Psychodynamic Processes Research Articles

Understanding spirituality in recovery from addiction: Reintegrating the psyche to release the human spirit

We examine the psychodynamic processes at play in recovery from addiction and give particular attention to Bernard Lonergan's tripartite model of human beings, which differentiates within the mind two distinct dimensions—psyche and spirit. Our goal is to show that the changes that occur during recovery are a direct result of psychic restructuring and are not necessarily, vice versa, due to spiritual growth via relationship with some Higher Power, which some popular recovery programs emphasize as a requisite for recovery. To exemplify this claim, we examine in detail three key aspects of psychic restructuring that may result in subsequent spiritual integration: the reestablishment of a sense of self, the development of a sense of connectedness to others, and the ability to regulate emotions. In this article we do not intend to aggrandize or disparage popular recovery programs, but to elucidate the process of psychic reintegration and to clarify the genuine spiritual foundation of recovery, and to advocate a mature, self-responsible spirituality.

THE FORMATION OF ENTS ADAPTIVE REACTIONS DEPENDING ON THE TYPE OF PSYCHO-VEGETATIVE REGULATION

The purpose of the students (12 to 15 years old) examination was to identify the integrative criteria of assessing the nature of the functional relationships between the parameters of the psychosocial and physiological adaptation of students, depending on age, individual-typological peculiarities of vegetative regulation, personal potential at different stages of school education. The study of the characteristics of vegetative regulation of the cardiovascular system was made with a help of an automatic cardiac-rhythm programs. The research of psychophysiological parameters was fulfiled using an automatic complex. The measurement of the speed of simple visual-motor reaction (PSMR), reaction to a moving object (WFD), the level of functional mobility of nervous processes (WFP) and health brain (DDM) were made before. Features psychosocial adaptation was analyzed using 8-color Luscher test. All examinee were divided into three groups on the basis of the statistical characteristics of the cardiac rhythm by the tone source autonomic tone: “vagotonia” (with a predominance of parasympathetic sistems), “somatotonic” (with domination of the sympatholytic effects), “atonic” (balanced type of vegetative nervous system). Based on the analysis of psychodynamic, neurodynamic and vegetative functions showed that students with initial vagotonies tone are characterized by high levels of situational and personal anxiety, low psychosocial adaptation, decreased activity of neurodynamic functions and psychodynamic processes in the learning dynamics, whereas the individuals with dominance of sympatotonics type regulation have high level of neurodynamic processes, psychosocial adaptation, against the background of significant stress mechanisms of vegetative regulation. Students with initial vegetative tone demonstrate a sufficient level of psychosocial adaptation, activity psychodynamic and neuromotor processes, accompanied by the preservation of the functionality of the body according to the parameters myocardial-hemodynamic homeostasis. It is established that the formation process of psychosocial and physiological adaptation and disadaptation of students is largely determined by the type of vegetative (autonomic) tone, degree of stress, behaviour strategies in stressful situations.

Guilt and ethical choice in consumption

Research into consumer ethics has grown substantially since the 1990s. However, it is predominantly influenced by socio-cognitive and attitudinal models that treat everyday consumer decisions as the outcome of carefully weighting abstract moral principles against utilitarian outcomes. This article counter-proposes a psychoanalytic approach to consumer guilt and moral choice that draws on Freudian and Kleinian contributions. In particular, conceptualisations of unconscious (rather than conscious) guilt, the notion of guilt being the cause rather than outcome of moral behaviour, and the distinction between persecutory and reparative anxieties. In doing so, it corroborates a view of everyday morality as less rational, less deliberate and firmly embedded in psychodynamic processes that largely escape individual awareness. Potential implications and avenues for more psychoanalytically inspired treatments of consumer ethics are discussed.

