journey during psychoanalytic training and practice. That journey, like that of many candidates, begins with a sense of curiosity and “not knowing enough” which then propels the candidate into a search for certainty. Central to this process is the interaction of one’s personal analysis, supervised clinical practice, and didactic seminars. These become a backdrop that works to free the analyst’s mind in the service of one’s analytic work. The author reflects on her nascent concept of analytic mind and describes it as the potential space in the mind which becomes recognized and developed through analysis and training, giving rise to a new way of thinking, experiencing, and understanding the underlying ambiguous forces that determine human adaptation and distress. The author’s evolving concept of analytic identity is described as an inner sense of one’s self as an analyst, now represented in relation to a shared sense of mind and being part of a theoretical community with a shared history and approach to patient’s struggles. The developing idea of analytic voice is that voice in which we convey our work and express it to ourselves, our peers, and our patients. A voice with a new language that evolved from the analytic mind and identity, and is manifested in a greater capacity to show and communicate with patients and others.

Who Am I? Reflecting on a Personal Journey of Self-Authorship

This reflective paper shares the experiences of a higher education professional living and working abroad and the long-term impacts of those experiences on their self-authorship journey through reflection ten years later. The story of this reflection focuses on how cultural differences and community ties helped to facilitate growth and self-confidence through navigating the challenges and complexities of living abroad in a culture with differing conventions. The paper concludes by sharing how reflecting on self-authorship during and after international experiences can help develop personal identities both as an individual and within a collective.

Insights from 25years of oncogenetics: one person's perspective.

In early 1995, I established the oncogenetics service at the Genetics Institute of the Sheba Medical Center in Israel. The purpose of this article is to describe the key points and issues that were raised throughout my personal journey since then: physician and public awareness; ethical and legal issues; guidelines for oncogenetic counseling; the development of oncogenetic testing within the unique Israeli reality of the limited spectrum of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations; high-risk vs. population screening; and the definition and implementation of guidelines for surveillance of asymptomatic mutation carriers. Since 1995, oncogenetics has been transformed from a rare oddity to a pivotal player, and it represents a successful example of implementing personalized preventive medicine by identifying and providing care and by offering means for early detection and risk reduction for adults who are genetically predisposed to develop a potentially life-threatening disease-cancer in this case. Lastly, I outline my personal vision for the possible way forward for oncogenetics.

Assessing Grit of Emerging Adult Diocesan Seminarians in Negros Island

Grit plays a crucial role in the development of emerging adult seminarians as they undergo a rigorous process in preparation for a lifelong commitment to God and the Church. It entails a combination of persistence and passion, driving individuals to pursue their long-term goals despite facing challenges and obstacles. This study aimed to assess the extent of grit in emerging adult seminarians in four diocesan seminaries in Negros Island, particularly in terms of perseverance and consistency, and its relationship with their birth order, family structure, and income. Utilizing descriptive-correlational design, 142 emerging adult seminarians in four diocesan seminaries in negros island answered the 12-item Grit scale. The study findings indicate that the respondents, as emerging adult seminarians, possess average grit. Specifically, they demonstrate higher scores in the perseverance of effort compared to the consistency of interest. Further, the demographics such as birth order, family structure, and family income were found to have no significant correlations with grit. The results suggest that while the seminarians have the drive to endure setbacks, they may struggle with maintaining consistent choices over time. The findings also highlight that the development of grit is a personal journey, independent of factors like birth order, family structure, or family income.

(Un)real City: Spatial and Temporal Ghosting in ANU Productions’ The Party to End All Parties

Abstract As COVID-19-related closures affected theatre and performance venues worldwide, the question of how theatrical practices might be adapted to these new circumstances became particularly pertinent in the context of immersive theatre and site-specific performance, forms which heavily draw on the audience’s experiential encounter with site and performers for its process of meaning-making. Focussing on ANU Productions’ The Party to End All Parties (2020) as a hybrid form of site-specific pandemic theatre set in the cityscape of Dublin, this article investigates how the production translated the “host/ghost” relationship as a central aspect of site-specific theatre to the virtual realm. It demonstrates how this notion is transformed into a thematic thread woven into the performance, arguing that it engages with the host/ghost relationship through spatial as well as temporal “ghosting,” which blurs the lines between the contemporary setting of lockdown Dublin and the historical landmark of O’Connell Bridge as a site inextricably connected to the emergence of Ireland as a republic. At the same time, this notion is explored through the connections between presence and absence, visibility and invisibility (or, indeed, spectrality) in the three characters’ personal journeys.

