Psychoanalytic perspectives on substance use and antisocial personality disorder

Psychoanalysis and related psychodynamic psychotherapies have historically had a limited engagement with substance use and antisocial personality disorders. This in part reflects an early preoccupation with ���transference neuroses��� and in part reflects later de-emphasis of diagnosis and focus on therapeutic process. Nonetheless, psychoanalytic perspectives can usefully inform thinking about approaches to treatment of such disorders and there are psychoanalytic constructs that have specific relevance to their treatment. This paper reviews some prominent strands of psychoanalytic thinking as they pertain to the treatment of substance abuse and antisocial personality disorders. It is argued that, while Freudian formulations lead to a primarily pessimistic view of the prospect of treatment of such disorders, both the British object relations and the North American self psychology traditions suggest potentially productive approaches. Finally the limited empirical evidence from brief psychodynamically informed treatments of substance use disorders is reviewed. It is concluded that such treatments are not demonstrably effective but that, since no form of psychotherapy has established high efficacy with substance use disorders, brief psychdynamic therapies are not necessarily of lesser value than other treatments and may have specific value for particular individuals and in particular treatment contexts.

Transcending the inanimate : evoking the sublime in puppet-based performance

This study investigated how contemporary puppet-based theatre can create deeply imaginative experiences for adult audiences. Designed to interrogate the potential effects of double-vision (Tillis, 1992), the theories of the sublime (Kant, 2008; 2003) and the uncanny (Jentsch, 1906; Freud, 1919) were used to create a series of creative guidelines. As practice-led research, the project embraced an iterative approach consisting of two cycles for creative experimentation, and a third for the creation of the final performance work The Harbinger, presented as a part of La Boite Theatre Company���s mainstage season. A theoretical investigation was also conducted to inform the developing practice.

Soundage : a practice-led approach to Gertrude Stein, sound, and generative language

In this practice-led research project I work to show how a re-reading and a particular form of listening to the sound-riddled nature of Gertrude Stein's work, Two: Gertrude Stein and her Brother, presents us with a contemporary theory of sound in language. This theory, though in its infancy, is a particular enjambment of sounded language that presents itself as an event, engaged with meaning, with its own inherent voice. It displays a propensity through engagement with the 'other' to erupt into love. In this thesis these qualities are reverberated further through the work of Seth Kim-Cohen's notion of the non-cochlear, Simon Jarvis's notion of musical thinking, Jean-Jacques Lecercle's notion of d��lire or nonsense, Luce Irigaray's notion of jouissant love and the Bracha Ettinger's notion of the generative matrixial border space. This reading then is simultaneously paired with my own work of scoring and creating a digital opera from Stein's work, thereby testing and performing Stein's theory. In this I show how a re-reading and relistening to Stein's work can be significant to feminist ethical language frames, contemporary philosophy, sonic art theory and digital language frames. Further significance of this study is that when the reverberation of Stein's engagements with language through sound can be listened to, a pattern emerges, one that encouragingly problematizes subjectivity and interweaves genres/methods and means, creating a new frame for sound in language, one with its own voice that I call soundage.

Architecture and affect

Invited Lecture for Interdisciplinary seminar, Yale School of Architecture. Seminar investigates architectural techniques of affect; topics included Adrian Stokes, Freud on aggression, Spinoza, German aesthetics, viscerality, Guattari and ���concrete machines���; Other Invited guests: Peggy Deamer, Brian Massumi, Gary Genosko, Ernst Prelinger, Elizabeth Grosz, Ed Mitchell.

Masculinity, sexuality and hate-motivated violence : the case of Darren

In this paper I use the case study of Darren, derived from two interviews in a research study of racism in the city of Stoke, UK (Gadd, Dixon and Jefferson 2005; Gadd and Dixon 2011), to explore how best to approach the topic of hate-motivated violence. This entails discussing the relationships among racism (the original object of study), hate-motivated violence (the more general term) and prejudices of various sorts. Because that discussion, I argue, justifies a psychoanalytic starting point, and since violence has become, almost quintessentially, masculine, this leads on to an exploration of what can be learnt from psychoanalysis about the relations among sexuality, masculinity, hatred and violence. This involves brief discussions of some key psychoanalytic terms, but only what is needed to enable sense to be made of my chosen case, which I shall then interrogate using these psychoanalytic ideas, focused on understanding the origins and nature of Darren���s hatred.

