Unconscious Dimensions Research Articles

Countering Political Polarization Through Conscious and Unconscious Integrative Complexity

Political polarization has been growing in many countries, including the United States, within recent years. Scholars note how, if not addressed, growing trends can compromise fundamental pillars of a functioning democratic society. While efforts have grown in researching how integrative complexity can successfully mitigate polarizing tensions in political divides, there is a lack of scholarly attention on how conscious and unconscious dimensions of integrative complexity affect such processes. This article proposes a framework to ground future research in this direction as well as inform depolarizing interventions on this topic.

Focus on the blind spots of clinician-patient interactions: A critical narrative review of collusion in medical setting.

Collusions, interpersonal phenomena with an impact on patients, significant others, clinicians, and care, are mainly described in the psychotherapeutic literature but also occur in the medical setting. Comprehended as an unconscious bond between two or more persons from a psychotherapeutic perspective, definitions and collusive situations described in the medical setting vary. The question arises whether medical collusions, compared to collusions occurring in the psychiatric setting emerge in different clinical situations or are not identified as transference-countertransference experiences, since there is less sensitivity for the unconscious dimensions of care. We systematically reviewed the medical literature on collusions. Even though a read threat, avoidance of unpleasant feelings (mainly anxiety), runs through the described collusions, the unconscious dimensions and associated defensive maneuvers are rarely evoked. Given the expressed desire to act on collusions in medicine, involving third-party psychiatric liaison clinicians, who supervise clinicians, and hereby help to disentangle collusions, could be beneficial.

Understanding the dynamics of national business culture: a stationarity analysis for the case of South Korea

ABSTRACT Understanding national business culture – and its subsequent influence on organizational practice – continues to draw scholarly attention. However, being drawn primarily from static, comparative taxonomies, existing research cannot adequately explain and predict the process of cultural evolution (e.g. towards convergence, divergence, or crossvergence). In addressing this caveat, this paper proposes a novel way of understanding changing national business culture using stationarity analysis based on shifting frequency, sentiment, and meanings of representative key terms. Using the big data keywords collected from the Maekyung Daily published over three decades (1991–2021) in Korea, our findings show that cultural changes can be measured based on the four dimensions of ‘conscious vs. unconscious’ on the one hand and ‘political vs. economic’ on the other. Further, we show how the economic and the unconscious dimensions have changed more rapidly than the political and the conscious, reflecting an informal model of cultural changes. We then discuss the practical implications of these findings for MNEs in the cross-border design and implementation of strategy, policy, and process, providing valuable insights for their operations in diverse cultural contexts.

The Shadows of Sovereignty: A Visual Genealogy of Dark Knight Archetypes

Abstract This paper investigates the role of the dark knight archetype in the theory of sovereignty. The dark knight archetype has repeatedly emerged in popular culture, but has never been fully explored in jurisprudence and political theory. The aim is to develop a new visual method to bridge the distance between the theory and the tropes that have historically been used to create and justify the notion of sovereignty. Sovereignty is understood here not only as a founding concept of modern legal theory, but also as a trope: a special kind of narrative, illustrated, capable of being modernized, and yet maintaining its initial trends; one that is foundational and colonial, and capable of institutionalizing subjects and sovereigns. Strategically following the works of Agamben, Benjamin, Jung and Warburg, this paper analyses – in a psychoanalytical sense – the unconscious dimensions of sovereignty from evidence collected in popular culture and political history. From fallen medieval knights to Zorro; from fascist Blackshirts to Darth Vader, this paper examines the pervasive repetition of dark knight figures in Western tropes of sovereignty and its consequences.

Mimetic Understanding: The Embodied Dance of Words and Action

ABSTRACT In this article we emphasize that Greek tragedy, surprisingly, can prove to be close to current psychoanalytic practice in exploring the paradoxical dimension of subjectivity. The interweaving of explicit/implicit communication and unconscious dimension in psychoanalytic work gives rise to emergent moments of meaning. Tragedy and psychoanalysis find their value in always striving for truth, at times grasping it, only to lose it and to have to co-construct it all over again. In the figure/background articulation of the spoken, the unspoken, and the unspeakable, it is important to consider words not as labels fixed to define qualities and phenomena, but as living processes that go through exciting twists and turns. The words of therapy are spoken words and are part of a communicative flow that takes place in the interweaving of multiple implicit and explicit channels involving all the senses: voice quality, rhythm, sound, gaze, emotionally activated body. We have been interested in rhythm in the clinical exchange and we have delved into the study of imitation as the primary vehicle of implicit relational knowing and the transmission of pragmatic knowledge embodying ways of being in the world at very deep and procedural levels. A short vignette and a clinical case illustrate how the tool of mimesis proves useful in activating and improving our clinical sensitivity.

