A Preliminary Study of DBH (Encoding Dopamine Beta-Hydroxylase) Genetic Variation and Neural Correlates of Emotional and Motivational Processing in Individuals with and without Pathological Gambling

Author(s): Bao-Zhu Yang,Iris M. Balodis,Cheryl M. Lacadie,Jiansong Xu,Marc N. Potenza / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2016

Corticostriatal-limbic neurocircuitry, emotional and motivational processing, dopaminergic and noradrenergic systems and genetic factors have all been implicated in pathological gambling (PG). However, allelic variants of genes influencing dopaminergic and noradrenergic neurotransmitters have not been investigated with respect to the neural correlates of emotional and motivational states in PG. Dopamine beta-hydroxylase (DBH) converts dopamine to norepinephrine; the T allele of a functional single-nucleotide polymorphism rs1611115 (C-1021T) in the DBH gene is associated with less DBH activity and has been linked to emotional processes and addiction. Here, we investigate the influence of rs1611115 on the neural correlates of emotional and motivational processing in PG and healthy comparison (HC) participants. Methods: While undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging, 18 PG and 25 HC participants, all European Americans, viewed gambling-, sad-, and cocaine-related videotapes. Analyses focused on brain activation differences related to DBH genotype (CC/T-carrier [i.e., CT and TT]) and condition (sad/gambling/cocaine). Results: CC participants demonstrated greater recruitment of corticostriatal-limbic regions, relative to T-carriers. DBH variants were also associated with altered corticostriatal-limbic activations across the different videotape conditions, and this association appeared to be driven by greater activation in CC participants relative to T-carriers during the sad condition. CC relative to T-carrier subjects also reported greater subjective sadness to the sad videotapes. Conclusions: Individual differences in genetic composition linked to aminergic function contribute significantly to emotional regulation across diagnostic groups and warrant further investigation in PG.

A propos kriterija neorganičnosti

Author(s): Milivoj Vodopija / Language(s): Croatian / Issue: 4/1974

In Graebner’ s "Methode der Ethnologie" the criterion of non-organic serves as one of the auxiliary criteria for detecting historical connections between two different cultures. If, in a homogeneous set of elements we find a heterogeneous one, i.e . incompatible or non-organic and can link it typologically to another set of elements to which it originally belonged we can boost of having discovered a piece of cultural history. However, though it has proved methodologically fruitful in historical research, Graebner’ s "atomizing" conception of culture which views it as a mere a mere aggregate, a sum of cultural elements would not rank very high with contemporary standards of scientific theory. Humane studies have all during the past decades switched from the positivistic notion of "fact" as the essential element of knowledge to the system of interrelations between facts. Though ethnology in particular lags somewhat in this general trend there is no real obstacle to the conceiving and studying culture in terms of the system theory. In accordance with these terms the criterion of the non-organic should be translated as the criterion of disturbance in a system. A number of cases in all branches of science show that the methodological significance of disturbances in the observed system can be enormous in the way that it can lead to discovering or reconstructing of another system . Disturbance is thus conceived as the area of interference of the two systems. This model can be especially fruitful and applicable in ethnology today when we are faced with rapid substitution of traditional cultural systems with the civilizatory ones.

A psychoanalytic reading of Tanure Ojaide’s poetry

Author(s): Solomon Awuzie / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2017

Psychoanalysis as a literary theory has helped to improve understanding about “human behaviour and human mental functioning.” This is achieved through its perception of the human race as neurotic. However, with its application in poetic interpretation, poetry is perceived as an expression of displaced neurotic conflict: a consoling illusion, symptom, socially acceptable phantasy or substitute gratification. With the psychoanalytic reading of the poetry of Tanure Ojaide, an Anglophone African poet, poetry is understood as an expression of symptoms of the poet’s personal and societal neurotic tendencies. Since our emphasis is on Jungian psychoanalysis, analyzing Ojaide’s poetry through the orbits of the archetypes of Jungian psychoanalysis help to foreground the poetry as a consoling illusion or substitute gratification. Whereas the study reveals that Ojaide’s poetry is dominated by the archetype of the “wounded healer” - a symbol of a wounded personality who also doubles as the needed messiah (the healer), it is depicted that the dominant nature of the archetype of the “wounded healer” is a result of the poet’s experience which is at the centre of his poetic expression.

A PSYCHOANALYTICAL APPROACH TO JOSEPH CONRAD'S NOVELS

Author(s): Dimitrie Andrei Borcan / Language(s): English / Issue: 15/2018

The present study intends to approach Conrad's works from an psychoanalytical point of view. I have been trying to interpret a few Conradian novels and novellas psychoanalytically: Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, Almayer's Folly, Nostromo, Chance and The Nigger of the Narcissus. I will refer in this study to Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung, by identifying instances of the theories belonging to them as applicable to Conrad's novels.

