Strong Ambivalence Research Articles

Agency in avoidant personality disorder: a narrative review.

Avoidant personality disorder (AvPD) is a highly prevalent personality disorder, especially in clinical settings, yet scarcely researched. People diagnosed with AvPD have severe impairments in functioning and suffer greatly, yet we still lack meta-analytic evidence for therapy and only a few RCTs are conducted. Patient factors are the most important for outcome in therapy, in general. Lack of agency might be a core deficit in people diagnosed with AvPD. Their conditions might be improved if we understand their agency better. We review previous research regarding psychological mechanisms and interpersonal relationships that facilitate or hinder agency in AvPD in daily life and psychotherapy. Summarizing original literature in a narrative review with reflexive thematic analysis. People diagnosed with AvPD seem to have significant impairments in their sense of agency due to a lack of emotional awareness, an overweight of inhibiting vs. activating emotions, and difficulties regulating emotions. Difficulties also seem related to high levels of attachment avoidance and fear, creating strong ambivalence in social needs, in addition to a strong tendency to subordinate to others. A weak sense of self with a poor narrative, self-doubt, and harsh self-critique makes a reflexive and intentional stand increasingly difficult for these people. This review gives a clinically meaningful understanding of core strengths and deficits in the personality functioning of AvPD that can help clinicians map out important therapeutic work, identify barriers to client-agency in therapy, and work through relational difficulties in the therapeutic alliance.

Meaningful Values of Life of Women Suffering Perinatal Losses

The article considers the issues of modern perinatal psychology related to the problem of experiencing an existential crisis, namely, the features of the meaningful life orientations of women, who are at the reproductive age, with the experience of desired pregnancy. We have conducted a comparative analysis of the meaningful life orientations in women who have experienced perinatal losses and women who have children without perinatal losses in the anamnesis. We have recorded significant differences in the life values of "active life". Women who have suffered perinatal losses have a significantly higher rate of this value. We explain this by the fact that the activity of these women is mediated by their life goals of high personal importance, the most significant of which are childbearing and childbirth, while the activity of mothers without perinatal losses in the anamnesis corresponds with their hedonist meanings. Existential meanings of women with pregnancy or newborn losses are related to their perceptions of family happiness and need for it, while women whose pregnancies have ended successfully, the meanings are caused by the importance of love and freedom, the latter is the subject to conscious women's control. The importance of freedom, as an opportunity to realize their own goals, of women who suffered from perinatal losses due to the need to fulfill their life purpose and search for sense of life, in women mothers without loss in the anamnesis the value of life itself is in all its displays. In general, women who have suffered perinatal losses, despite strong ambivalence due to the feeling of failure in childbearing, tend to build their lives according to their meaningful life orientations, the priority of which are motherhood, activity in behavior and altruistic self-realization. In our opinion, it makes lives of women more organized and productive, allows them to restore the idea of themselves as people whose lives have formed.

Ambivalence in activation encounters

ABSTRACT It continues to be unclear what opportunities and challenges that lie in the activation encounter as a communicative and relational situation. This study assumes that ambivalence is present in such encounters since ambivalence is common in transitions, relationships, and organisations. As a response to the limited body of knowledge about situated and relational aspects of activation work, this study examines handlings of ambivalence in authentic encounters between activation workers and young adults experiencing health and social barriers to employment. Data comprise recordings and transcripts of 23 counsellor-user encounters in the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Service. The findings show that ambivalence is present when possible next steps in the activation process are discussed, and subsequently influence decisions regarding next steps. While the counsellors display strong ambivalence when concrete job opportunities or disability pension are up for discussion, the users display strong ambivalence to work-oriented measures, and to some extent also to education and to employment when discussed as general and long-term goals. Findings are discussed considering theory and research on policy delivery.

