Psychic Processes Research Articles

METHODOLOGY OF TRAINING COORDINATING EXERCISES OF YOUNG SCHOOLCHILDREN WITH THE PSYCHIC DEVELOPMENT DELAY AT LESSONS OF PHYSICAL TRAINING

There has been elaborated the methodology of training coordinating exercises of young schoolchildren with the psychic development delay at lessons of physical culture. It consists of two blocks – psychic and physical ones. The psychic block includes the following processes and properties: visual and aural memory; image-logic and ocular-activity thinking. The physical one consists of the following coordinating qualities: the ability to evaluation and regulation of dynamic and temporal movement parameters, orientation in space; static and dynamic balance. Means, used at realizing the methodology, were divided in general and special ones. A peculiarity of special means was conditions of their realization, chosen in such a way to favor the development of coordinating abilities, psychic processes and properties most effectively. A component of the author methodology is a protocol of complex evaluation of the development level of coordinating abilities, psychic processes and properties of young schoolchildren with the psychic development delay. The forming study has proved the effectiveness of the experimental methodology. There were revealed statistically reliable changes in involuntary operational visual and aural memory, image-logic and visual-activity thinking. The ability to evaluation and regulation of dynamic and temporal movement parameters, static and dynamic balance improved.

Hiding in plain sight: Jung, astrology, and the psychology of the unconscious.

Astrology was a lifelong interest for C.G. Jung and an important aid in his formulation of psyche and psychic process. Archetypally configured, astrology provided Jung an objective means to a fuller understanding of the analysand's true nature and unique individuation journey. Jung credits astrology with helping to unlock the mystery of alchemy and in so doing providing the symbol language necessary for deciphering the historically remote cosmology of Gnosticism. Astrology also aided Jung's work on synchronicity. Despite astrology's worth to Jung's development of analytical psychology, its fundamental role in guiding his discoveries is all but absent from historical notice. The astrological natal chart seems rarely used clinically, and many clinicians seem unaware of its value as a dynamic diagram of the personality and the potentialities within which nature and nurture foster and/or discourage for individual growth and development over the lifespan. This paper charts Jung's interest in astrology and suggests why his great regard for it and other paranormal or occult practices remains largely neglected and unknown.

Neurophysiological Markers of Abnormal Development in Children with Mental Disorders

Longitudinal analysis of the spectral power of the main EEG bands was performed in the wakeful state with the eyes open and the eyes closed in children with mental disorders at various stages of correction by transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). A significant increase in the power of α-rhythm in the parietal-occipital areas and a significant decrease in the slow wave activity in the left frontotemporal areas were observed in the course of the correction process. The data obtained can be considered as the neurophysiological markers of the tDCS effects (formation of age-related EEG parameters in children with mental disorders). The data also prove the relations between the described phenomena and the cortical mechanisms of speech disorders and other psychic processes caused by perinatal CNS disorders.

The Reemergence of Schiller in Peirce’s Reminiscences of the Æsthetic Letters: A Critical Addendum to D. Dilworth’s Account of the Provenance of Peirce’s Categories in Schiller

A determinação da profundidade e âmbito da influência que as Cartas Estéticas de Schiller exerceu sobre a filosofia de Peirce revelou-se como uma desafiadora tarefa interpretativa. Tanto o entendimento de sua necessidade quanto a consciência de suas dificuldades apenas surgiram gradativamente na obra de gerações de estudiosos. O objetivo deste trabalho é delinear a situação hermeneutica atual em relação à ‘questão-Schiller-Peirce’ (Seção I) e executar a sub-tarefa de interpretar um grupo de passagens que, até agora, não receberam a atenção e o rigor filológico que merecem: as recordações de Peirce (1902-1913) de seu estudo juvenil das Cartas. Como constituem nossa única garantia da premissa de que o pensamento de Schiller – além de servir como acesso a Kant, em torno de 1855 – teve algum significado para Peirce, as recordações são documentadas o mais plenamente possível (Seção II), a fim de situar o ressurgimento de Schiller no pensamento de Peirce no contexto dos desafios teoréticos enfrentados por Peirce, em vista da reconcepção coenoscópica das ciências filosóficas que ocorreram entre 1900 e 1903 (Seção III). Esta contextualização arquitetônica das recordações corresponde aos resultados de nossa análise da juvelinia obtida em um trabalho conjunto. A essência categoriológica das Cartas, em torno da qual Schiller constrói uma lógica tripartida de processos psíquicos, agiu como um catalizador para a análise de Peirce das deficiências da categoriologia de Kant e, assim, fundamentou sua concepção (conotação) e uso (aplicação extensa ao objeto-domínios) das categorias como constituintes meramente formais – verdadeiramente universais, estritamente ordenados, essencialmente modais – de fenomenalidade, normatividade e processualidade histórica, i.e., como os elementos constitutivos e dimensões arquitetônicas da semiose de uma inteligência, capaz de aprender através da experiência.