The Sense-Creating Potential of Surrealist Poetry: A Case Study of a War Poem About Ukraine

By creating and perversely analyzing a poem entitled “We scream and create so that the darkness does not prevail,” the author enters a personal journey as a “wordsmith” and observes her experience and understanding of the world affected by the war in Ukraine. The poem uses images and narrative techniques to trigger complex emotional states in the reader, encouraging them to confront violence, resistance, struggle, and conflict in the context of the war in Ukraine.

1. A Career at a DOE National Laboratory: A Personal Journey by Pablo Seleson

1. A Career at a DOE National Laboratory: A Personal Journey by Pablo Seleson

Goddess of Sipsong Panna by Can Xue

Reviewed by: Goddess of Sipsong Panna by Can Xue Laura Xie CAN XUE Goddess of Sipsong Panna Beijing. People's Literature Publishing House. 2022. 211 pages. GODDESS OF SIPSONG PANNA is a collection of thirteen short stories by the much-acclaimed Chinese writer Can Xue (b. 1953). Set across a variety of real or surreal locations, from the tranquil grassland to the enchanting mulberry garden, and from a bleak and desolate coal mine located on the outskirts of a quaint, snow-covered town to the subterranean dugout beneath a tunneled city, each story sheds light on a distinct facet of a particular character's inner world and personal journey. The first of the thirteen stories, "Treasure Land," features Lu Xiaoyuan, a young man from a coal miner's family. He grew up in Snow City, a small town that was once the site of several coal mines. After his parents died in a mining accident, he had to make his own living. One night, Xiaoyuan is lured by a gentleman donning a black felt hat to venture into the long-abandoned mine. As he enters the mining area, he hears the clamor of people talking and shouting all around him, and he sees the burning flames in the stoves. The warmth of the air brings back memories of his deceased parents, particularly of the time when the mine was still in operation. Although the identity of the enigmatic gentleman is never revealed, he acts as a powerful catalyst that compels Xiaoyuan to take a journey of rediscovery. As he revisits both joyous and painful moments of the past, he finds a renewed sense of purpose to continue moving forward into the future. The titular story, "Goddess of Sipsong Panna," is about a man who goes to Sipsong Panna in search of a simpler way of life. However, he cannot tolerate living in the bungalow where ants, snails, and caterpillars crawl over the room and the roses in the front yard bloom profusely, filling the air with a sweet and strong fragrance. He moves to a high-rise apartment, but its concrete frame structure blocks out the living sights and sounds of nature. He is so lonely that he longs to move back to the bungalow, which is now occupied by a woman living with a ferocious black bear. Her presence [End Page 75] piques everyone's interest, spurring them to steal glances at her, but her face remains a mystery, always shrouded from their view. Enveloped in her powerful earthly aura, the young man comes to realize what it takes to live in Sipsong Panna, a land of fertility, growth, and abundance. Can Xue's gift for plunging into her characters' souls and mining the truths about them is evident in other stories of the collection. "The Lion King" charts a path from the early stage of desire and infatuation to a love that transcends physicality and species through the eyes of a woman who decides to make her own life in the grasslands after encountering a handsome male lion. "Death Education" explores the initial encounter with death and its many nuances from the viewpoint of a young girl. In "Old Man and Cat in Fresh Produce Market," readers may also sympathize with Papa Ma, an old man who lives a solitary life and suffers mistreatment at the hands of a similarly unhappy young man. Can Xue is known for her vivid imagination and keen sense of fantasy, with a rapid, feverish ability to proceed from one plot to the next, much like a person traversing a dream or nightmare. Her collection of stories is a mesmerizing journey into the human psyche, with each story serving as an allegory of the self. Navigating the labyrinth of her writing may be challenging, but there is no denying that Can Xue is a singular and unforgettable voice in Chinese literature. Laura Xie Virginia Military Institute Copyright © 2023 World Literature Today and the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

Discussion Guide for the Rushton Article

Discussion Guide for the Rushton Article

White Counselor Education Faculty on the Topics of Racism and Privileges in the Classroom: A Personal Journey

Engaging in critical conversations about race and racism requires counselor educators to be courageous and fearless. The current study explored how White counselor educators engage in honest discussions regarding race and racism. Using semi-structured interviews, three White counselor educators from CACREP Accredited programs were interviewed to explore their experiences of fearlessly leading courageous conversations on race and racism. A thematic analysis yielded three consistent themes, including a pattern centered around creating a safe space for discussions, being okay with being imperfect, and encounters that transform. The last theme also had two sub-themes: constructing intentional relationships with truth-tellers and world-changing experiences. These findings offer insight for White counselor educators to traverse challenges associated with having provocative conversations about race and racism, both inside and outside of the classroom.