The mirror manoeuvre : telling the same story twice

The emerging field of ecopsychology is marked by two theoretical concerns which can be seen as mirror images of each other. One is the concern with what humans need, psychologically, from the non-human natural world (e.g. Wolsko & Lindberg 2013). The other is what nature needs from us (e.g. Swim 2013). Ecocriticism has been exploring these questions for at least two decades, but ecocritical theory examines ways of reading texts rather than ways of writing them (Bate 2000; Buell 2001; Garrard 2012). Undertaking theoretically-informed ���creative manoeuvres���, and reflecting and reporting on the results, is one way for practice-led researchers in the field of creative writing to progress the knowledge claims of our discipline. This paper describes an ecowriting practice experiment based on the premise that specific techniques of narrative fiction writing can deepen reader engagement with ecopsychology���s twin concerns, and help motivate ecological action. Exploring this premise is time-critical given the current environmental crisis (Rust & Totton 2012), and emerging evidence that contemporary modes of representing the non-human natural world fail to elicit activist responses (Crompton & Kasser 2009; Joffe 2008). In the practice experiment reported here, a unique reading experience has been constructed such that the reader encounters from two different perspectives, through two different novels, a single story of humans benefiting from non-destructive interactions with non-human nature. This paper argues that the two novels create a complex and intense relationship between reader and story which generates specific psychological effects, and ultimately demands an activist response.

A bricoleur (or two) in the consulting room

In popular contemporary use, the French term bricolage refers to the activities of the home handyman. It is sometimes used in a disparaging way to refer to work that is improvised, uninformed by expertise or specialist knowledge, and probably inferior in its results when compared with the work of a tradesman or professional. In 1962, anthropologist and philosopher Claude L��vi-Strauss argued that bricolage is a modality of human thought. Since then, the importance of bricolage as a mental activity has been identified in relation to art and architecture, as well as other fields of cultural activity. In this paper I consider bricolage as an activity of the ego and explore its role in the consulting room. I argue that by necessity the psychoanalytic work undertaken between patient and analyst relies on this modality of thought and, furthermore, that the use of bricolage is entirely compatible with evidence-based practice.

My System of Career Influences MSCI (Adult) Facilitator's Guide

Career development in the 21st century presents many challenges and opportunities to adults. They must now navigate a complex and rapidly changing world of work influenced by technology, globalisation and fluctuating economic conditions. The My System of Career Influences (MSCI) (Adult) is a qualitative career assessment tool based on the constructivist theory from cognitive psychology. Acknowledged as the third wave in cognitive science after psychoanalysis and behaviourism, constructivism emphasises the individual in the assessment and counselling process. Individuals actively participate in the construction of their own reality and are encouraged to respond to and deal with both anticipated and unanticipated events that influence their careers. The tool comprises a facilitator guide and participant workbooks. The guide describes the Systems Theory Framework of career development that provides the theoretical background to the MSCI as well as a step-by-step user guide to conducting the MSCI (Adult) process with individuals and groups. Each participant uses the accompanying MSCI (Adult) Workbook (sold separately) which they can complete and keep for later reference. With its attention to an holistic and storied approach to career intervention My System of Career Influences (MSCI) (Adult) is an essential resource for all career practitioners working with adults in today's workplaces.

Travelling bones: The repatriation of Indigenous ancestral remains

In the album Journey, Archie Roach -- the Australian Indigenous singer-songwriter hailing from Mooroopna in Victoria - has a melancholy song called ���Travell���n Bones.' It is about the repatriation of Indigenous ancestral remains to their rightful home. This Chapter considers the legal, ethical, and cultural conflicts over Australian indigenous remains being held in museums, in Australia, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and the United States. James Nason comments: ���The explosion of legal and extra legal attention on issues of cultural property and heritage was born of the frustration and anger of indigenous peoples whose rights and perspectives about cultural property and heritage issues had been largely absent and essentially unwanted by the museum of community.' Part I focuses upon disputes in Australia involving the repatriation of Indigenous Australian remains. In Bropho v HREOC, there was controversy over a cartoon, mocking the repatriation of the remains of Yagan, an Indigenous warrior, to Western Australia. There was a discussion about the operation of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth), and the exemptions available from the operation of the regime. Part II considers the efforts by The Te Papa Tongarewa - the Museum of New Zealand - to repatriate Maori and Moriori ancestral remains to New Zealand, and to iwi communities of origin. The conclusion considers the relevance of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Persons 2007, and issues raised by ventures such as the Genographic Project.