Psychotraumatisme, « réel de la mort » et travail psychique infantile sur la mort

AimsThis paper sets out to explore the possible link between the development of psychotrauma in certain subjects and the formation, during childhood, of a “knowledge” staging death as a complete annihilation, whereby the subject not only disappears in the flesh, but also and above all in the thoughts of those close to him. This “knowledge” formed in childhood could prevent the advent of an essential psychic process, which is work on death. This psychic process, which often accompanies the discovery that death is universal and irreversible, can be seen as a fundamental matrix for all future processing of trauma, often envisaged as being encounters with the “reality of death”, since they enables the subject to position him or herself in a continuity that extends beyond his or her own existence. Thus we set out to study the importance of this work on death in childhood, the psychic consequences of failure in this area, and the possible early birth of a knowledge of death that is “silenced”, but liable to re-emerge at the time of a later traumatic event. MethodsFirst, on the basis of psychic work with two children aged four and four and a half we present the different stages in work with children on death, and the unconscious processes arising. Second, the cases of two female patients, one adolescent and one adult, make it possible to apprehend the psychic consequences when the above process fails. Alongside, we also explore particular psychic configurations (positions of identification, temporal figures) that accompany the formation of knowledge about death that is neither put into words nor remembered. ResultsIn the context of the discovery of death and its realities, paradoxically, work on death gives the child a stronger feeling of continuing existence. The task for the child is to return through the depressive phase that will accompany this mourning by anticipation. Ultimately, this process enables the child to position him or herself in the generational lineage, and to form a memory (his and that of others) as a narcissistic refuge beyond death. Different personal narratives show that certain subjects are unable to build themselves a refuge of this sort, and that death appears to them as sheer annihilation, with nothing of life surviving death. Thus the encounter with the reality of death takes the form, for some subjects, of a reinstatement of this certainty, and thus the assurance of their own annihilation, and sometimes the confirmation that they have always been dead. DiscussionOn the basis of these different elements, we can first of all consider the setbacks that the child will encounter in work on death. Indeed, some are required to renounce, under pressure from those around him or her, who refuse or avoid (especially if the child is young) talking about death, or who elude it via religious discourse. What are the effects of interruptions of this sort ? Do they also lead to scenarios that stage certainties ? Do they produce temporal distortions ? And what can later enable the child to return to this work, to see it out ? It would also be worthwhile exploring the conditions enabling this work to be undertaken in a transference relationship. It possible that sometimes, within the scope of the work accompanying the end of certain cures, it will re-emerge, well after the deconstruction of the alienating certainties of childhood has occurred. ConclusionIn these clinical encounters, we can see that work on death with children is above all work on the links between life and death, which make a major contribution to the feeling of continuity of existence. Thus a matrix forms, and it will later enable the triggering of a process of symbolization, restoring the temporality to language, and enabling the subject to redefine the boundaries that the trauma has upset. Conversely, when this work cannot occur, most often as a result of a traumatic family history, we see the formation of the certainty of a death coinciding with the fall from the psychic space of the other, and thus with sheer annihilation. It is the re-emergence of these certainties at the time of an encounter with the reality of death that can lead to psychotrauma. The subject has undergone an intolerable identification process – since his or her non-existence, or the notion that he or she has always been dead, is confirmed – whether it takes the form of withdrawal of the other, or even the form of murder.

The concept of the 50-minute hour: Time forming a frame for the unconscious

The 50-minute hour is a feature of psychoanalytic work that is most commonly discussed in the context of case reports. This paper examines it as a concept. The author starts by describing the origin of the 50-minute hour and its development as an element of the psychoanalytic setting or framework. Next, he considers the significance of the clock as a relational factor in the session and reflects on the alienness of the time of day to the unconscious, and the consequences of this alienness. He then uses a clinical example to illustrate the phenomenon of the stretching effect of time in analytic sessions. Finally, the author demonstrates how cleverly the 50-minute hour excises the time needed for unconscious processes from our accelerated present; he shows that it challenges the social convention of time, and has a structuring effect in that it “times” psychic processes.