Participatory Research, Community Perspectives, and Possibilities for Transformation

This paper offers the first known interdisciplinary, community-based participatory research study to focus directly on two questions that have drawn increased attention in the wake of global protests over racialized police violence: 1) what is the definition of safety?; and 2) how can safety be made accessible to all? The study is part of a larger project that was co-designed by community members and academic researchers. The project aimed to strengthen local justice reform efforts by adding new data literacy skills to existing community organizing capacity among Black residents of the Cincinnati, Ohio metropolitan area. Community-led roundtable discussions offered community members (n=12) an opportunity to answer the two research questions. Exploratory qualitative analysis resulted in four emergent themes through which participants (1) defined safety primarily as freedom from harm and enjoyment of close, supportive relationships; (2) identified poverty and racism as key barriers to creating safety; (3) described complex, overlapping, and sometimes conflicting roles and responsibilities for creating safety; and (4) expressed strong ambivalence over whether and how police contribute to safety. Applying Bell’s legal estrangement theory, the team examined those themes for evidence of four modalities through which marginalized communities engage with criminal legal systems (subordination, consumption, resistance, and transformation). The data reflected minimal subordination and resistance, relatively high levels of consumption, and mixed perspectives on system transformation. Further implications for theory, policy, and future research are discussed.

Vom „Global Village“ zur „Blackbox Society“? Digitale Identitäten und politische Kommunikation in Zeiten des Überwachungskapitalismus

Digitization and social media have been changing political (mass-)communication significantly. The Cambridge Analytica data scandal underlines the strong ambivalence between political empowerment and polarization. Problems of filter bubbles, “fake news”, disinformation etc. increasingly challenge free political will formation and democracy. This paper explores how and why social media altered political communication in this respect and what role the toolbox of surveillance capitalism plays here. In the light of a structural transformation of the public it discusses how digital mass communication functions with the dynamics of social media. Based on the case of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the paper reveals how digital identification practices, microtargeting and modern forms of persuasion marketing serve to create political impact by influencing political opinions and how this relates to mechanisms of propaganda. Finally, the paper argues for stricter regulation of political online communication and digital campaigning to counter populism.

¿El coronavirus reescribirá el turismo rural? Reinvención, adaptación y acción desde el contexto latinoamericano

A principios del 2020 la irrupción del virus SARS COV2, conocido como COVID-19, alcanzó la proporción de una amenaza sanitaria global. La cristalización de la pandemia puso en evidencia el rezago tecnológico, económico y social que la humanidad tiene para enfrentar contingencias de escala global y, con ello, se desnudó la existencia de una crisis civilizatoria de grandes proporciones. El turismo es una de las actividades productivas mayormente afectadas por la paralización económica, siendo altamente vulnerable a los riesgos sanitarios, dadas sus características de masificación e hipermovilidad. Ante el desplome del sector turístico, numerosas voces han proclamado la reactivación de las actividades de ocio y recreación, a partir del turismo de proximidad en las periferias rurales. Sin embargo, dicha postura encierra una fuerte ambivalencia que se debate entre la necesidad de reactivar las economías locales y el riesgo de contribuir a la dispersión del virus en contextos de marginación y pobreza. Por tal motivo, el objetivo de este ensayo es reflexionar en torno a los efectos de la pandemia del coronavirus sobre el turismo rural y sus eventuales transformaciones, en el contexto un posible repunte de la actividad. Se analiza la relación entre el turismo rural y el COVID-19 intentando dilucidar sus significados y horizontes. La reflexión permite establecer que el redescubrimiento de las proximidades rurales será un aspecto clave en la reactivación del turismo, pero para ello es necesario desarrollar un enfoque crítico que apunte hacia una transformación radical del ocio turístico y que garantice la seguridad de todos los involucrados en la actividad.

“Virilitat del país”: Gender, Immigration, and Power in Jaume Vicens Vives’s Notícia de Catalunya

This essay offers an analysis of Jaume Vicens Vives’s influential essay Notícia de Catalunya. Starting from a significant textual detail (the title of a section of the book’s first chapter), it considers the gender inflection in Vicens Vives’s argumentation, which articulates a series of binary oppositions that show a strong ambivalence with regards to the construction of Catalan identity, the role of immigration in Catalan society and history, Catalonia’s relationship with Spain, and the exercise of power. The author argues that Vicens Vives’s discourse on power is predicated on the masculine/feminine binary, through associations that link both a subordinated position and hybridity with femininity, frivolity, unruliness, and hysteria; these associations are essentialized in Vicens’s rhetoric by reference to the body. At the core of the Vicens Vives’s argumentation, the author claims, is a blind spot in his discourse on power: the opposition between voluntat de poder (will to power) and voluntat d’ésser (will to be), which betrays Vicens’s ambivalence with regards to Catalonia’s structural subordinated position vis-a-vis Spain.