“Luiza Textoris” – from Dreams of Flight to Exploring the Unconscious Abyss

The present study represents a comparative analysis of the imaginary world revealed by reading the novel Luiza Textoris, written by Corin Braga. From a methodological point of view, the study pursues both the distinct elements that give the novel aesthetic-literary value, as well as a hermeneutic approach to the development path of the Luiza Textoris character and the reconstruction of the protagonistʹs existential trauma. Following the journey into the unconscious dimension of the human psyche carried out by Luiza Textoris, I was able to ascertain the psycho-ontological dilemmas and identity fractures caused by certain traumas „stored” in the unconscious. Although we did not propose a comprehensive analysis of this fascinating dream novel, this study is more of an introductory character, but necessary for understanding the imaginary universe it constitutes. A comprehensive analysis will be presented in another study.

Spacetimeunconscious

This article argues for an understanding of material geographies as invested with an unconscious dimension. I put forward the notion of spacetimeunconscious not as an inverse, double, or ‘other’ to Karen Barad's concept of spacetimematter, but as a supplement. Manifesting the spacetimeunconscious through the technique of montage, I draw together a range of phenomena, from the icing of water and the flashing of lightning to the awakenings of traumatised and displaced subjects. Across these juxtaposed parts, I argue that the unfolding of space and time responds to the enigmatic, irreducible message of the unconscious in the real. Spacetimeunconscious arrives as the ambassador of an unknown knowledge remembered for – or in the place of – a forgetful substance: water, dreamer, or electron. In an echo of the analytic method, I use montage to create generative connections, discontinuities, and instabilities between events, poetry, literature, and film, in the interstices of which the spacetimeunconscious may make an appearance.

Subjects of Exchange: Between Lacan and the Neue Marx-Lektüre

This essay explores the homology between Lacanian psychoanalysis and the critique of political economy through an engagement with the work of Alfred Sohn-Rethel and the related tradition of the neue Marx-Lekture (New Reading of Marx, or NML). Without claiming an easy compatibility between the Marxian and Lacanian fields, the article establishes a dialogue founded on difference and oversight. While the unconscious figures centrally in Sohn-Rethel's account of the non-knowledge or “practical solipsism” of the subject under capitalism, critics have yet to bring a Lacanian perspective to bear on the unconscious dimension of commodity exchange. Likewise, although Lacan's early formalization of the knotting of the Imaginary and the Symbolic offers a nuanced account of the structural impersonality of the social order, its relevance for the NML theorization of the autonomization of value relations has hitherto been overlooked. Reading Lacan “with” the NML, this essay redresses these oversights through a discussion of Slavoj Žižek's interpretation of the problem of form and method in Marx and Freud, and of Michael Heinrich's exegesis of the exchange process as developed in the first volume of Capital.

Communicative musicality and the mobile interview: a case-based psychosocial approach

Psychosocial interview-based methodologies have been heavily reliant on what has been long been thought of as a talk-led encounter. Interest in walking as a research method has been driven by the ways in which it alters the research relationship through the kinetic and relational affordances of moving side by side while walking, which also brings place and space into the encounter. However, a walking interview is also an event that occurs in time and, in this article, we explore this temporality through an exploration of the fluctuations of tempo and rhythmicity in a mobile interview group. We draw on theories of communicative musicality, which have focused mainly on parent–infant exchanges, to explore often unconscious dimensions of group communication. We argue that mobile interviews work simultaneously through the temporal/musical and the visual/spatial registers and we develop this theme with reference to a case example taken from a study of the everyday lives of young men accessing an organisation for homeless people. The walking interview allowed for a shared reimagining of a young man’s biography as he escorted us through the scenes, settings and phases of his everyday life. We use this example to consider how the rhythmical aspects of walking together support the communicative musicality of the interview group. Our analysis provides a window onto the unspoken aspects of the interview process which significantly affect our interpretation.

Grasping the paradoxical nature of wisdom through unconscious integrative complexity.