El Freud cognitivo: Los conceptos de la Física en El Proyecto

espanolEl Proyecto de Psicologia para Neurologos constituye el mas energico intento de Freud de formular un modelo de funcionamiento psiquico en el marco de las Ciencias Naturales. Asi, estudia la composicion del sistema mental llegando a diferenciar la existencia de tres subsistemas neuronales y analiza los avatares de la cantidad Q, esencia de la dinamica psiquica y fundamento de la organizacion Yoica. El proposito de este trabajo es explicitar el uso de los conceptos provenientes de la Fisica de su epoca y la forma que tomaron en el Proyecto. Se presentan cuatro ejes: (1) La nocion de sistema, estado y cambio de estado, para analizar las proposiciones metateoricas. (2) La sustentacion de la dinamica psiquica en el primer y segundo principio de la Termodinamica. (3) El simil de las nociones electrodinamicas en el funcionamiento del aparato psiquico. (4) El estudio de las caracteristicas ondulatorias como sustento del tercer subsistema neuronal del modelo. EnglishThe Project for a Scientific Psychology is Freud's most forceful attempt to formulate a model of psychic functioning within the framework of the natural sciences. In order to do this he defines the psychism as a system constituted by specifiable material particles, the neurons, particles subject to changes ofstate according to an operator of change of state conceived as an amount (Q) and on which the laws of Newton validly operate. In this way, he studies the composition of the mental system, differentiating the existence of three neuronal subsystems (Fi, Psi and Omega) and analyzing the avatars of the quantity Q as a state change operator, which is essentially the motor of the Psychic dynamics and foundation of the Ego organization organization, taking this organization as a particular state of the distribution of Q in the system. The purpose of this work is to make explicit the use of the concepts coming from the physics of that time and the form they took in the Project. This paper presents four axes: 1) The notion of system, state and change of state. Freud advocates for a Psychology defined as natural science as capable of representing phenomena as quantitatively determined states of specifiable material particles. The system issubject to state changes according to a physical and measurable change ofstate operator, which corresponds to the notion of quantity (Q). 2) The support of psychic dynamicsin the first and second principles of thermodynamics. The tendency described in the Project as an impulse to the discharge of the neuronal tension to zero, is heiress of a model constructed according to the first two principles of the thermodynamics. The notion of the general irreversibility of the psychic process, despite the mechanisms that retard, and even partially reverse the direction of the process, is an implicit idea on which all repetitive phenomena are based. The concept of facilitation itself involvesthe irreversibility of the process since it does not contemplate the possibility that mechanisms exist that may allow the reverse operation, except in the exceptional situation in which, for different reasons, the expected spontaneous sense is reversed, generating the process of regression. 3) The analogy of electrodynamics notions in the functioning of the psychic apparatus. Neurons, as conductors charged by a current flowing in a given direction, are also capable of storing a quantity of excitation, cathexis, neologism derived from the word cathode, used in physics. The idea of gradual local differences in potential is the only possible justification within the model for explaining psychic work as a product of the interrelationship between energy and work. Thus, it is difficult to say that when Freud developed his project he was not thinking of an electrodynamics model, it is difficult to imagine that he did not think of current (electron flow) when he spoke of current, or that he did not think of physical resistances when he spoke of resistances, or that he did not think about tension when he described the storage of potential excitation, or else that he did not seek, finally, to formulate an Ohm law of neural function, when he spoke of their relations. 4) The study of the wave characteristics as the basis of the third neuronal subsystem of the model. The Project solves the problem of the quality by assigning to the currents in flow another property, the periodicity, independent of the quantity. This periodicity refers to frequency and frequency changes, which only in the Omega system become significant, because in the Psisystem they do not exist, neither in Fi. These are, in Freud's words, monotonous, that isto say of uniform and constant frequency so as to give a unique tone.

"Child-Adult" Transition - Adolescence: When Illness Appears….

Considering the patient's transition from child to adolescent to adult and its psychological aspects in endocrinology and diabetology, it is necessary to recall the child's psycho-affective development when he enters adolescence. Indeed, adolescence appears paradigmatic of the "child-adult" transition; it is a specific and decisive psychic process which allows the child to become an adult, that is to say autonomous and subject to his desire. In our paper, we study the resonance of a chronic disease in young people; type 1 diabetes is chosen.

