Unconscious Communication Research Articles

The Sense of Agency in Human–Machine Interaction Systems

Human–Machine Interaction (HMI) systems are integral to various domains and rely on human operators for effective performance. The sense of agency (SoA) is crucial in these systems, as it influences the operator’s concentration and overall efficiency. This review explores the SoA in HMI systems, analyzing its definition, key influencing factors, and methods for enhancement. We provide a comprehensive examination of SoA-related research and suggest strategies for measuring and improving the SoA. Two key research directions are highlighted: the impact of user experience on the SoA, and the role of the SoA in enabling unconscious communication between humans and machines. We propose a development route for HMI systems, outlining a progressive structure across three stages: machine-centric, human-centric, and human–machine integration. Finally, we discuss the potential of gaming platforms as tools for advancing SoA research in HMI systems. Our findings aim to enhance the design and functionality of HMI systems, ensuring improved operator engagement and system performance.

Dreamtelling: The value of dreaming and sharing dreams in relations: Part I: From collective preoccupations to shared dreaming

This article looks at the group approach to shared dreams following previous publications, including Dreams In Group Psychotherapy: Theory and Technique (Neri et al. 2002) and further papers1, and a natural extension to a 2022 publication (Friedman, 2022). One innovative perspective is the notion that it is often a ‘collective preoccupation’ which starts a group’s shared elaboration process (dreaming), which to begin with is transmitted through interpersonal and transpersonal communication to a delegated dreamer. Another new perspective is to view dreaming (mental digestion) as the main process of a revised four step ‘dream cycle’. The dream cycle goes from collective preoccupation, through personal dreaming, then through an inner narrative, followed by a potentially shared relational elaboration. This helps to understand that ‘dreamtelling’ is only the fourth step in the shared process of mental ‘digestion’ of peoples’ excessive threats/excitements. In Part I I describe the central approach to a shared dream in group analysis as ‘personal responses first’, meaning the predilection of a free-floating discussion of a dream, involving the whole group’s conscious and unconscious mirroring and resonance, while postponing traditional interpretation. Dreams should be understood as both the result and the motor of group processes. Through the joint elaboration of collective preoccupations, dreams that are shared can contribute to the reciprocal healing of relation disorders and dysfunctional relational patterns. I will describe the four-step ‘dream cycle’, which changes the location of mental digestion. By putting transpersonal and interpersonal communication into action, the individual’s and the group’s mind develops (Köhncke and Mies, (2012)). In the final phase, preoccupying situations and conflictual emotions in dreams are elaborated by free discussion, ‘personal responses first’ which is ‘open communication’ in relational configurations in the ‘society of individuals’ (Elias,1939). This process, which I call ‘dreamtelling’, describes discourse (Schlapobersky, 1993) with potential partners who will ‘(re)dream the dream’, and offer further digestion of the collective preoccupation. A series of clinical vignettes discuss notions such as ‘the location of elaboration’ moves in the relations, e.g. ‘dreaming for others’ and ‘delegation’ as well as the notion of an ‘inner group’ and the unconscious communication between dreamers and listeners. In Part II, I provide deeper exploration of a clinical example in group-analytic group therapy, describing group work with a dream. The uniqueness of the group-analytic approach to the dream’s contents and its communicative aspect will be stressed. Requests for containment preoccupy relations and participants and should be differentiated during the discourse of ‘dreamtelling’.

Meeting Patients Where They Are: Construction And Maintenance Of Analytic Intimacy

This paper aims to describe the processes of construction and maintenance of analytic intimacy, understood as a shared state of relative internal freedom that is most permeable to preconscious and unconscious communications, which facilitate the processes of subjectivation, dreaming, and digestion of unprocessed trauma. The author illustrates the theoretical and technical features related to the concept of intimacy, highlighting the transformations of a clinical case followed in supervision. This article is presented in the form of a conversation with the supervisee, so as to evoke in the reader the dialogic and co-constructive experience of thought construction.

Unconscious Communications by the Body in Catatonia-A Jungian Perspective.