Italian Family Business Cultures Involved in the Generational Change

In family firms, the business and the family are two arenas in which processes significantly overlap and influence management. The present paper investigates the overlap of the family system and the business through the use of culture. Adopting an idiographic approach and recognising the unique psychodynamic process of family business (FB), this study aims to identify the cultural patterns within the FB, starting from what families define as a) family, b) business and, c) the generational change. Twenty-five family firms were considered during the generational change. The results show how and when this overlap takes shape pointing out how the role of family tradition can became a critical or success factor for the business.

Vaiko psichologinės gerovės užtikrinimo sunkumai konfliktiškų šeimų bylose

The objective of the study is to analyse how child’s psychological wellbeing and development is preserved in high-conflict child-custody cases. We have analysed contemporary legal aspects of discontinuation of marriage and discussed child’s psychological problems and psychopathological signs which formed during a delayed and high-conflict parents’ divorce process or due to post-divorce disputes between the parties; the psychopathological signs were diagnosed during a child’s psychological-psychiatric assessment. We have also investigated which questions are sought to be addressed by the court, requesting an assessment of child’s psychological wellbeing.Research materials and methodology. The analysis was based on court enquiries submitted to child psychiatrists and psychologists of the Child’s Developmental Centre of Vilnius University Children’s Hospital in year 2007 - 2011 and on conclusions and recommendations of a complex psychological-psychiatric assessment. 449 enquiries and 60 conclusions and recommendations of complex psychological-psychiatric assessment were analyzed. Using qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis court enquiries were divided into categories based on their content and frequency.Results. We were able to categorize enquiries into three groups allowing us to assess child’s three key needs: 1st group – enquiries related to a child’s her opinion on a given subject, 2nd group – enquiries analysing if that opinion is not influenced, 3rd group – enquiries related to assessing child’s emotional relation to other family members. Categories of enquiries according to their frequency: I. Family relationships: enquiries related to assessing child’s emotional relation to other family members; II. Opinion: enquiries asking to directly determine child’s opinion on that matter (for example, in relation to place of residency); III. Influence: enquiries analysing if that opinion is not influenced: IV. Consciousness: enquiries related to child’s ability to express his/her opinion;. The court made only two enquiries on child’s psychological wellbeing; recommendations on addressing child’s mental health problems made up only 3.6% of total number of enquiries.30% of all court enquiries were not categorized due to their diversity or irrelevance. Most of them were either repetitive, or not reflecting child’s interest or not requiring special psychological knowledge. It demonstrates that the parties participating in a court process lack knowledge related to: child development, family system and psychodynamics.Conclusions: 1. The research of child‘s needs in legal family process revealed the complexity of the analyzed problem which involves both legal and psychological aspects. During a legal process, a child involved in a family conflict triangle is demanded to express his/her opinion on his/her parents while being psychologically and emotionally dependent on them. 2. Child‘s opinion should be taken into consideration only after having considered child‘s interests (understanding them as a holistic concept involving child‘s physical, mental, spiritual, moral, psychological, and social development) and after having assessed each of the parents‘ ability to ensure them. In our research population, the court‘s enquires sought to clarify a child‘s opinion and a possible influence on this opinion by others, whereas enquires related to parents‘ abilities to satisfy child‘s interests were rare. 3. During a child and family assessment, multiple psychological problems and emerging psychopathological symptoms were discovered, it demonstrates that child‘s developmental needs are neglected during a family legal conflict. 4. Timely psychological or psychiatric help is crucial in prevention of child‘s mental health disorders. 5. A scientifically based approach and knowledge of child‘s development and family system‘s psychodynamic processes is to be included in specialists‘ development and studies.