‘Coscienza spietata’/Superio arcaico: attacco al legame e autocastrazione come funzioni del pensiero e del linguaggio di Clemente Rebora

‘Ruthless conscience’ / Archaic Superego Attack on linking and self-castration as psychic functions underpinning Rebora’s thought and language Making reference to the classic Freudian theory of castration, this article will first set out to examine the motifs (quite common in Rebora) of self-punishment and atonement, alongside the sense of pleasure or relief that accompanies them. It will then proceed to use Bion’s radical development of the Freudian notion of attack on the Oedipal couple to show how a number of representational and performative elements in Rebora’s discourse can all be understood as epiphenomena of a process called “attack on linking” – a psychic process which damages and, in extreme cases, altogether destroys the ability to relate to one’s external and internal reality, as well as to produce thoughts infused with a sense of personal meaning. The aforementioned representational and performative elements include: representations of the body (which Rebora attacked and disparaged); representations of emotions and thought processes (both perceived to engender a state of “permanent emergency”); well-known and much commented on “stylistic” traits such as linguistic obscurity and a strong tendency to abstractness.

THE ANALYSIS OF EFFECTIVENESS OF CORRECTIVE PROGRAM OF FORMING OF COMPONENTS OF PROFESSIONAL SELF-DEVELOPMENT OF FUTURE PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS

The analysis of effectiveness of corrective program of forming of components of professional self-development of future primary school teachers is made in the article. The methodological base of design of corrective program was the principles of systematic and genetic, personal and active, action approaches to the professional self-development, humanist theory of self- actualization and self-realization of the personality. The program, designed by author consisted of: diagnostic, forming and recovering, psychical and preventive and correctional, control blocks. In the psychical and preventive and correctional process the gaming technologies, which consist of numerous exercises and performed both individually and within groups, psychological actions and role games and quests, personality-oriented technologies of professional development were used. The conducted justification of effectiveness of corrective program showed, that the specially arranged events allowed to increase levels of such components of professional self-development of future primary school teachers as: need and motivational, reflexive and value and social-communicative. During the conducting of pedagogical correction the specially organized training as the addition to traditional educational forms were used. The objectives of such education are the following: the promotion of forming of subjective position of the personality about the professional promotion; the supporting of personal-professional development; the stimulating of upward professional mobility and career growth in the pedagogical activity; optimization of attitude to oneself as to the professional; the expansion of oriental level in the professional field; the actualization of personal resources in the professional self-development; help in passing of new professional status of future pedagogue; the prognostication of possible difficulties, which are related to the future pedagogical activity. Thus proved, that the specified corrective program is able to promote forming the professional motivation, directivity on the professional self-development, high level of aspiration, awareness of value of one’s professional self-development, vision of one’s disadvantages and the weak sides, to develop social skills and communicative abilities.

The sense and the meaning of cultural-historical theory of L. S. Vygotsky

L. S. Vygotsky’s principal idea, lying in the base of cultural-historical theory, is the primacy of sense over meaning. There are serious reasons to believe that this part of cultural-historical theory was not completely understood both by his disciples and his opponents. That’s why many Vygotsky’s conclusions and discoveries remained untapped. while others were implemented in science and practice quite di˙erently from what he suggested. Vygotsky once wrote that features of the particular science deeply related to its method. That’s why he introduced the experimental-genetic method (projective method in modern psychology), which allows modeling the processes of development. One of the basic concepts of cultural-historical theory is the concept of “cultural de-velopment”. A Cultural person, for Vygotsky, is the person, who can control not only their own behavior and actions but also their own psychic processes. On the one hand, modern psychology doesn’t deny the role of volition in child’s development. But on the other hand, the volition itself is typically understood as one’s ability to submit to laws and rules. More than that – it’s rather easy to create conditions where a person will submit to laws and rules, but it doesn’t develop his ability to control himself. In Vygotsky’s opinion, there are natural psychic functions, which in the process of learning transform into cultural ones. In this context, the main goal of learning is to create conditions for developing person’s ability to be the subject of his own behavior, activity and psychic.