An exploration into the encounter between Indigenous and Western education at Noonkodin School in Eluwai, Monduli, Tanzania

ABSTRACT This study investigated the tensions present in an intercultural education model designed to offer an indigenous knowledge course alongside the national curriculum at Noonkodin School in Eluwai, Monduli, Tanzania. The study employed an ethnographic research design involving mainly in-depth classroom observations, interviews with the head and deputy head of school, informal conversations, and focus groups with 11 teachers and 20 Maasai students. The findings showed that the provision of intercultural education at Noonkodin is beleaguered not only by a hegemonic relationship between Indigenous and Western knowledge, but also a strong cultural mismatch, contradiction, and ambivalence in their strictest sense. For the programme to succeed, the findings suggest the need to overcome both the hegemonic backdrop of Western education structures that shape what happens in the school, alongside the structural limitations of Noonkodin’s location within a modern Tanzanian state replete with capitalist values that run counter to its stated goals.

Current Day Auto-Experimentation of Psychotropic Medications by French Psychiatrists

ABSTRACT Auto-experimentation is a relatively unknown practice, albeit central to the history of medical discoveries. Outside of the context of research, auto-experimentation with psychotropic medications by psychiatrists currently persists in an informal manner. However, this contemporary practice has never been studied so far. This study was conducted by distributing an electronic questionnaire to French hospital-based psychiatrists and residents of psychiatry in the summer of 2016. Lifetime prevalence of taking psychotropic medications and the context of this ingestion were questioned: “therapeutic”, “auto-therapeutic”, “research protocol”, “auto-experimentation/curiosity”, “recreation” or “other”. We only studied “auto-experimentation/curiosity” in this article. Participants were also asked their age and gender. Seven hundred and sixty-four participants were included. 15.1% of participants declared having already taken psychotropic medication at least once in the context of “auto-experimentation/curiosity”. We found that those who reported taking medication for “auto-experimentation/curiosity” had a significant association with being male (p < .001) but no relationship to age. This practice highlights and questions psychiatry’s relationship with formal and informal knowledge, the importance of the subjectivity of each professional in psychiatry and the epistemological foundations of our discipline. The strong ambivalence of the medical field toward this relatively taboo practice deserves further exploration.

The disturbing presence of the father: Paternal function and its initial developments

The birth of a child strongly influences the way in which we adults perceive life and, therefore, our inner world. This birth, or rather the expectation of it, initiates in the father a complex process, the paternal function. Despite being a common experience, there are many open questions regarding its development and its impact on the new father. We reflect here on paternal function and explore conscious and unconscious fantasies of the man facing new-found fatherhood. We propose that a kind of pre-Oedipal process has already begun during pregnancy. The new being’s mere existence inside the womb generates an exclusionary force that sets the father’s ambivalent feelings in motion. The overwhelming certainty of motherhood and the generation of the mother–fetus bubble develops in parallel with the uncertainty of the father, immersed in inner conflicts regarding what his relationship with the mother–child couple is and will be. He rapidly experiences how the child’s presence makes him an excluded third party, always longing to fully occupy the place he once enjoyed beside the mother. The baby enters a world where father’s strong ambivalence is already in place, facilitating and setting in motion a full development of the Oedipal process. Finally, some considerations are outlined on the potential influence of this complex ambivalence in large group reactions and the need to be remembered that humans have displayed since ancient historical times.

Les motivations de l’auto-expérimentation des médicaments psychotropes par le psychiatre : une note de recherche