Transnational revolutionary: Noel Mukono’s navigation of Zimbabwe’s fractious liberation struggle, 1957–77

This article recovers the role of Noel Mukono in Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle. The defence chief of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) from 1964 to 1973, his pioneering role in instigating the armed struggle against the white settler government in Rhodesia is largely overlooked today. Mukono is a leading casualty of ‘patriotic history’, the contemporary Zimbabwean state’s manipulation of the independence struggle narrative. A journalist, Mukono left behind an unfinished memoir and personal papers which facilitate a deep examination of his political engagements. This material highlights Mukono’s status as a transnational revolutionary, instrumental in the internationalisation of Zimbabwe’s independence struggle. Through Mukono’s personal journey, this account explores transnational networks linking Zimbabwean nationalism with Zambia, the United Kingdom, Malawi, and Ghana. It provides new information regarding the extent of ZANU’s collaboration with the Mozambican nationalist movement, Frelimo. Finally, Mukono’s case illuminates an enigmatic period of ZANU infighting in exile which saw the Nhari Mutiny and assassination of Herbert Chitepo, the party’s National Chair. During this time, his globetrotting lifestyle was strategically used against him.

Corps, réel et écriture chez HP Lovecraft. Pistes sur la création et la psychopathologie

ObjectivesH.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) was an American writer whose work renewed fantasy literature and inaugurated a new genre. His first master was Edgar Allan Poe, but he was also influenced by Lord Dunsany and Arthur Machen. Author of numerous novels and short stories, but also of a rich correspondence of several tens of thousands of letters (as many as 100,000, according to one count!), his world is haunted by the degeneration of bodies, the dissolution of the limits of reality, and the danger of the Other and the intense anguish that it provokes. Preferring the mediation of writing to the real physical presence, Lovecraft expresses a generalized xenophobia tending to racism and based on the disgust caused by the body of the other. The objective of this work is to grasp the psychic dynamics of this writer from two points of view : that of psychopathology and the various diagnoses that have been made, and that of his creative capacity. MethodLovecraft's personal history as well as his literary work, his correspondence, and the testimonies of people around him are used as material to decipher his creative process, the signs of his subjective position as well as those that could be related to psychopathology. ResultsWriting, from childhood on, represented for Lovecraft a safeguard against the dangers of the outside world, the screen that protected him from contact with others and therefore also from reality. Lovecraft's literary genius is absolutely inseparable from his being. Lovecraft became by his own means a being of writing, a scriptbeing rather than a talkbeing. The hypotheses about his (psycho)pathology, numerous and sometimes contradictory, can in no way account for his literary talent. It is rather his dreams that guide him in the writing of his short stories. DiscussionMore than an art, more than a formatting of his anguish, more than a deposit and emptying of jouissance, writing for Lovecraft sets up the imaginary screen on which the unbearable real is signified and seized as reality. Writing is for him an addictive, continuous, protective, and necessary exercise : he never stops writing. By its extraordinary extent – novels and correspondence – it occupies the place of the Imaginary, a space where the registers of the Symbolic and the Real are linked together. Thus, for him, the dream becomes a direct and continuous source of creation. The sort of autobiography that has gradually emerged from his correspondence, the testimonies of those who knew him, as well as the reading of his work, have made it possible to establish various psychopathological diagnoses about him that will be submitted for discussion. ConclusionLovecraft's personal journey is that of an unfortunate creator, but one whose writing nonetheless contributed to his survival. For it is also an extraordinary journey of self-therapy. Lovecraft did not achieve fame or fortune during his lifetime, but since he could not do otherwise, he wrote incessantly until his death, without really worrying about success. Writing, from childhood, represented a safeguard against the dangers of the outside world, the screen that protected him from contact with others and therefore also from reality. For Lovecraft, writing is a sinthome and he managed to build up a public, admittedly small, but intelligent and admiring, on which he relied, allowing for the gradual construction of a network of social relations, first mediated by writing and then, as time went by, more and more directly.

Levin’s hunting in Anna Karenina

Through analysis of the depictions of Levin’s hunts in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, this article argues that hunting scenes and allusions help develop the novel’s theme of marriage and family happiness. Levin’s first hunt with Oblonsky advances the narrative thread around his marriage when his hopes of marrying Kitty are rekindled after hearing from her brother that she has not wed Vronsky. The next instance finds Levin hunting a she-bear, hinting at his efforts to successfully woo Kitty, whom he called a “tiny bear” in her childhood. The novel’s longest hunting scene in which a pregnant Kitty sends a reassuring message to her concerned husband demonstrates that the couple has achieved a state of family happiness based on mutual trust and consideration. The final allusion to hunting, near the novel’s end, comes when Levin, now a loving husband and father, takes up beekeeping (literally “bee hunting” [pchelinaia okhota]) as a family pastime. Levin’s turn to this new type of “hunting” once he is happily married underscores hunting’s connection to a happy family life: the motif reappears throughout the narrative arc of Levin’s personal journey to selfhood through marriage and family life.”