Haut potentiel intellectuel et syndrome d’Asperger : à la rencontre des nouveaux spectres

ObjectivesAs a transnosographic entity, high intellectual potential concerns both normal and pathological functioning. Thus, the “high intellectual potential spectrum” includes different profiles, often disharmonious, in some cases associated with Asperger's syndrome. Asperger's syndrome itself has disappeared from the recent DSM-5 and is merged into the new category of “autism spectrum disorders”. This article aims to explore these new spectra and the two entities high intellectual potential and Asperger's syndrome in children. MethodologyA review of the literature enabled the research on high intellectual potential and Asperger's syndrome to be put into perspective from a clinical and psychopathological point of view, adopting three lines of approach: the relationships of these children with to knowledge, with others and with the world. ResultsTheir relationship towards knowledge raises the issue of the “sufficient permeability” of that knowledge, also that of their ability to use their intelligence to improve their relational and social integration. Their highly focused interests and their language particularities can sometimes make peer relationships difficult, so that they turn to adults or avoid relationships. Finally, their links with the world are commonly characterized by sensory and emotional permeability, which can make them vulnerable. DiscussionThe over-investment of intelligence commonly seems to have an anti-excitation function contributing to a form of internal withdrawal which raises the issue of its continuity with autistic withdrawal, the questioning of reality and its avoidance. This over-investment could bolster self-functions and enable these children to maintain links with other people, with reality and with the world. ConclusionThis review leads us to hypothesize a transnosographic continuum between these two entities and suggests the need for further clinical research in order to better define the similarities and differences between these children and the psychic processes involved.

Towards a psychoanalytic concept of community (III): A proposal

AbstractA new concept of community is proposed in this third paper of the series, “Towards a psychoanalytic concept of community”. This concept emphasizes the unconscious, collective, psychological tasks involved in creating and sustaining a community, as well as the tasks undertaken by the community in achieving its reason for being. One of the core psychological tasks is the creation of bonding among its members. When a community is being formed it experiences itself subjectively as “us”, and needs to come to terms with what is “not us”. A set of psychological tasks comes into play and they relate to the formation and maintenance of its boundary and identity. Each of these psychological tasks is underpinned by unconscious psychic processes; such as symbolization to create boundary, projective and introjective identifications to create bonds and identity.

Just a joke. Psychogenesis of humor in alcohol advertisements

ABSTRACTThis article asks what psychic functions humorous alcohol advertisements employ and how they are connected to the wider cultural meanings of alcohol. The material comprises 27 advertisements televised in Europe in 2013. The material is primarily examined using Freud’s ideas regarding the psychogenesis of jokes. Freud’s conceptions of humor provide in-depth point of views to understand how the advertisements address the viewer’s mind. We recognized three psychic processes: the pleasure of nonsense, recognition of the familiar, and liquidation of criticism. We argue that these are essential psychic activities which characterize the more or less unconscious functioning and content of humorous alcohol advertisements. The article suggests that the humorous strategies recall the infantile pleasure connected to playing with language. The humor in alcohol advertisements may also liquidate the critical attitudes toward drinking, enforce the process of denial of addiction and prohibit the reality-based reflection of alcohol use.

Terapia ocupacional e oncologia pediátrica: caracterização dos profissionais em centros de referência no Estado de São Paulo

O terapeuta ocupacional auxilia o paciente e a família a enfrentar e compreender o processo corporal e psíquico que a criança poderá passar a partir do momento que recebe o diagnóstico do câncer. No dia a dia visa melhorar a qualidade de vida da criança por meio de reabilitação, prevenção de sequelas, manutenção das atividades inerentes a faixa etária, além de proporcionar a (re)descoberta de capacidades e habilidades. O presente estudo teve por objetivo caracterizar os terapeutas ocupacionais que atuam na oncologia pediátrica do Estado de São Paulo. Trata-se de uma pesquisa descritiva, transversal e com abordagem quanti-qualitativa. A amostra se constituiu por 11 profissionais que atuam em instituições oncológicas. A coleta de dados ocorreu via internet, por questionário semiestruturado com questões fechadas e abertas sobre a formação e prática do profissional. Os profissionais participantes da pesquisa foram todos do sexo feminino, a faixa etária prevalente foi dos 25 aos 35 anos e a conclusão da graduação com maior incidência foi nos anos de 1980 e 2008. A abordagem terapêutica ocupacional predominante entre os profissionais teve como base o referencial da Terapia Ocupacional Dinâmica. As intervenções dos profissionais preconizam o trabalho multiprofissional, utilizam as brinquedotecas como local de intervenção e trabalham com uma diversidade de materiais em diferentes tipos de atividades. O quantitativo de terapeutas ocupacionais foi reduzido apesar de existirem 101 instituições que oferecem o tratamento oncológico. O tipo de atuação descrita pelos terapeutas ocupacionais denota responder aos preceitos da política de saúde no cuidado integral e ampliado.