There has been much progress in the scientific study of wisdom on both conceptual and empirical fronts in the past few decades. Despite all the progress being made, there are still gaps that can be filled to provide even more explanatory power and coherence. Although academic discourse on wisdom has included the ability to integrate issues in a complex manner, there is still room for improved theorizing on wisdom's integrative complexity. Since integrative complexity has both conscious and unconscious dimensions, including the latter in discussions on wisdom will add a valuable aspect to its conceptualization. This article will argue how unconscious integrative complexity is the variable in wisdom's conceptual equation that involves paradox, which is a well-known sign of wisdom. Explanations contrasting conscious integrative complexity and unconscious integrative complexity in reference to wisdom will be discussed. Then, the Archetypal Test of the Nine Elements will be proposed as a testing instrument to operationalize unconscious integrative complexity. After the conceptualization and operationalization are worked through, we will conclude with a couple examples to illustrate our reflections.

Positive and psycho-pathological aspects between shame and shamelessness.

Interpersonal relationships represent an essential aspect of mental wellbeing and social functioning. If all the symptoms contain a relational meaning, shame represents the relational affect par excellence both in terms of its origin and its purpose. This paper aims to highlight the role of shame as an affect inherent in the rhythmic nature of the encounter with the other, as well as the pathological elements of this aspect in both its conscious and unconscious dimensions. There is a heterogeneous quantitative and qualitative declination of shame, or of the defenses against this affect, among the various pathologies. We consider the fundamental needs of belonging and acceptance and the parallel abandonment anguish from various psychoanalytic and philosophical theoretical perspectives and then analyze the link between their dissatisfaction and the origin of shame. We also touch on the different interpretaions of shame based on eastern and western cultural norms. These hypotheses are closely intertwined with the beliefs of classical psychopathology. The role of the body in the encounter with the other and in the experience of shame is also examined. In particular, we study the role of this affect in schizophrenia, depression, eating disorders, and personality disorders.

Contributions of psychogeography to understanding unconscious dimensions of lived workplace experience

This article explores the contribution that the concept of psychogeography can offer to organisational research, theory, consulting, leadership, management, and employees. Through several stories/storytelling coupled with psychodynamic interpretations, it examines and illustrates how people in workplace organisations invest space and artefacts with unconscious personal and group significance; how space and objects serve as powerful metaphors as well as utilitarian, task-based tools. Organisational space and objects are often used to serve as symbols of strong and powerful leaders. Ordinary workplace phenomena such as buildings, entrances, doors, desks, conference rooms and tables, and pictures turn out to possess enormous psychogeographic significance in what Michael Diamond calls the “unconscious life of organisations”. Projection-driven psychogeographic transference and its traps are discussed and illustrated. The article concludes with a discussion of the usefulness of a psychogeographic perspective in understanding and working with ordinary organisational leadership–management–employee relationships, task performance, research, and consulting.

The unconscious emotive dimension of language: Freud and psychoanalysis on the mysterious ways of language.

The unconscious emotive dimension of language: Freud and psychoanalysis on the mysterious ways of language.

The work of uncertainty

The work of uncertainty

L’affannosa ricerca per una diagnosi “utile”: tra criteri soggettivi ed evidenze oggettive

The psychiatric and even more the psychotherapeutic diagnosis is still nowadays a highly debated concept which lacks a clear definition. The different theoretical framework references do not agree on a shared etiopathogenetic mechanism responsible for mental illnesses onset. Many psychiatric and psychological health care workers report the need to revise the current diagnostic manuals which, in order to favor a more operational approach, often set apart from the clinical reality. Scientific research claims a method of knowledge able to maintain its scientific nature without overestimating the importance of objectivity. Subjectivity cannot be sacrificed in order to reach an objective diagnosis. In contrast, the psychotherapeutic relational dynamics and the patient’s unconscious reality such as dreams are fundamental for a correct and deep comprehension of mental pathology. Massimo Fagioli’s Theory of Birth represents a theoretical framework able to connect the patient’s unconscious dimension to the different clinical category manifestly expressed.

Moral Intuition, Social Sin, and Moral Vision: Attending to the Unconscious Dimensions of Morality and Igniting the Moral Imagination

This paper argues that the unconscious dimensions of the moral life—for example, moral vision, moral imagination, and distorted consciousness—are some of the most urgent provinces of moral theology today. Historically, moral theology was concerned with moral quandaries and observable actions, and moral agents were understood to be rational, deliberate, self-aware decision makers. Cultures of sin, such as racism and sexual violence, require that moral theologians reconceive of moral agency. Confronting these unconscious dimensions of the moral life requires integrating research in disciplines such as science, sociology, history, and anthropology with Christian ethics, pushing the boundaries of what has traditionally been understood to be the domain of moral theology. As an example, this paper draws upon the mutually reinforcing theories of moral intuition, developed by social and moral psychologists, and recent theories of social sin in Christian ethics, arguing that attention to the unconscious province of the moral life is necessary for developing an accurate conception of moral agency and for future work in moral formation. This paper concludes with a modest proposal for how stories might enable awareness of our distorted consciousness.