Psychoanalytic Credos: Personal and Professional Journeys of Psychoanalysts

Psychoanalytic Credos: Personal and Professional Journeys of Psychoanalysts

Conceptions of Zero A Review of Amir D. Aczel’s Finding Zero: A Mathematician's Odyssey to Uncover the Origins of Numbers

In the 2003 Pixar animation Finding Nemo, a clownfish named Marlin is an overprotective father, and for good reason: he has recently gone through the trauma of losing both his wife and all their fertilized eggs save one. Nemo is his only remaining offspring, a son. On Nemo’s first day of school, he gets caught in a fishing net and is taken far away. Marlin spends the rest of the movie looking for Nemo. He gets to know a variety characters in his search, some providing comic relief, some providing leads. But in each interaction Marlin learns a more about himself, in particular, that he is too fearful and too protective. For some, Finding Nemo is about Nemo; for others, it is about Marlin. That is, instead of Marlin providing a subplot, he provides the central story. Finding Nemo is about Marlin’s personal journey of overcoming the trauma of losing his wife and almost-children. To give even more of a twist to a seemingly benign movie, there is a theory bouncing around on the Internet that Marlin imagines Nemo and everything that happens in the movie is only imagined. That is, he makes up Nemo to cope with his loss. This theory has some merit as Nemo means “nobody” in Latin. Amir D. Aczel is a professor of statistics. He has a doctorate

Voicing a vision

This article explores the personal journey of the singer, Frankie Armstrong, who began her professional career in 1964. Following a number of eye operations Frankie was registered blind, but found new ways to use her voice, including work with Pat Watts, at the Sesame Institute and the development of Natural Voice work. Armstrong is still a visiting tutor on the Sesame Dramatherapy course, and reflects how important music and dramatherapy have been in her life.

Reduced-order modeling: a personal journey

Reduced-order modeling: a personal journey

20 years of Radical Disaster Interpretations: reflections and aspirations (RADIX @ 20!). Conversation on disasters: deconstructed on 13 October 2021

PurposeThis conversation presents the reflections from five prominent disaster scholars and practitioners on the purpose of Radix – the Radical Disaster Interpretations network – as the authors celebrate its 20th anniversary.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is based on the conversations that took place on Disasters: Deconstructed Podcast livestream on the 13th October 2021.FindingsThe conversation reflects on personal and professional journeys in disaster studies over the past 20 years and on what needs changing in order to make disaster interpretations more radical.Originality/valueThe conversation contributes to the ongoing discussions around explorations of radical pathways for understanding and preventing disasters.

Teaching Spanish with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Background: My personal journey to developing fluency in Spanish was through gaming, and so I felt strongly that this popular pastime would help my students, too. Ocarina of Time was a natural choice, as it is not only my favorite game, it is also dialogue-heavy and mimics real life speech, so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to play it with my students! Aim: My main objective was to improve students’ Spanish reading comprehension. Other objectives included: developing an understanding of the difference between equivalent and literal translation, developing a more comprehensive understanding of Spanish sentence structure, learning the 100 most used Spanish verbs, and being able to understand perfect verbs and object pronouns when encountered in text. Methods: Engaging learners through play, student collaboration, ungraded practice, semantic and syntactic reading comprehension, spiraling curriculum, and gamification of rote memorization. Results: Students’ Spanish reading comprehension improved rapidly, and so did their confidence in performing this skill. Students also learned 90%+ of the 100 top used Spanish verbs, as well as a large variety of other vocabulary. Conclusion: Video games are a viable resource for teaching a foreign language.

Design and implementation of a training programme on ultrasound-guided lower limb peripheral nerve blockade: An Advanced Clinical Practitioner's personal journey.

Increased demand in services, workforce pressures and continued financial constraints has resulted in a significant expansion in advanced clinical practice roles in the United Kingdom. This article will describe the personal experience of a perioperative Advanced Clinical Practitioner in the design and implementation of a training programme to achieve competence in ultrasound-guided lower limb peripheral nerve blockade. Three specific lower limb peripheral nerve blockade were included in the training programme, namely sciatic nerve block at the popliteal fossa, saphenous nerve block, and femoral nerve block. Key service drivers underpinning development, rationale for Advanced Clinical Practitioner involvement in lower limb peripheral nerve blockade and governance will also be discussed.