ObjectivesAuto-experimentation, experimentation on oneself by oneself, is a relatively unknown practice, albeit one playing a central part in the origin of medical discoveries. The birth of psychopharmacology can be found within this history of auto-experimentation. Beyond the context of intermittent discoveries of chemical substance, the auto-experimentation by psychiatrists persists in an informal manner with psychotropic medications currently on the market. Nevertheless, this contemporary practice seems not to have been hitherto studied. Persons and methodTwenty-four French psychiatrists have been asked to answer a semi-structured interview, with the aim of discovering the motivations behind past auto-experimentation. This sample is not representative of the total population of French psychiatrists, but it is quite heterogeneous in age, gender and manner of practice for this exploratory research work. ResultsTwenty-three psychiatrists participated in the interview, and one refused. The various motivations leading to auto-experimentation amongst the psychiatrists are principally linked to attempts to better understand the effects of the psychotropic medications prescribed, chiefly their side effects. The usage of auto-experimentation can be facilitated by the curiosity of the psychiatrist, certain psychological functioning (“sensation-seeking” or linked to specific personality traits) and can conceal a secondary benefit attempt (an auto-therapeutic endeavour, a financial benefit during a clinical study, or even mimicking a psychic illness for a precise purpose). Fears, belief of uselessness or a denial of the question distance the psychiatrist from auto-experimentation. Lastly, collective factors such as folkloric or group elements and intergenerational dimensions influence the usage of this practice. ConclusionsDespite the variety in motivations and the obvious difference in psychotropic experience between the psychiatrists performing these experiments and the unwell patient, this practice questions our conceptions of psychotropic medications and mental illness. The epistemological foundations of our discipline are thusly tested, as is our relationship to knowledge and how we transmit it. The medical world's strong ambivalence to this relatively taboo practice deserves to be put into perspective with the current psychiatric model, which seeks to be scientific.

Menstruation experiences of South African women belonging to the ama-Xhosa ethnic group

A growing body of research has emphasised the salience of cultural beliefs and traditional practices to women’s experiences of menstruation. Relatively less research has, however, been undertaken in South Africa. This study explored the experience of menstruation among women from the ama-Xhosa ethnic group, one of the largest ethnic groups in the country. Among the ama-Xhosa, there are distinct cultural practices associated with menstruation, including the female rite of passage (intonjane) and virginity testing (inkciyo). However, few studies have explored the experience of menstruation for women from this cultural group. This study involved the synthesis of data from individual interviews and focus group discussions conducted among a sample of ama-Xhosa women. The data were analysed using thematic analysis. Distinctive findings included women’s participation in traditional cultural practices of intonjane and inkciyo and the presence of cultural taboos associated with menstruation. Women’s narratives revealed strong ambivalence regarding these practices. On the one hand, they wanted to adhere to traditional practices but experienced these customs as evoking discomfort and shame. The study confirmed the prevalence of negative constructions of menstruation. Positive appraisals of menstruation as evoking joy and happiness were also encountered.

La fixation anale dans la paranoïa. Un cas clinique exemplaire et ses prolongements théoriques

ObjectiveThe very existence of paranoid delusions as distinct from schizophrenic disorders has been widely discussed in recent years. Taking into account these controversies, this paper presents the distinctive features of the anal dimension in paranoid delusion (persecution delusion). The authors aim to show the value of Karl Abraham's theoretical contribution in the form of a criterion which, he claimed, enabled a differential diagnose between paranoia and schizophrenia. The study of Abraham's texts also reveals a criterion enabling a differentiation between manic-depressive psychosis (bipolarity) and paranoia. This paper sets out to test the validity of Abraham's hypothesis by analysing Rorschach protocols of his psychotic patients. MethodologyA close reading of several theoretical texts written by Freud and his first followers shows how important they considered the anal dimension in paranoia to be. In what is still considered as his most important text on paranoid psychosis, the Schreber case, Freud shows that the theme of a passive position in sexual intercourse (equivalent to anal penetration) was central to Schreber's view of delusion. Besides Karl Abraham, three of Freud's first supporters, namely Eduard Hitschmann, Johan van Ophuijsen and August Stärke, proposed a detailed description of the anal dimension in some of their paranoid patients. They suggested that, in persecution delusion, an equivalence exists between the paranoid subject's persecutor and the anal object. The authors focus on an exemplary clinical case so as to better understand the scope, the place and the function of anal factors within a paranoid person's psychical functioning. For the patient described, the importance of the idea of a “homosexual rape” is underlined. The subject's whole delusion revolves around it. It is central to his delusional ideas, where the anal dimensions are further illustrated by the results of projective tests. The Rorschach protocols are closely examined so as to discover how they reflect the anal dimension within this paranoid patient's mind. We also note the need to avoid confusion between the purportedly homosexual ideas of psychotic patients (which, in fact, mostly boil down to homoeroticism) and homosexual orientation properly speaking (which cannot be considered as a disorder). While psychotic homoeroticism stems from a fixation at the anal, pre-œdipal stage, homosexuality constitutes a post-œdipal, genital sexual orientation in its own right. Whereas homosexuality is directed towards an external, self-sufficient object, homoeroticism is directed towards a narcissistic image that remains halfway between the subject and the other. The anal dimension of homoeroticism mostly shows in paranoid patients; it is not an attribute of homosexuality proper. ResultsThe results show that anal fixation is a major indicator for paranoia. This criterion makes it possible to distinguish it from manic-depressive disorder (bipolarity) and from schizophrenia. In manic-depressive disorder, says Karl Abraham, the patient has fully introjected his love-object, whereas in paranoia, the love-object has been incompletely introjected, which creates a strong ambivalence that is reflected by the patient's behaviour. In contrast, in schizophrenia, the love-object has not been constituted as distinct from the patient; the patient remains at a pre-ambivalent stage. Whereas the paranoid patient tries to get rid of the (incompletely introjected) object, the schizophrenic patient feels under threat of being devoured by the love-object. In paranoid patient's Rorschach protocols, the ambivalence towards the object and its anal dimension shows through references to “dirty” animals or objects (“a petrol pit”, “a hog”, “a rat”). These patients harp on the “backside” or the “bottom” of the body. Finally, the male sex is described as aggressive, dangerous, and likened to “a knife”. In schizophrenia, in contrast, Rorschach protocols reflect fears of being devoured, with the mention of “jaws”, “crocodiles” and other such items. DiscussionThis study encourages future quantitative research on the topic of differential indicators for paranoia and schizophrenia. It tends to prove that paranoid delusions cannot be fully assimilated to schizophrenic disorders. Karl Abraham's differential criteria, based on clinical evidence, could be usefully confronted to Rorschach protocols in greater depth. ConclusionThe anal dimension constitutes a valid criterion making it possible to distinguish paranoid disorders from schizophrenia, and also from manic-depressive psychosis (bipolarity). This dimension can be clearly brought to light by analysing psychotic patient's Rorschach protocols.