Outside of specific motor conditions, bodily movements are rarely considered in contemporary psychiatry. Stereotypies and mannerisms in clinical cases of catatonia are seen as having no deeper meaning in contemporary psychiatry. Perhaps we are missing something that could be important for us and our patients. The psychiatrist and analyst Carl Jung suggested there was an unconscious communication, and therefore a meaning in psychotic symptoms, including the movements in catatonia. The unconscious is rarely considered in psychotic presentations, yet psychosis is a prevalent condition in clinical settings. In this article Jung's ideas are presented along with case examples that invite the reader to consider them in their own future practice.

Creativity in the therapeutic encounter

This paper explores how the process of learning to harness one's creativity in analytic listening can be analogous to the process of learning to do so in painting. It draws on clinical work with one client divided into two vignettes. The first describes the author's attempts to listen analytically by paying attention to form and content; narrative structure and use of language; and by paying attention to transference and countertransference communications. The second vignette explores what happened between therapist and client as the author had grown sufficiently confident to respond more intuitively to her client's communications. It describes how the process of becoming sufficiently familiar with theory was, paradoxically, what enabled her to respond to unconscious communications more loosely and creatively in the analytic encounter. It then explores what happened when she communicated this back to the client. The paper also describes how, as a result of the training and personal therapy, a parallel process of learning to let go and play was unfolding in the author's experience of painting. It concludes that learning to harness creativity in the therapeutic encounter can have an unexpected and welcome impact on the therapist's own artistic endeavours.

The Unreal Child1

Unrepresented mental states lead to an impaired ability to feel emotions and trust in oneself, one's history and in the world. The article explores the question of how representations of oneself and the relevant other, the mother, become possible in the course of therapy when dissociative processes previously made this impossible, and what role unconscious communication plays in the analytic realm. This question will be explored by examining the theories of André Green, Philip Bromberg, and Howard Levine.

Imagination Foreclosed: Searching for Each Other in the Digital Age

The digital age has normalized amateur sleuthing. Despite the fact that searching online for information about patients clashes with the analytic ideal, many of us google our patients. Dynamically speaking, what lies behind these searches? Certainly, the act of searching represents a premature foreclosure of imagination; it inevitably changes the relational matrix. It often conceals an unconscious communication that the analyst has not been able to acknowledge or examine. Internet searches can be individually or dyadically informed; in both instances, they disrupt the intimacy of the two-person relationship and our own self-experience as analysts. Even more troubling, they leave us holding secrets that breach an ethical line. This essay moves beyond the problem of boundary violations and explores how obtaining information about the other through online searches informs, enriches, and disrupts the co-created therapeutic experience.

Aesthetic and linguistic characteristics of comedy in a foreign language

In linguistics, the study of the "comic" is aimed at considering all its aspects of different types and genres. Increasingly, the "comic" is studied as a linguo-creative and cognitive activity. At the same time, humour affects all human values in many cultures. Humour is characterized by a simple attitude to life's complexities, and it is aimed at improving the action or object and allows for unconscious communication, so it has no semantics and its main essence lies in pragmatics. This article proves information about aesthetic and linguistic characteristics of comedy in a foreign language.

Shutter/Shudder to Think: Cinema after Cage

When invited by Martin Scorsese to compose an original soundtrack for Shutter Island, Robbie Robertson, The Band’s guitarist and Scorsese’s long-time collaborator, proposed a selection of works by modern composers instead. Among those were Root of an Unfocus (1944) and Music for Marcel Duchamp (1947) by the avant-garde composer John Cage. The first is a prepared piano piece conceived at a pivotal moment in Cage’s career as he moved away from composing for percussion orchestra; the second accompanied the color animation sequence in Dreams that Money Can Buy by the Dadaist painter and filmmaker Hans Richter. Employing indeterminate methods to “circumvent any conscious or unconscious communication of his own subjectivity through his music,” Cage’s “aleatory” approach has subsequently been deployed by artists and filmmakers, its anarchic possibilities steadily infiltrating a range of filmic practices. Taking as my point of departure Cage’s largely unacknowledged influence on mainstream cinema, I explore the inventive potentials of his methods and consider them in light of Adorno’s aesthetic category of the “shudder”, a novel concept of spontaneity involving “involuntary and free receptivity before the unknown.” I conclude by focusing on cinema after Cage in three geographic regions: Asia, Europe, and North America.