Experiences of countertransference: Reports of clinical psychology students

While historically linked with psychoanalysis, countertransference is recognised as an important component of the experience of therapists, regardless of the therapeutic modality. This study considers the implications of this for the training of psychologists. Fifty-five clinical psychology trainees from four university training programmes completed an anonymous questionnaire that collected written reports of countertransference experiences, ratings of confidence in managing these responses, and supervision in this regard. The reports were analysed using a process of thematic analysis. Several themes emerged including a desire to protect or rescue clients, feeling criticised or controlled by clients, feeling helpless, and feeling disengaged. Trainees varied in their reports of awareness of countertransference and the regularity of supervision in this regard. The majority reported a lack of confidence in managing their responses, and all reported interest in learning about countertransference. The implications for reflective practice in postgraduate psychology training are discussed.

Yhden ����nen muotokuvia : Queer-luentoja Marguerite Yourcenarin teoksista

The present dissertation belongs to the tradition of queer theoretical and feminist literary scholarship. The study deals with the literary works of Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-1987), who was the first woman ever to be elected to the French Academy. The study seeks to lead an acclaimed classical French author into a dialogue with the characteristically Anglo-American queer theory and American tradition of queering Lacanian psychoanalysis. Queering the psychoanalytic notions of homosexuality and the categories of perversion and pervert will be elaborated in the present study. The main corpus of the scrutiny consists of five pieces of fiction written in French by Yourcenar. The first person narration and especially r��cit genre maintain a narrative strategy that the study explores with reference to the representations of non-normative genders and sexualities. Analyzing various radically queer aspects of Yourcenar's texts, the study focuses on the topical questions of masculinity in men, women, and texts. The study also discusses the representations of sexual desire between men, and the various constructions of male homosexuality in Yourcenar's fiction. The present study addresses Yourcenar's fiction from the points of view of female masculinity and textual female masculinity. The investigation finds its study questions and methodology in the area of queer studies, especially queer theoretical literary scholarship and the queer history and historiography of sexuality. That is why the study approaches Yourcenar's fiction in the context of historical and literary representations of male homosexual love and desire. The articulation of the closet, or textual and discursive strategies of sexual secrecy especially concerning male homosexuality, is simultaneously constructed and deconstructed in Yourcenar's fiction, as the analysis indicates. The study analyzes the Yourcenarian queer textual strategies with reference to concepts such as the epistemology and rhetoric of the closet, and the structure of the open secret as a part of the rhetoric of queer or non-straight sexuality. The present investigation puts the queer, non-normative representations of gender and sexuality in the centre of the Yourcenarian oeuvre and studies, ascertaining the strong bond between Yourcenar's work and the history, tradition, and the modern strategies of representing male homosexuality and queerness.

What is racism? Othering, prejudice and hate-motivated violence

The paper���s concern is the current difficulty, in journalism, the academy and politics, of discussing questions to do with race, ethnicity, difference and immigration because of the fear of being called a racist. It starts with an analysis of biographical interview data drawn from fifteen people who had variously acquired the label racist and who were part of a small-scale study into racism in the Midlands city of Stoke-on-Trent, UK conducted between 2003 and 2005. The interviews used the free association narrative interview method. This analysis revealed that most people do not consider themselves racist and that having a conviction for a racially aggravated offence or being a member of a far right organisation was not able to differentiate racists from non-racists. It also revealed a spectrum of attitudes towards immigrants or particular ethnic groups: strong expressions of hatred at one end of the spectrum; strong prejudicial feelings in the middle; and a feeling that ���outsider��� groups should not benefit at the expense of ���insiders��� (called ���othering���) at the other end. The turn to theory for assistance revealed that, although hatred, prejudice and ���othering��� are not the same thing, and do not have the same origins, they have become elided. This is primarily because cognitive psychology���s hostility to psychoanalysis marginalised hatred whilst its exclusive preoccupation with prejudice came effectively to define racism at the individual level. Progress in thinking about racism might consist of abolishing the term and returning to thinking about hatred, prejudice and ���othering��� separately.