Diego Maradona and the psychodynamics of football fandom in international cinema

Taking a psychoanalytic approach, the article examines and compares how three films explore the psychodynamic processes of fan investment in Argentine former football star Diego Maradona. These films illustrate how his meaning as an international cultural icon is refracted by specific fan experiences and fantasies, and are variously informed by, and critically explore, the myths of virtual death, resurrection, redemption and geopolitical opposition to global capitalism associated with him.In the 2007 British documentary In the Hands of the Gods, five ‘freestyle’ footballers from the UK embark on a pilgrimage to his home. Their geographical movement through North and South America is presented as an opportunity for psychological rebirth and self-realisation through their affinity with him as a supremely gifted individual, rather than a representative of the disciplined world of team sport and its international rivalries. The 2006 Argentine road movie El Camino de San Diego ironically depicts its fan protagonist’s obsession with Maradona as a misguidedly narcissistic distraction from a geographically fractured and enduringly economically weak post-crisis Argentina. Finally, Emir Kusturica’s 2008 movie Maradona by Kusturica reflexively explores how Maradona’s enigma and contradictions as an object of fan investment and political figure of redemption confound his attempts to explain him. Kusturica’s fantasies return inevitably to himself, raising the possibility that ‘Maradona’ may be a ‘neutrosemic’, or inherently meaningless, fan text.

Health care in sub-Saharan Africa: an explorative study of photography as a healing art

Background and Purpose: Therapeutic art plays an important role in patient recovery in hospitals. Art therapy in prescribed terms captures the use of arts and words to express ones feelings. Unlike many developed parts of the world, art rarely plays a significant role in the healing processes at hospitals in sub-Saharan Africa. While waiting to see medical officers or during admissions in the hospital, patients often find themselves either staring at blank walls or looking at health informational images — two extremes of the imagery spectrum. This may psychologically have a positive or negative impact on the health of the patient. However, research shows the importance of art in the healing process as well as in comfort and the perceived level of care. Research conducted on patients who have undergone surgery indicates that patients who had photographs mounted in their wards recovered faster than their counterparts. Similarly, researchers have also found that digital storytelling is one of the viable ways to facilitate self-healing. With the availability of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), there is a possibility of improving healing, facilitated within this form of cognitive-behavioural and psychodynamic process of therapy. This on-going case study, explores the use of digital photography in facilitating healing process in a hospital. It explores the use of ICT-enabled therapeutic art installation in the medical wards to aid in clinical care and practice. Methods: A qualitative approach is employed to gain deeper insight and understanding of ICTs in therapeutic art. The study focuses on maternal and child healthcare (MCH). The research is being conducted in a private-general hospital in Ghana where most of the patients are middle-income earners. Through participatory processes, images created from the input of patients and health workers were installed in the female wards and waiting areas. Interviews and observations were used to obtain impressions from patients and hospital staff about the installation in the clinic. Twenty key informants comprising doctors, nurses and patients conveyed their views. Results: Preliminary results show that, patients prefer hospital environments with therapeutic art. It relieves them of boredom and makes them feel more comfortable and relaxed. Subsequently, artistic intervention takes their mind of their ailment. It may be realised that the use of ICT- enabled therapeutic art installation has potential in facilitating healing. Conclusions: The preliminary results suggest that through simple photos created from ICTs, patients and health workers mood could be improved in the hospital. This form of phototherapy also makes patient’s appreciate art. Further research could be conducted in other private and public hospitals in cities and rural areas in other sub-Saharan African countries to validate the study. Keywords: healing; ICT; maternal healthcare; photography; sub-Saharan Africa; therapeutic art

Aspects of Internal Self and Object Representations in Disorganized Attachment: Clinical Considerations in the Assessment and Treatment of Chronic and Relapsing Substance Misusers

In clinical theory and practice we rarely find an isomorphic fit between early patterns of attachment and discrete clinical disorders or syndromes. Although a linear equivalence is not implied here the author draws out parallels between early disorganized attachment patterns, the internal world of the substance abuser and the ways in which such psychodynamic processes invariably shape and influence the therapeutic encounter. Exploring further Main and Hesse's (1990) assertion that the essence of disorganized attachment can be summed up as fright without solution, the author develops the idea that active and repeated drug use represents attempts to anaesthetically freeze the self, and in so doing to disable and paralyse internal object imagos that induce feelings of panic, terror and dread. In addition the ingestion of drugs, as other writers on the subject have observed (Rosenfeld, 1965), often provides a type of internal inflation of the fragile self, leading to a sense of omnipotent and omniscient superiority on behalf of the substance abusing patient.