The aromachology and possibilities of its application in a selected business entity

Aromachology studies the influence of odours on human behaviour and examines the relationship between feelings and emotions. The submitted paper deals with implementing a new marketing communication tool into practice and the possibilities of its use. Our research deals with the use of the human senses in marketing, where we take a closer look at the sense of smell because it has an important position in the human mind and life. It can awaken our memories and create emotions and improve the mood and often unconsciously influence consumer behaviour. The paper is divided into two parts. The first one aims at the theoretical introduction devoted to basic concepts such as aromachology and aroma marketing. This knowledge was subsequently applied directly to the surveyed company in the results part. The research subject is the influence of aromas on the emotional side of consumer behaviour which is influenced by all stimuli around us. Based on the research, we identified the most suitable aroma category that the company could use in the future. We have developed proposals and recommendations that could help increase awareness of a new product in the company's portfolio through unconscious communication at the point of sale, which will bring the gradual implementation of this marketing tool into practice. Two questionnaires were used – the first one aimed to gain basic information about consumers and their consumer behaviour. The second one was realized as a blind review of selected aromas using facial biometrics. Based on both surveys, we can conclude that introducing a specific aroma in the company certainly could influence the sale of a new product, a chocolate cake.

Psychodynamic Therapist's Subjective Experiences With Remote Psychotherapy During the COVID-19-Pandemic-A Qualitative Study With Therapists Practicing Guided Affective Imagery, Hypnosis and Autogenous Relaxation.

The COVID-19-pandemic brought massive changes in the provision of psychotherapy. To contain the pandemic, many therapists switched from face-to-face sessions in personal contact to remote settings. This study focused on psychodynamic therapists practicing Guided Affective Imagery, Hypnosis and Autogenous Relaxation and their subjective experiences with psychotherapy via telephone and videoconferencing during the first COVID-19 related lockdown period in March 2020 in Austria. An online survey completed by 161 therapists produced both quantitative and qualitative data with the latter being subject to a qualitative content analysis. Our research suggests that telephone and videoconferencing are considered valuable treatment formats to deliver psychodynamic psychotherapy. However, therapists’ experiences with remote psychotherapy are multifaceted and ambiguous. In particular, the findings raise questions concerning the maintenance of the therapeutic alliance, the development of the analytic process, the sensitivity to unconscious communication, and the indication for certain types of patients that still need further investigation. Our research indicates that the long-standing reticence toward remote treatments offers among psychodynamic therapists is becoming more differentiated and partially dissolves as therapists gain experiences in their use. Attitudes are becoming more open. At the same time, the way is being prepared to take a closer look at the specific processes and dynamics of remote psychotherapy and to examine them critically in future studies.

Tales of COVID-19: Fear of Contagion and Need for Infection

The pandemic has been such a dramatic experience that it has newly illuminated the factors that can transform Hegel’s necessary “infection”—a permeability to the other and the intersubjective foundation of the ego—into a contagion that alienates the subject. The dialectic between these two kinds of otherness represents what is truly at stake in any encounter—i.e., mutual recognition. Therefore, despite the terrible load of concreteness and suffering that bears directly on psychoanalysis, the theater of analysis still stands, so that the “tales of COVID-19” should also be listened to as fictional, that is, as unconscious communications in the here and now.

The Challenge of Too Much: Inviting Laplanche’s Theory into the Realm of Couples Therapy

ABSTRACT Several of Laplanche’s key ideas—enigmatic messages, après coup, the fundamental anthropological situation, translation, and the hollowed-out transference—may be applied to the context of couples therapy. A case of one couple is presented to illuminate how Laplanche’s concepts, in their emphasis on the intersubjective, developmental, and relational nature of unconscious communication, may complement already existing theories of couples treatment.