Min��st�� toiseen : Lacanilaisen subjektin syntym�� Ana��s Ninin House of Incestiss�� ja H��l��ne Cixous'n Dedans'issa

The study approaches two modern novels using the conceptual frame of Lacanian psychoanalysis, especially the Lacanian notion of subject. The novels can be described as subversive ���Bildungsromans��� (development novels) highly influenced by psychoanalytic thought. Ana��s Nin���s (1903���1977) ���poetic novel��� House of Incest (1936) is a story of sexual and artistic awakening while H��l��ne Cixous���s (b. 1937) first novel Dedans (1969) depicts the growth of a little girl whose father dies. Both are first novels and first person narratives. Concentrating in the narrator���s internal life the novels writings break with the realistic conventions of narrative, bringing forth the themes of anguish, alienation from the world and escape into the prison like realm of the self. The study follows roughly the Lacanian process of becoming a subject. Each chapter opens up with a quick introduction to the Lacanian concepts used in the following part that analyses the novels. The study can thus also be used as a brief introduction to Lacanian theory in finnish. The psychoanalytic narrative/story of the birth of the subject and the novels stories can be seen as mirroring each other. The method of the study is thus based on a dialogue between the theoretical concepts and the analyses. Novels are being approached as texts that break with the Cartesian notion of an autonomous subject making room for a dialectics of self and other, for a movement in which the ���I��� builds an identity mirroring itself with others. While both of the novels recount the birth of a character called I, they also have a first person narrator apart from the character ���I���. Having constituted the self���s identity, the narrator finds from inside of the self also an other or ���you��� ��� this discovery is the final clue to the coffin of the autonomous self. From the Lacanian perspective man���s great Other is the order of language, Symbolic, which constitutes the individual, the speaking subject. Using this perspective the novels are interpreted as describing the process of becoming a subject of the Symbolic; subjected to Symbolic order. This ���birth process��� happens in particular in the Imaginary register, where the self���s identity is built. In the Imaginary or Mirror phase the ���I��� mirrors himself with different others (e.g. with his mirror image and the family members, the surrounding others) learning to see his body and his selfhood both as familiar and strange, other. In the Imaginary phase the novels��� characters are also trying to deal with the opposite realm of the Symcolic, the Real. The Lacanian Real is not the reality ���before words��� but a reality left over from the Symbolic, aside of it but constituted by the Symbolic, to be deducted only from within it. In the novels the Real is experienced as a womblike state where the self is immersed in the other���s body. The process of coming a subject of the Symbolic is depicted also as a process of renouncing the ���dream of the womb���, which, if realized, could only mean the non-existence of the subject, i.e. death. The study concentrates on analysing the novels��� writing, where meanings are constantly changing: ���I��� becomes you, the father becomes a mother, inside becomes outside. This technique enables also the deconstruction of certain opposing notions in the novels. The Lacanian point of view exposes language as a constantly moving universe where the subject has no more stability than the momentary meanings language creates. The self���s identity depicted in the novels is a Lacanian fixed identity, whose growth is necessary but opposes the flux imminent to the Symbolic. The anguish experienced in the novels, in the ���house of incest��� or ���inside���, is due to clinging on the unchanging ���I���. However, the writing of the novels shows how the meaning of the ���I��� changes constantly and the fixity thus becomes movement. This way House of Incest and Dedans, despite their pessimistic stories, manage to create an image of a new, moving subject.