Lo psicologo del Ser.T. e il paziente detenuto presso la Casa Circondariale S. Vittore di Milano: fattori caratterizzanti la relazione terapeutica

The article presents a vision of the work of the Sert psychologist inside C.C. San Vittore Prison in its distinctive features compared with the assistance at a Sert territorial, such as: the type of motivation to the care of the addiction, the context Prison Institution, the passage “inside-out” and the setting. An important factor is the “go to”: in the territorial service the psychologist waits for the patient, who performs the “move to go to the service”; paradoxically, whit the detained patient is the psychologist who “go to the visiting room”. A further aspect is the time of imprisonment which also affects the duration and the type of treatment. All these factors taken together can be considered as barriers to treatment, but if well-known and shared can become important resources. It will be through the exposure of two clinical situations that will point out the strong ambivalence that marks the difficulty in building a relationship of trust and the adaptation to a “non-traditional” setting in the psychological work

Transmuting Dido: Marot, Du Bellay and the Displacement of Ovidian and Virgilian Authority in Translatio

Among classical heroines, the figure of Dido pervades the works of Renaissance writers and contemporary reflections on exemplarity. French humanist poets Clement Marot and Joachim Du Bellay exploit this ambivalent and topical figure to emulate and displace as authors Virgil and Ovid (Aeneid III–IV; Heroides VII). Beyond translation as transcription (traductio), the poetic, political and ethical appropriations penned by Marot and Du Bellay reveal clear ties to translatio studii et imperii. In Marot’s Epistre de Maguelonne (1532) and Du Bellay’s verse triptych centred on Dido (1552), traditional points of praise and blame are subverted and displaced, while conflicting themes and ends surround the polysemy of translatio and the related question of poetic authority in the French sixteenth century. Pagan love, the locus of strong ambivalence (mad vs. virtuous), is transmuted. A dynamic of conversion (Marot) and compensation (Du Bellay) emerges. It bolsters a new French appropriation of ancient models driven by fantasies of moral superiority, political autonomy, literary legitimacy (minors/auctores), and individual mastery. More generally, the interplay between poetic creation, power, and displacement, offers a glimpse into how ambitious vernacular translations frame and appropriate major works.