A Radically Open Analysis: Writing as Wrapping, Video as Skin

ABSTRACT As a white cis queer analyst working with queer and trans patients, I’m continually struck by how often the subject of skin — corporeal, psychic and technological — appears in my clinical work. These appearances can be overdetermined or enigmatic, taking the form of verbal and non-verbal, conscious and unconscious communications between patients and myself. But what are we really talking about, these patients and I, when we talk about skin? My preoccupation with this subject, laden with generalities, as well as nuance, began with an affinity for Didier Anzieu’s skin-ego theory and subsequently, led me through the spectacular terrain of numerous fields of study: psychoanalysis, queer theory, critical race theory, cultural studies, philosophy, somatechnics, media studies and film theory, among others. As theory and clinical work are bound together — informing and reforming one another, it has been my relationship with K which has brought this material alive and generated new forms of thinking.

A UK-wide survey of speciality doctors and associate specialist (SAS) psychiatrists' psychotherapy case experience, barriers and benefits to professional development and clinical capabilities

AimsResearch suggests that seeing psychotherapy cases benefits psychiatric trainees’ professional development and clinical capabilities, however there is lack of such evidence for SAS psychiatrists, who require this experience for Certificate of Eligibility for Specialist Registration (CESR) applications.Having provided frequently requested psychotherapy training support to our Trust's CESR training programme in Birmingham we aimed to study nationwide SAS psychiatrists’ psychotherapy case experience, professional benefits and barriers to access.MethodAn online questionnaire was sent to UK-wide SAS Psychiatry doctors, with the support of the RCPsych Speciality Doctors and Associate Specialist Psychiatrists Committee (SASC), whilst being promoted on social media. It asked about psychotherapy-related experience, barriers and plans.Result122 doctors completed the questionnaire, estimated to constitute approximately 8% (or more if considering all vacancies) of SAS psychiatry posts based on the RCPsych Census (2015), from across all UK nations and regions.23% had gained experience in delivering psychotherapy (57% of whom confirmed CESR or training application plans), seeing cases mainly in CBT (52%) and psychodynamic psychotherapy (41%). Those who had delivered psychotherapy agreed or strongly agreed that it helped them become a better listener (82%), become more empathetic (75%), enjoy work more (71%), understand the unconscious communication better (82%), be more confident about referring for psychotherapy (82%) and overall be a better psychiatrist (86%).44% planned to start a psychotherapy case but had not started, of whom only 22% had identified a supervisor and 15% identified a case. Only 11% felt confident they could get the psychotherapy training experiences they needed. Barriers reported included it not being part of their job plan (70%), time constraints (57%), difficulties in accessing psychotherapy supervision (61%), difficulties in identifying suitable cases (32%) and limited knowledge about psychotherapy (30%).ConclusionDoctors who delivered psychotherapy reported benefits on many levels, making a strong case it develops their clinical capabilities, which may facilitate psychologically-informed care.The results indicate interest in psychotherapy training outstripped available opportunity and support. Whilst some barriers mirrored those previously reported for trainees (difficulties accessing supervision and cases) others identified particularly related to SAS workload (not being part of their job plan and time constraints) and lack of support (with trainees prioritised). This may highlight a potential concern given the SAS Charter covers CESR-related support and advocates appropriate Supporting Professional Activities (SPA) time.Trusts need to consider more actively supporting SAS psychotherapy training and including in job planning for those receiving, delivering and supporting these valued experiences.

Дорогоцінний камінь психоаналізу: Значення тлумачення сновидінь в аналітичному процесі

Background. Dreams are able to reflect the patients' experience as well as testify one or another stage of mental illness. However, in the scientific world, not enough attention is given to the analysis of dreams. The purpose of this study is to review the scientific literature regarding the features, functions, symbolic content and representations of dreams. Design: systematic review. Subject of study. The review of scientific publications was conducted on neurophysiology of dreams, basic concepts of analysis, meaning, functions of dreams and psychoanalytic interpretation techniques. Results. At present, it is believed that dreams have protective and adaptive functions and contribute to the formation of long-term memory and information processing of emotionally charged experiences; At the same time, dreams are the result of the creative process. On the one hand, dreaming satisfies the need of the Ego in a dream because it protects the state of sleep due to the fact that the real response of excitation of motility is replaced by hallucinatory excitation, which does not require awakening. On the other hand, dreaming allows repressed desires, albeit in a distorted form to fulfil and thus reduce the mental stress associated with sexual or aggressive impulses. Thus the dream is designed to reconcile two opposing forces - the desire to sleep and the desire to act in accordance with the excitement emanating from the mental or somatic sphere. The emotional daytime experience takes precedence over other less emotional experiences, during inclusion in dreams because emotions provide an automatic and unconscious way of determining which experiences to include in a dream for memorization. Dreams can be a representation of the real and the repressed desires, but the emotional component of sleep is important as it may indicate the presence of traumatic experiences. The hidden meaning of dreams becomes clear to the participants' analytical process through the use of the method of free associations, as well as through emphasis on the manifesto of dreams. Unconscious communication between the patient and the analyst is well reflected in the meaning of sleep. Conclusions. Analysis of the content of dreams can provide important information about the mental state of the individual and contribute to a better understanding of the patient and analytical processes. Working with dreams is an important part of the analytical process, a symbolic reflection of the inner world of the patient, the analyst, the unconscious third and the processes that occur in therapy. Dreams represent hidden desires and emotional and/or traumatic experiences of a particular patient.