Acculturation Process and Ethnic Identity of Immigrants in Germany

Author(s): Liudmyla Smokova / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2015

In the present study, we discuss psychological acculturation, by which we mean the internal processes of change that immigrants experience when they come into direct contact with members of the host culture. The model we present builds on research in the areas of social and ethnic identity. Each of these perspectives is discussed in accordance with its relevance to the acculturative processes operating in immigrants. We understand ethnic identity as a dynamic state, that is determined by three components: (1) by the degree of inclusion in the group of one’s cultural origin; (2) the tendency to assimilate to the ethnic group of origin; and (3) the complementary tendency to differentiate from one’s own ethnic group. Social identity conveys belonging of the individual to different social categories and the value as well as emotional significance of this membership. We have sought to explain how the processes of social categorization, inand out-group identification and social comparison predetermine the direction of the acculturation process and hence the intercultural interaction and wellbeing of the youth from immigrant backgrounds in Germany. Results indicated that immigrants who have more identified themselves with dominant society have expressed the strong preference to integration strategies. The immigrants that had a high degree of ethnic identification have expressed the low preference to the integration as well to marginalization and assimilation. In its turn, the powerful feeling of belonging to an ethnic group and attitude towards the group promotes immigrants segregation choice.

Adaptation and Psychometric Evaluation of the Young Diagnostic Questionnaire (YDQ) for Parental Assessment of Adolescent Problematic Internet Use

Author(s): Lutz Wartberg,Levente Kriston,Katharina Kegel,Rainer Thomasius / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2016

The surge of problematic Internet use in adolescents is a continuously growing problem across the globe. To our knowledge, to date valid questionnaire-based measurement of problematic Internet use is possible only by self-assessment. The objective for the present study was to adapt an established instrument for a parental assessment of adolescent problematic Internet use and to evaluate the psychometric properties of this questionnaire. Methods: Data were collected from a representative German sample of 1,000 parents of adolescents aged between 12 and 17 years using a standardized questionnaire. To assess problematic Internet use, we adapted the established Young Diagnostic Questionnaire by rewording the items to survey a parental rating instead of a self-report (“Parental version of the Young Diagnostic Questionnaire,” PYDQ). Additionally, we assessed the Internet usage time, parental monitoring, family functioning, school performance of the adolescent, and parent–adolescent conflicts. We conducted a confirmatory factor analysis based on the 8 items of the PYDQ modeled as categorical indicators and one latent factor using a robust weighted least squares estimator. We also calculated a reliability coefficient, the acceptance of the instrument, and performed correlation analyses. Results: The unidimensional model showed excellent global goodness-of-fit (χ2/df = 1.65, RMSEA = 0.03, CFI = 0.99, TLI = 0.99) and satisfactory factor loadings (standardized values ranged from 0.60 to 0.77). We observed a reliability coefficient of 0.70, a good acceptance of the instrument, and the correlation analyses indicated the construct validity of the PYDQ. Discussion and conclusion: The proposed PYDQ is a suitable instrument for parental assessment of adolescent problematic Internet use.

AFFECTIVITY AND LANGUAGE

Author(s): Doina Mihaela Popa / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 15/2018

Metaphor, as therapeutic means, provides a symbolic context that is perceived as being familiar, a permissive point of reference, from which subjects can redefine and restructure their own relationship with reality, now confused and insurmountable. It is a symbolic anchor, thrown at secure depth, a private territory, protected from the aggressiveness of the Other's perception, in which the Ego projects its elements of individual drama, sometimes invisible to the experienced therapist's eye; due to the implicit qualities of the metaphor (associativity, ambiguity, imprecision), the use of such a scenario inaugurates a plurality of directions. Therapeutic stories, provocative metaphorical situations, or simple symbolic suggestions facilitate the restoration and revaluation of the "gaps" or "white spots" symptoms of the Identity map, filling them with what the generic analogue language offers: dreams, iterative metaphorical expressions, obsessive literary fragments.

Affekt und Phantasie im Aufb au personaler Realitäten. Zur emotiven Wirkungsphänomenologie der Lebenswelt