Objects of the Law, Holy Images

Affixed at the bottom of deeds, seals represent their owners’ authority by the means of a circular legend and a central image. They offer a strong ambivalence: a “seal” is a unique object—a matrix—but also the numerous identical imprints created by this matrix. This ambivalence takes on a philosophical and theological dimension around the question of the tupos. Furthermore, choices of images are not dictated by a written rule but by proprieties related to the seal owner’s status, so they may answer to precise strategies and necessities. Then the adoption of an image reveals spiritual or temporal ambitions. The recent evolution of sigillography leads to a global approach of this subject, including researchers of various special fields. The iconographic dimension of seals is less and less confined to illustrate an article or a book: it tends to become a subject of its own of visual culture studies.

Cyberchondria, cyberbullying, cybersuicide, cybersex: "new" psychopathologies for the 21st century?

Cyberchondria, cyberbullying, cybersuicide, cybersex: "new" psychopathologies for the 21st century?

A qualitative study of young women's experiences of recovery from bulimia nervosa.

To describe experiences of recovery from bulimia nervosa among young adult women. Most studies into recovery from eating disorders focus on anorexia nervosa, although some include both anorexia and bulimia nervosa. Recovery has been described as beginning with renewed self-esteem. Qualitative interview study. Fourteen women were invited to participate; five women, between 23-26years of age, who assessed themselves as healthy for at least 2years agreed to take part in narrative interviews. Tape-recorded interviews lasting 45-60minutes (median 49minutes) were conducted from February-April 2010 and transcribed verbatim. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The interviews revealed four themes in recovery from bulimia nervosa: feeling stuck in bulimia nervosa, getting ready to change, breaking free of bulimia nervosa and grasping a new reality, each comprising two or more subthemes. The process of recovery was not linear, but rather went back and forth between progress and relapse. The women expressed strong ambivalence about leaving the illness behind. An important part of their recovery was their ability to accept themselves. It was essential for their recovery to be supported in developing a unique explanation of the cause of their illness. Women's ability to recover from bulimia nervosa and take control over their lives is based on their self-efficacy. Effective care should therefore strive to strengthen women's beliefs in their own abilities, to instil hope for recovery and thus to bolster their self-efficacy.

French speaking athletes’ experience and perception regarding the whereabouts reporting system and therapeutic use exemptions

The introduction of two anti-doping measures by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) directly affects athletes lives: obligatory whereabouts reporting with the Anti-Doping Administration and Management System (ADAMS), and recorded applications for Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE). French-speaking elite athletes (N=69) from France, Belgium and Switzerland responded to a web-based questionnaire about their perceptions and experiences under these two measures. The results showed a strong ambivalence towards the whereabouts system. Though 94% considered it necessary, and accepted it as part of an athlete's duties, 34% considered that it infringed too much on their private life, 54% felt that it reduced the pleasure of being an athlete, 74% felt to be under surveillance, 54% found it too time-consuming, 57% encountered technical hurdles, and 58% perceived its application between different countries and sports as unequal and unfair. Many athletes did not like the testing procedures and more than half felt that it causes anxiety. Trust in the system's capacity to detect doping in athletes was partial (83% of athletes under the whereabouts system trusted it, and 60% of athletes not under the system trusted it). Concerning the management of TUEs, 49% of athletes had low trust in their management by authorities, 47% suspected abuse by fellow athletes and 46% had refrained from medically justified treatment. Our findings suggest considerable dissatisfaction with the whereabouts system and TUE among French-speaking athletes. We conclude that there is a need to improve on the above aspects in order to increase athletes’ satisfaction and adherence to WADA's anti-doping policies.

Remembering the Leu

This article approaches money as the object of a particular type of remembrance work occurring in present-day, post-communist Bucharest. Since the 1989 revolution, the Romanian leu has changed numerous times in appearance and value. Piecing together observations from over a decade of fieldwork in Bucharest, I evaluate everyday behaviours and conversations surrounding these changes, and examine how the leu has been implicated in subjective, highly charged encounters closely bound to the workings of memory. The leu's fluctuating terminology, along with its material and imagerial variations over time have triggered poignant associations and recollections that often remain unspoken, embedded in unseen realms of the mind. By emphasising the leu's role as an everyday artefact and its connections to processes of 'communicative' memory, I point to the present-day climate in Bucharest as one where perceptions of the leu's multiple forms and manifestations reveal strong ambivalences towards current accession-era values, as well as deep uncertainties about Romania's 'European' future.