“On Nomadic Shores Inward”: Harry Martinson’s Journey to Late-Life Suicide

The aim of this study was to explore the unconscious dimensions of suicide as conveyed by the Swedish writer Harry Martinson, who took his life in 1978, four years after having received the Nobel Prize in Literature. A psychoanalytically informed “listening” to Martinson comprised a close reading of his writings, reflection on my total response to the material, the application of psychoanalytic hypotheses on severe depression and suicide-nearness, and the study of biographical sources. The dramatic fluctuations of Martinson’s self-regard were noted, as was the juxtaposition of opposites in his poetry: darkness that seeps through observations of the beauty of nature and man or the reverse, a gleam of love that defuses the cruelty of the world. Martinson’s drive to communicate with himself and others by talking and writing, to find auxiliary objects compensating for the traumatic losses of his childhood, and to realize mature love in adulthood was understood as a counterforce to self-destructiveness and threatening narcissistic disintegration. Pressured by negative reactions to the Nobel, which overlay decades of envy and political critique from colleagues, whose support he coveted, Martinson’s aggressivity—reflecting the near soul-murder of his early life—exploded in his suicide.

Sujeto de las ciudades

El sujeto de las ciudades es un relato que combina imágenes y argumentos para probar la formación de la identidad del sujeto urbano. Este es el sujeto político pero visto desde su dimensión singular e inconsciente. Los recuerdos de las ciudades se observan y se analizan desde su lado impremeditado, no consciente. Todas ellas nos atraviesan, nos constituyen, están en nuestro ser como ciudadanos.

A Phase Transition of the Unconscious: Automated Text Analysis of Dreams in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.

AimPsychotherapy could be interpreted as a self-organizing process which reveals discontinuous pattern transitions (so-called phase transitions). Whereas this was shown in the conscious process of awake patients by different measures and at different time scales, dreams came very seldom into the focus of investigation. The present work tests the hypothesis that, by dreaming, the patient gets progressively more access to affective-laden (i.e., emotionally charged) unconscious dimensions. Furthermore, the study investigates if, over the course of psychotherapy, a discontinuous phase transition occurs in the patient’s capacity to get in contact with those unconscious dimensions.Methods and ProceduresA series of 95 dream narratives reported during a psychoanalytic psychotherapy of a female patient (published as the “dreams of Amalie X”) was used for analysis. An automated text analysis procedure based on multiple correspondence analysis was applied to the textual corpus of the dreams, highlighting a 10-factor structure. The factors, interpreted as affective-laden unconscious meaning dimensions, were adopted to define a 10-dimensional phase space, in which the ability of a dream to be associated with one or more local factors representing complex affective-laden meanings is measured by the Euclidean distance (ED) from the origin of this hyperspace. The obtained ED time series has been fitted by an autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model and by non linear methods like dynamic complexity, recurrence plot, and time frequency distribution. Change point analysis was applied to these non linear methods.ResultsThe results show an increased frequency and intensity of dreams to get access to affective-laden meanings. Non linear methods identified a phase transition-like jump of the ED dynamics onto a higher complexity level of the dreaming process, suggesting a non linear process in the patient’s capacity to get in contact with unconscious dimensions.ConclusionThe study corroborates the hypothesis that, by dreaming, the patient gets progressively more access to affective-laden meaning intended as unconscious dimensions. The trajectory of this process has been reproduced by an ARIMA model, and beyond this, non linear methods of time series analysis allowed the identification of a phase transition in the unconscious process of the psychoanalytic therapy under investigation.

My God, why have you abandoned me? Sexual abuse and attitudes towards God among Orthodox Jews

ABSTRACT Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) correlates with disruptions in core beliefs, which within Orthodox Judaism may be linked to God. We hypothesise that CSA may negatively alter attitudes towards God for some, while remaining unchanged or even activating this domain for others. This was tested in a sample of 136 individuals and results indicated that positive explicit beliefs about God differed between those who remained Orthodox and those who disaffiliate regardless of CSA and that negative explicit attitudes differed between those with CSA and those without regardless of religious identity. Participants with CSA who remained Orthodox reported more positive implicit attitudes compared to all other groups, while participants with CSA who disaffiliated reported the least positive attitudes. Divergence between explicit and implicit beliefs suggests that attitudes towards God are multifactorial reflecting both conscious theology and unconscious experiences, and that CSA may have particular influence over these unconscious dimensions.