L’adolescence comme « moment limite ». Entre rupture et continuité

Adolescence can be viewed as to either a specific period of time introducing a sudden break into previous development or a critical moment of developmental tuning-in. Psychoanalysis considers adolescence as an auspicious moment during which the unconscious and its psychodynamics can be revealed. As such, the period of adolescence represents a particular clinical phase speaking each time of a unique history made of the desire that brings the adolescent face to face with the actuality of castration, and exposes him or her to major signifiers. As far as adolescence mobilizes founding psychodynamic processes, it can be considered as a critical “border period” characterized by continuous remodeling. Hence, a psychotic breakdown at this age can either spontaneously resolve or turn out to mark the beginning of a full-blown adult psychosis. In this article, two clinical vignettes will be used to show that, by metaphorizing parental identifications, adolescence plays a key role in symbolization processes.

Bodies Do Matter: The Peculiar Persistence of Neoliberalism in Environmental Governance

Substantial academic attention has recently highlighted the increasing and contradictory tendency to promote neoliberal market-based mechanisms such as “ethical” consumption as the solution to environmental problems exacerbated by processes of capitalist accumulation themselves. To date, the majority of this research has drawn on Marxist or Foucaultian frames, and thus has paid little attention to the embodied psychodynamic processes supporting this paradoxical dynamic. This article thus draws on Lacanian psychoanalysis, primarily through the work of Slavoj Žižek, to analyze the role of fantasy and desire in sustaining faith in the potential of market-based environmental-ism. In the process, it seeks to synthesize Marxian, Foucaultian, and Lacanian perspectives in pursuit of a comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding how contemporary environmental governance functions. It does so by treating the body as a crucial nexus of convergence among these different perspectives. The analysis is illustrated through discussion of how the practice of ecotourism, a quintessential market-based conservation strategy, is sustained through its promise to provide a transcendent experience of nature-culture unity yet instead offers, for the most part, a mere “pseudocatharsis” that paradoxically intensifies the very desire that it promises to satisfy and thereby supports the twin neoliberal fantasies of consumption without consequence and accumulation without end, in terms of which the body itself becomes a prime site of capitalization.

Caught between cultures: cultural norms in Jungian psychodynamic process

In our increasingly mobile world, more of us are caught between cultures rather than in one culture. We straddle different ethnic, racial, political, geographical, and religious groups, forced into awareness of the precarious nature of our self-definition, involuntarily gazing at the constructed nature of our cultural norms, unable to avoid reckoning with the choices of which collective to honour. The impossibility of separating individual from collective is foundational to work as Jungian practitioners, but a paradox of individuation is becoming free of the control of collective norms while simultaneously living within those very norms. In such a conflict it becomes easy to overlook the fact that when the norms we have incorporated into ourselves are from cultures vastly different from the one in which we live, the cacophony can be overwhelming. In this paper, I will draw from postmodern theorists such as Derrida, Foucault and Irigaray in an effort to re-imagine the role of culture in psychodynamic process. The case of a Muslim Iranian man working with a Christian American woman analyst will be used to explore the complexity of a multitude of cultural norms present in the consulting room.