Marsha Aileen Hewitt, Legacies of the Occult: Psychoanalysis, Religion, and Unconscious Communication

Marsha Aileen Hewitt, <i>Legacies of the Occult: Psychoanalysis, Religion, and Unconscious Communication</i>

Play, Free Association, and Enactment

In this article I define childhood symbolic play, free association, and enactments as distinct entities despite the important strands of connective tissue that bind them psychologically. To Freud’s definition of play being the same as fantasy, except for play’s need to use props and playthings to actualize itself, I add action as an obvious but yet nevertheless neglected component of childhood symbolic play. I suggest that the potential for free association begins with the achievement of formal Piagetian cognitive processes in early adolescence, an achievement that needs no props or actions to set it in motion since words and ideas generate further spontaneities in a creative flow of associations. In adult psychoanalytic process, I define enactment, not only in the modern sense of a shared unconscious communication that illustrates the complementarity of countertransference/transference mutuality, but as if enactment could be isolated from its enmeshment in the countertransference/transference milieu of analytic process and viewed momentarily as a transference entity exclusively. I take this point of view to emphasize longitudinally, an individual’s action in a developmental sequence, an imaginary developmental line from the six stages of sensorimotor actions that lead to symbolism, to thought as trial action, leading on then to symbolic play and to free association in adolescence, free associative communication being the essential core of analytic process despite the ubiquity of enactments that accompany it. I illustrate this imagined developmental line, which leads from the earliest sensorimotor acts to the decisive non-neurotic acts that characterize individuated post-analytic maturity, with psychoanalytic process from childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

The Triple Entendre

ABSTRACT This clinical paper explores aspects of unconscious communication and dissociation during the authors first year in psychoanalytic training, as an early career clinician. The author explores dissociation subjectively experienced as a form of communicating both consciously and unconsciously. The analyst/analysand relationship is expressed as the conduit for optimal exposure to dissociated self-states in what has been coined the parallel process. A glance into the authors supervision, personal analysis and treatment with a two times a week patient is brought center stage.

Working Clinically With the Skin’s Surface: Tattoos, Scars, and Gendered Embodiment

ABSTRACT Saturated with cultural, relational, and intrapsychic meanings, the phenomenon of body modification has been both undertheorized and pathologized in psychoanalytic writing. This lack of nuanced, creative thinking only exacerbates the difficulties that many analysts face in mentalizing the experiences of their body-modified patients, most particularly those who identify as trans or gender nonconforming. Extending Didier Anzieu’s skin-ego theory in response to the emergent field of somatechnics, as well as the work of media studies scholar and psychoanalyst Patricia Clough, I propose that our corporeal and psychic skins (even when “sufficiently developed”) are more porous and inextricably bound with technicity than has been previously thought. In particular, I offer a redescription of Anzieu’s “insufficiently developed” skin-ego as a “radical openness.” Theorized as a potentiality rather than a lack, I propose that this radical openness may leave one with an exceptional receptivity to phenomena such as unconscious communication, creativity, and other-than-human technologies such as body modification. Drawing from my clinical work with queer and trans patients, the three vignettes in this paper highlight the interrelatedness of body modification and gendered embodiment (as well as other identities) using this extension and redescription of Anzieu’s skin-ego theory.