Author(s): Jagna Brudzinska / Language(s): German / Issue: 57supl./2012

In the modern philosophy fantasies, affects and emotions are often unregarded or dismissed as subject of psychology. Today they are (re-)discovered by the modern cognitive – and neurosciences. But first of all it is the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl which investigates fantasies and affects with regard to its constitutive functions in the self and world experience. The phenomenology interprets fantasies and affects by its fundamental functions of the emotive effectiveness as a consciousness of a concrete bodily and personal subjectivity. Only with the genetic-phenomenological intentional analysis fantasies, bodily affects and emotions can also be investigated within the deeper levels of passive experience with regard to its subjective and intersubjective effectiveness as affections, kinaesthesis and phantasma. The method of genetic phenomenology makes it possible to understand the emotive dynamics of these fields and to find out the concrete emotive achievements of sense-performing in our subjective life. In my contribution I discuss these aspects beginning with the draft of a phenomenological concept of emotiveness. I describe the basic character of the emotive effectiveness-structure of the subjective constitution and discuss the phenomenological understanding of fantasy as a consciousness of experience with regard to its emotive structure of effectiveness. Thereby I consider its temporal and motivational dynamics. On this background I analyze the emotive aspect of the personal as well as interpersonal constitution and finally I shortly describe a specific structure of intersubjective sympathetic experience, which has in my view a fundamental significance for the genesis of our shared world as life-world. This sympathetic experience can only be interpreted with respect to the understanding of the emotive structure of experiencing consciousness. In this way fantasies, affects and emotions get a new importance as a research field of theoretical and practical phenomenology

AM LEBEN SEIN. DASEINSANALYTISCHE ZUGÄNGE ZUR KINDER-UND JUGENDLICHENPSYCHOTHERAPIE

Author(s): Charlotte Spitzer / Language(s): German / Issue: 2/2016

“To be alive”. A sixteen years old client of mine used this expression to describe her wish and within the possibility of what may come after the therapeutic process. It is a beautiful and pure and at the same time a universal uttering. The epochs of childhood and youth are very special periods in the life of all of us. Never again we experience such an immense kind of development in our existential possibilities. It’s intensity, tempo and dimensions are tremendous. Therefore the risks are also very high. In this process we are highly sensitive, vulnerable and bare so that every difficulty, every disappointment, every – even short – loss of love can have a deep and devastating impact on our possibilities to be open to the world and be free in living out our own Dasein as well as living out from our own true ground. In this particular period of life, we are totally and utterly exposed and if we don’t get what we need in order to develop and grow in our unique way, if we are unable to respond appropriately to what life brings for us, we develop psychological disorders. In my article I would like to illuminate the human existence, this very specific period of life, through daseinsanalytical, phenomenological view. This includes personality development, openness towards the unique individual possibilities to come to the world and getting and staying open to the world, being truly alive. The term “development” is discussed here in its phenomenological understanding, describing the phenomenon as becoming more and more open to the world due to the unique individual possibilities. Furthermore some Existentialia and how they reveal itself in their singular mode to the world are being outlined in different phases of childhood and youth.Finally the therapeutic uniqueness of daseinsanalytical relationship is described under the aspect of psychotherapy with youth.

An Artistic and Psychoanalytic Approach of Leonardo da Vinci’s Paintings

Author(s): Irina-Andreea Stoleriu / Language(s): English / Issue: 08/2015

The starting point of the present paper is the work 'The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne', made by Leonardo da Vinci. The paper is based both on an artistic and psychoanalytic approach which opens new ways of interpretation due to the research of Sigmund Freud - 'Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood'. Freud claims that Leonardo had found the lost image of his mother in his works 'The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne' and 'Mona Lisa', thus justifying the artist’s direct attachment to these creations. Along with specific interpretations of the creative process, the psychoanalytic approach intends to explain and enrich the content of ideas of the present paper regarding one of the most valuable creations of Leonardo and also an artistic testament created towards the end of his life. Freud’s psychoanalytic approach brings specific interpretative content for the mentioned work of art. It is different from the artistic method, not contradicting various artistic studies, but complementing them in a harmonious way.

An illness of one’s own. Memoir as art form and research as witness

Author(s): Arthur W. Frank / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2018

The author reviews his own experiences of writing an illness memoir, asking what makes such storytelling possible. How telling stories about suffering can precipitate healing is then considered. Finally, the argument pivots to health care research, asking what sort of research would be consistent with the ideas about illness that have been expressed.

An Optimist of the Soul. Ferenc Mérei: Társ és csoport (Companion and Group). Freud fényében és árnyékában (In the Light and Shadow of Freud). A pszichológiai labirintus (The Psychological Labyrinth)

Author(s): Ferenc Eros / Language(s): English / Issue: 01/1991

When I began studying psychology in the mid 1960s at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, the name Ferenc Mérei could hardly be spoken above a whisper. Indeed, only through whispers did one learn that Mérei was a free man once again, and had found a job: as a clinical psychologist at the National Institute for Mental Health.