Interrelations in the Development of Primary School Learners’ Creative Imagination and Creative Activity When Depicting a Portrait in Visual Art Lessons

Abstract Creative imagination is a psychic process of creating a new original image, idea or art work based on the acquired knowledge, skills, and abilities as well as on the experience of creative activity. The best of all primary school learners’ creative imagination develops at the lessons of visual art, aimed at teaching them to understand what is beautiful in art, as well as through their being involved in the creative process and creating art works themselves. This paper provides the characterization of the psychological process of imagination, and deals with the importance and dynamics of the development of primary school learners’ creative imagination in lessons of visual art when depicting a portrait, and it also looks at a visual art teacher’s role in organizing the educational process of developing learners’ creative imagination in a sustainable education process.

The sexuality bind: same-sex marriage and structures of homophobic violence

ABSTRACTPierre Bourdieu increasingly engaged psychoanalytic concepts in his work throughout his life. However, he focussed his analysis on the social causes of psychic processes, and had a particularly ambivalent relationship with Lacanian psychoanalysis. This article therefore engages Lacanian theory to address what analysis from a psychoanalytic direction of causality can bring to Bourdieusian social theory. I contend that Lacanian theory can provide two key insights, demonstrated by reference to the same-sex marriage debate. First, I argue that fields are socio-historically constructed through the enactment of an imagined fantasy. Marriage has consequently institutionalized a cultural capital that reflects the imaginary of the dominant. I term this cultural capital ‘heterosexualness’. Second, I argue that the Lacanian account of the symbolic order allows the logic underlying political violence to be elucidated. This logic, illustrated through the concept of the sexuality bind, legitimizes violence against the Other when they violate the imagined rules of the field. Applying these insights, I conclude that the legalization of same-sex marriage fails to break down the symbolic boundaries between ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual’ that found the sexuality bind, instead reproducing the imaginary form of the sexuality bind institutionalized in marriage itself. This reproduces both an unequal right to national governance, and the imagined value of heterosexualness. By considering the psychoanalytic direction of causality, this article thus finds that the legalization of same-sex marriage will reinforce both the sexuality bind and the legitimacy of homophobic violence.

Tentative de suicide à l’adolescence : quel sens ?

BackgroundThis article examines the understanding of suicide attempts in adolescence, a phenomenon which is particularly worrying nowadays and causes serious concern, which mental health professionals often have to deal with in their clinical practice. Some crucial clinical questions arise, in relation to this phenomenon: is the suicidal gesture a sign of an internal disaster, or a sign of reconstruction and psychic reorganisation? This question, which psychoanalysis has been particularly concerned with, gives rise to diverse theoretical and clinical questions: does the suicidal gesture indicate a desire to live or a desire to die? Does it indicate a search for the other or the object's annihilation? What part do life and death play in attempted suicide in adolescence? On one hand, when exclusively focusing on the destructive aspect of this act, the demands of suicidal adolescents towards objects may be neglected. On the other hand, only recognising the relational dimensions of such an act and its function of elaboration could lead us to deny its death function. While dealing with suicidal adolescents, the clinician must face the difficult task of “listening” to the suffering on many contradictory levels. MethodIn this paper, we will try to illustrate the complexity of the suicidal adolescent's psychic mechanisms. Firstly, a number of basic ideas from the Anglophone and Francophone psychoanalytic literature and research, regarding this topic, will be presented, in order to stress the complementary but often contradictory features of different theoretical and clinical contributions. This part of the article focuses on the dimension of destructiveness, which is discussed in its link to adolescent processes. Secondly, the case of a fifteen-year-old suicidal teenager, Lea, will be presented, in order to highlight the psychic mechanisms participating in suicide attempts in adolescence. Findings/ConclusionThe study of Lea's discourse reveals that the suicidal gesture in adolescence is linked to very different psychic processes that can coexist within the same subject. Certain forms of acting out may have a relational function and thus a constructive value, while others reveal more primary processes and in some cases a withdrawal from the object, as a result of the diffusion of instincts. The objective of this article is to encourage clinicians to consider the plurality of the psychic mechanisms participating in suicide attempts during adolescence.