Exploring the Interface of Neurobehaviorally Linked Personality Dimensions and Personality Organization in Borderline Personality Disorder: The Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire and Inventory of Personality Organization

Advances in our understanding of complex psychopathology will likely benefit from approaches to mind, brain, and behavior that seek to (a) specify those general neurobehavioral processes underpinning pathology and (b) bridge to other process-based models of psychopathology at different levels of analysis. Well-defined neurobehavioral processes (e.g., positive emotionality, negative emotionality, nonaffective constraint, fear, affiliation) and their phenotypic indicators are firmly rooted in neural substrates (Depue & Lenzenweger, 2005). Furthermore, long-studied psychodynamic psychological processes, such as identity diffusion, primitive psychological defensive functioning, and reality-testing dimensions, are important to understanding personality pathology (Kernberg & Caligor, 2005). Both theoretical perspectives view the cardinal processes involved in the determination of personality disorders (PDs) as relevant across existing PD diagnostic entities. The authors examined relationships between psychometric indicators of these two sets of processes, the neurobehavioral and the psychodynamic, in a well-characterized sample of individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD; N = 92). In bridging these two levels of analysis, the authors found that the alienation, aggression, and absorption constructs represent important linkages to the psychodynamic processes, especially primitive psychological defenses and reality-testing impairments. These results are discussed in terms of their potential for joining these two domains of analysis--a neurobehaviorally informed view of personality and the psychodynamic--in efforts to (a) foster a process-oriented approach, (b) resolve heterogeneity, and (c) facilitate identification of endophenotypes in BPD. The heuristic value of this approach for understanding other forms of psychopathology is also discussed.

L'utilizzo dell'ipnosi come tecnica ausiliaria nel recupero di soggetti tossicodipendenti in trattamento in una comunitŕ terapeutica

The use of hypnosis in a therapeutic community for drug users, offers a great support to the joint effort of the operator/therapist and the patient to reduce and/or prevent relapse to drug use and abuse and to change some of the psychodynamic processes underlying the behavior-oriented (toxic)-dependence. In this article, referring to a mode of treatment in a residential therapeutic community and based on some of the psychodynamic theories on the etiopathogenesis of drug addiction, will be given a case study to explain how to use hypnosis, especially the use of dissemination thecnique and the regressive technique to change the psychicdynamics underlying to addiction and restructure traumatic childhood experiences

The Group Coaching Conundrum

The first part of this article is an account of a coach’s reflections on leadership group coaching. It explains the road toward becoming a group coach. It describes elements of this inner journey: what coaches are running from, and to, and why—to penetrate the mystery that is the self. The second part of the article reflects on what makes group coaching such an effective intervention technique. In group intervention, two dynamics occur simultaneously: first, there are the dynamic processes applicable to the individual in the hot seat whose life and career are discussed; second, and simultaneously, there are “cloud” issues, themes that the group-as-a-whole brings to the table. It introduces the notion of the clinical paradigm, a psychodynamic lens that can be turned on our inner theater, and describes seven premises that characterize this paradigm. The article also highlights a number of other psychodynamic processes that take place during the group coaching process, creating tipping points for change.

Psychoanalysis and the brain - why did freud abandon neuroscience?

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, was initially a neuroscientist but abandoned neuroscience completely after he made a last attempt to link both in his writing, “Project of a Scientific Psychology,” in 1895. The reasons for his subsequent disregard of the brain remain unclear though. I here argue that one central reason may be that the approach to the brain during his time was simply not appealing to Freud. More specifically, Freud was interested in revealing the psychological predispositions of psychodynamic processes. However, he was not so much focused on the actual psychological functions themselves which though were the prime focus of the neuroscience at his time and also in current Cognitive Neuroscience. Instead, he probably would have been more interested in the brain’s resting state and its constitution of a spatiotemporal structure. I here assume that the resting state activity constitutes a statistically based virtual structure extending and linking the different discrete points in time and space within the brain. That in turn may serve as template, schemata, or grid for all subsequent neural processing during stimulus-induced activity. As such the resting state’ spatiotemporal structure may serve as the neural predisposition of what Freud described as “psychological structure.” Hence, Freud and also current neuropsychoanalysis may want to focus more on neural predispositions, the necessary non-sufficient conditions, rather than the neural correlates, i.e., sufficient, conditions of psychodynamic processes.