Passion vallassa : Hermostunut aika Minna Canthin teoksissa

Under the power of passion. The age of nervousness in Minna Canth s works This research contemplates the psychology of Minna Canth s characters through the historical image of man in late 19th century Europe. The central operative term of the study is passion , understood as a twofold philosophical concept that includes both desire and suffering. The method of this study is historical and contextual. The study interprets the passions and the psychology of Canth s characters as they were understood in their own time. The indicator of the relevant contexts is the realist and naturalist genre of Canth s works. New research on the genre of the time is also the basis of a new kind of psychological approach to Canth s works. The most important context of passion in Canth s works is the positivistic and pathological image of man at the end of the 19th century. Then, passion was widely discussed, and was perceived as a physiological phenomenon that influenced humans neurologically and caused different kinds of physiological symptoms and nervous disorders. But at the same time, passion was understood as a manifestation of human instincts and drives. The naturalistic literature of the day aimed at creating deterministic studies of human morality and psychology following ��mile Zola s application of experimental science methods in his writing. The pathological image of man is most explicitly manifested in Canth s formerly unknown short story L����k��ri (Doctor, 1891), in which a doctor who is interested in psychology visits a jail to meet a peculiar criminal, a girl who feels no remorse for her multiple crimes. In other works of Canth the medically motivated viewpoint is more hidden in the deterministic narrative and depiction of the characters. The present study approaches the passion in Minna Canth s works through five thematic chapters, in witch characters are interpreted suffering from blind love, ennui, crippling romantic idealism, melancholy, guilt and nostalgia, and their stories can be prescribed as medical histories which depict the born of the passion and its development towards ruin. All protagonists are also manifestations of their own time. Canth criticises the modern life and its demands as well as social defects through the tragic stories of individuals. The study demonstrates that Canth did not, like previous research has suggested, wait until the 1890s before writing works of a psychological nature but had already written according to the psychological paradigm of her time in Ty��miehen vaimo (1885). The social and psychological interests intertwine in Canth s works and are not exclusionary as has formerly been interpreted. Canth is also critical of the medical power implicit in the naturalist experimental method and this shows itself especially in her depiction of working class women.

The Freudian unconscious in the context of the cognitive orientation

For decades psychoanalysis was the discipline studying the unconscious, and other branches of study lacked competence to take a stand on the issues concerning the unconscious. From 1980s onwards intense study of the unconscious has been taken place in the scope of cognitive orientation. Thus, nowadays it is talked about both pyschoanalytic and cognitive unconscious. The aim of this thesis is to integrate psychoanalytic and cognitive views. When the "Freudian" conception of the unconscious is considered, there are four entangled issues: 1) what is the unconscious like, 2) how does the unconsciuos give rise to psychic disorders 3) why and how certain contents are missing from consciousness (repression of contents), 4) the emergence of those contents (becoming conscious of the repressed). The conventional psychoanalytic answer to the first question - and "the cornerstone of psychoanalysis" - is "the unconscious is mental". The issues 2)-4) depend radically on the answer given to the 1): "psychoanalytic" conceptualizations on them rest on the "cornerstone". That ground was challended in study I: it was argued that it has never been clear what does it mean that the unconscious is mental. Thus, it was stated that in the current state of art psychoanalysis should drop out the ephitet "mental" before the term unconscious. That claim creates a pressure to reappraise the convential "psychoanalytic" answers to the other questions, and that reappraisal was the aim of studies II and III. In study II the question 2) is approached in terms of implicit knowledge. Study III focuses on mechanisms, which determine which contents appear in the scope of consciousness, and also cause missing of contents from there (the questions 3) and 4)). In the core of study III there are distinctions concerning the processess occuring in the levels of the brain, consciousness, self-consciousness, and narrative self-consciousness. Studies I-III set "psychoanalytic" topics in the frames of cognitive view. The picture emerging from those studies is not especially useful for a clinican (psychotherapist). Studies IV and V focused that issue. Study IV is a rather serious critique toward neuropsychoanalysis. In it it was claimed that repressive functions of conscious states are in the core of clinical psychoanalysis, and functions in general cannot be reduced to neurophysiological terminology. Thus, the limits of neuropsychoanalysis are more strict than it has been realized: crucial clinical issues remain outside its scope. In study V it was focused on the confusing state of things that although unconscious fantasies do not exist, the idea on them has been an important conceptual tool for clinicans. When put in a larger context, the aim of study V is similar to that of study IV: to determine the relation between psychotherapists' and neuroscientists' terminologies. Studies III, IV and V apply the philosopher Daniel Dennett's model on different levels of explanation.