Simulation study of overtaking in pedestrian flow using floor field cellular automaton model

Properties of pedestrian may change along the moving path, for example, as a result of fatigue or injury, which has never been properly investigated in the past research. The paper attempts to study tactical overtaking in pedestrian flow. That is difficult to be modeled using a microscopic discrete model because of the complexity of the detailed overtaking behavior, and crossing/overlaps of pedestrian routes. Thus, a multi-velocity floor field cellular automaton model explaining the detailed psychical process of overtaking decision was proposed. Pedestrian can be either in normal state or in tactical overtaking state. Without tactical decision, pedestrians in normal state are driven by the floor field. Pedestrians make their tactical overtaking decisions by evaluating the walking environment around the overtaking route (the average velocity and density around the route, visual field of pedestrian) and obstructing conditions (the distance and velocity difference between the overtaking pedestrian and the obstructing pedestrian). The effects of tactical overtaking ratio, free velocity dispersion, and visual range on fundamental diagram, conflict density, and successful overtaking ratio were explored. Besides, the sensitivity analysis of the route factor relative intensity was performed.

American Poetry After Modernism: The Power of the Word by Albert Gelpi

American Poetry after Modernism: The Power of the Word, by Albert Gelpi. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 316 pages. Albert Gelpi has now completed his critical trilogy on US poetry, a project nearly fifty years in the making. The trilogy--composed of The Tenth Muse: The Psyche of the American Poet (1975), A Coherent Splendor: The American Poetic Renaissance, 1910-1950 (1987), and this present book, American Poetry after Modernism: The Power of the Word (2015)--is a rare scholarly enterprise. It closely examines high points in American poetic history from Edward Taylor to Susan Howe. I can think of a handful of similarly ambitious projects over the years: Roy Harvey Pearce's The Continuity of American Poetry (1961), Hyatt Waggoner's American Poets: From the Puritans to the Present (1968), Edwin Fussell's Lucifer in Harness: American Meter, Metaphor, and Diction (1973), and Mutlu Konuk Biasing's American Poetry: The Rhetoric of Its Forms (1987). But none of these was published recently, and none took three volumes and almost a half-century to complete. None has quite the scale and sustained ambition of this enterprise. Gelpi's trilogy is unique. It must be admitted that the trilogy has a major limitation, of which the author seems aware--a fatal flaw in the project's highest aspirations. But let's defer consideration of that issue for a while as we consider the very real achievements of the trilogy and of the present, culminating volume. The Tenth Muse, essentially a study of nineteenth-century American poetry though it does find a foundation in the seventeenth-century writings of Edward Taylor, sought to pursue a formalist methodology while still associating the poetic text with the living consciousness--and the unconscious--of the poet who produced it. Indeed, Gelpi saw the close engagement of the poem with the poet as a feature that differentiates American poetry from British. The book attempted to modify the discursive orientation of honored precursors, the New Critics, with a humanistic and psychological awareness. It was a study of words on a page that arise within the discursive institution of poetry, yet remain attached to an embodied author with a certain way of perceiving and ordering experience. As Gelpi put it, his purpose was integrative: to combine a literary-historical and textual reading of the poems with a psychological sensitivity (1975, xi). Relatively traditional in its views of both textual artistry and the psychic process of creativity, the book was nevertheless quietly innovative in its effort to synthesize the two. Equally important, the book implicitly established a canon of American poetry before 1900, consisting of Taylor, Emerson, Poe, Whitman, and Dickinson. The book's most memorable and influential achievement is its emphasis on Dickinson, who was still a contested figure in 1975. Floyd Stovall's canon-making Eight American Authors: A Review of Research and Criticism first appeared in 1956 and is still in print today; a revised version, edited by James Woodress, appeared in 1963, and was further revised and republished in 1971. This volume, in all of its iterations, included the same eight writers: Emerson, Hawthorne, James, Melville, Poe, Thoreau, Twain, and Whitman--but not Dickinson. So when Gelpi concluded his study with a chapter on Dickinson--a chapter that was far longer and more intense than any of the others--he was certifying that the US literary canon had a new, female member. Gelpi argued that Dickinson was, in fact, the most complex and even heroic poet in nineteenth-century America. He found much more fundamental inconsistency in Dickinson than in Whitman, for all his talk about self-contradiction, precisely because she accepts interplay and counterplay as the condition of consciousness and takes the risks involved in living them out (1975, 222). A Coherent Splendor (1987), arriving a dozen years after The Tenth Muse, had two different, though related, arguments to make. …