Schizophrenia as a Human Process

The patient with schizophrenia often appears to be living in an alien world, one of strange voices, bizarre beliefs, and disorganized speech and behavior. It is difficult to empathize with someone suffering from symptoms so remote from one's ordinary experience. However, examination of the disorder reveals not only symptoms of the psychosis itself but also an intensely human struggle against the disintegration of personality it can produce. Furthermore, examination of the individual's attempts to cope with a devastating psychotic process reveals familiar psychodynamic processes and defense mechanisms, however unsuccessful they may be. Knowing that behind the seemingly alien diagnostic features of schizophrenia is a person attempting to preserve his or her self-identity puts a human face on the illness. This article utilizes clinical material to describe some of the psychodynamic processes of schizophrenia. Its purpose is to facilitate understanding of an illness that requires comprehensive biopsychosocial treatment in which a therapeutic doctor-patient relationship is as necessary as antipsychotic medication.

2010 Essay Competition Winner: Transformation at a community mental health centre

The community mental health centre affords an opportunity for psychodynamic practice that is both challenging and rewarding. The experience of psychoanalytic education and supervision at a suburban mental health centre is described in terms of its transformative effect on the participants and the clinical setting. A parallel clinical transformative process is illustrated through an extended vignette of one client's experience in group psychotherapy. In both situations – that of the mental health team and that of the group therapy client – an initial jarring impact of the psychodynamic process gives way to a broad transformative experience.

Corresponding instability of patient and therapist process ratings in psychodynamic psychotherapies

The transference relationship within the psychodynamic process was conceived of as a self-organizing system under the assumption that patient and therapist instability trajectories prove similar. Nine patients and therapists each rated their experience of the therapeutic interaction (Intrex, SASB) over the course of therapy (29 to 35 sessions). A measure of instability was calculated for these ratings across the resulting time series. The degree of synchronicity (correlation) and the correspondence of instability levels (measure of difference) were calculated for each patient-therapist dyad. Destabilization of ratings was highly synchronous and the level of destabilization corresponded highly in successful therapies. Destabilization in non-successful cases showed low synchronicity and/or therapist ratings proved more instable. The results suggest that systematically including a measure of instability and associations between patient and therapist ratings may prove fruitful in process research.

Psychosocial treatment in group format with people diagnosed with schizophrenia: results and limitations of empirical research

Psychosocial treatment in group format with people diagnosed with schizophrenia has been applied for decades. Meta-analyses and reviews support the clinical impression that psychosocial treatment in group format is effective. The most investigated forms of group treatment are social skills groups, psycho-educational groups with patients and families, and cognitive-behavioural therapy. Psychodynamic approaches and traditional verbal therapies in group settings are frequently applied but have not been sufficiently investigated to date. In this article, the main results of outcome research on psychosocial treatment in group format with people diagnosed with schizophrenia are summarized and critically discussed with respect to methodological shortcomings. The need for more research on psychodynamic approaches and group processes is also emphasized.

The internet and its role in the escalation of sexually compulsive behaviour

As increasing numbers of patients present with problems of compulsive use of internet sex and internet pornography, psychotherapists are challenged to develop models that address the powerful, and potentially disturbing effect of this stimulus. Internet sex does not just facilitate access to sexual materials but can act as a catalyst, affecting established defences and ego and superego functioning. Escalation in sexually compulsive behaviour, which affects a small proportion of those accessing online sex, may be thought of as a series of transitions: from casual to compulsive use, from compulsive use to illegal use, and from use of illegal pornography to contact offending. Drawing on clinical experience and the available research evidence, psychodynamic processes associated with movement through these transitions are considered. Internet sex has the potential to fuel manic defences, invites narcissistic and part-object relating, provides a vehicle for the expression and disowning of sadistic impulses and can potentially undermine superego functioning. The combined effect of these processes may lead to a breakdown of ego controls in vulnerable individuals.