Ani kapitulacja, ani śmierć – odpowiedź na recenzję Michała Warchali

Author(s): Krzysztof Swirek / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 14/2018

Apie Filosofines Dailės Terapijos Ištakas Ir Taikymo Galimybes

Author(s): Vaida Asakaviciute / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 89/2016

The article reviews the philosophical and psychological origins of Art Therapy and its practical application possibilities. A special focus is given to the influence of the views based on philosophical and psychological ideas of art therapy functions, methods and practical significance. The article aims to highlight the positive benefits of the adoption of art therapy techniques and their effects on health of a human soul and body as well as a self-cognition. The focus is on a creative process, which is considered to be one of the most important elements of art therapy. The advantages of art therapy, such as a self-expression through colours, the personality in self-creation, the education of the personal creativeness and spirituality, are concisely presented in the paper.

Apie Filosofines Dailės Terapijos Ištakas Ir Taikymo Galimybes

Author(s): Vaida Asakaviciute / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 88/2016

The article reviews the philosophical and psychological origins of Art Therapy and its practical application possibilities. A special focus is given to the influence of the views based on philosophical and psychological ideas of art therapy functions, methods and practical significance. The article aims to highlight the positive benefits of the adoption of art therapy techniques and their effects on health of a human soul and body as well as a self-cognition. The focus is on a creative process, which is considered to be one of the most important elements of art therapy. The advantages of art therapy, such as a self-expression through colours, the personality in self-creation, the education of the personal creativeness and spirituality, are concisely presented in the paper.

Apie Neklasikinę Filosofijà Neklasikiniu Stiliumi (Leonardos Jekentaitës Kûrybos Interpretacija)

Author(s): Bronislovas Kuzmickas / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 60/2009

Thie paper is dedicated to the interpretation of the works of Leonarda Jekentaitë (1946-2008), in which she analyses the views of non-classical philosophers. They speak about the reality and the human existence and the style of their writings is more artistic than theoretical. The first article is about the philosophy of Kant. Although it has been two hundred years since this thinker, the main ideas of his anthropology continue to be urgent, makes us to go back to the categorical imperative of Kant and rethink it in the epoch of jazz. The impact of A. Schopenhauer's philosophy is felt in the writings of contemporary French postmodernists, particularly in those of Gilles Deleuze. As most important among the non-classical philosophers is considered S. Kierkegaard. One of the most significant trends of Lithuanian art can be characterised using Kierkegaardan terminology, as demonic aestheticism. The force of expression rises from mental experiments and self-destruction which are signs of longing after the lost sense of the certainty of reality and faith in God. Interpreting F. Nietzsche's philosophy she emphasizes the uncompromising critique by him of the theoretical attitude to life and proclamation of the will to power. Nietzsche saw a descrepancy between two levels of consciousness in European mentality: the superficial level of Judeo-Christian virtues and Pagan values, authentic but condemned.

Apie Neklasikinę Filosofiją Neklasikiniu Stiliumi (Leonardos Jekentaitës Kûrybos Interpretacija)

Author(s): Bronislovas Kuzmickas / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 59/2009

This paper is dedicated to the interpretation of the works of Leonarda Jekentaitë (1946-2008), in which she analyses the views of non-classical philosophers. They speak about the reality and the human existence and the style of their writings is more artistic than theoretical. The first article is about the philosophy of Kant. Although it has been two hundred years since this thinker, the main ideas of his anthropology continue to be urgent, makes us to go back to the categorical imperative of Kant and rethink it in the epoch of jazz. The impact of A. Schopenhauer's philosophy is felt in the writings of contemporary French postmodernists, particularly in those of Gilles Deleuze. As most important among the non-classical philosophers is considered S. Kierkegaard. One of the most significant trends of Lithuanian art can be characterised using Kierkegaardan terminology, as demonic aestheticism. The force of expression rises from mental experiments and self-destruction which are signs of longing after the lost sense of the certainty of reality and faith in God. Interpreting F. Nietzsche's philosophy she emphasizes the uncompromising critique by him of the theoretical attitude to life and proclamation of the will to power. Nietzsche saw a descrepancy between two levels of consciousness in European mentality: the superficial level of Judeo-Christian virtues and Pagan values, authentic but condemned.

Archetipas Muzikologijos Akiratyje

Author(s): Jurate Landsbergyte / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 77/2013

The archetype rises in the philosophical ideas of the XX c. as an especially important paradigmatic dimensional connection of the past, nowadays and future. According to I. Froud and C. G. Jung’s theories of psychoanalysis, and especially the influence of depth psychology on the creation of art, the conception of archetype is more often evoked in art study. It helps to go deeper into the motivation and into the resources of the creation of artistic ideas. It opens the depth of their archaeological layers. Musicology here has got many possibilities: to look at the archetype as a universal, the model of the process of world formation (Karbusicky, Mache), to look from the perspective of psychoanalytical “archaetology“ – as the symbol of myth, dramatic gesture of the turn of the history of humanity, the signal of the rise (Maché, Kutavičius), as the demiurge of nature, cosmos and human processes and as the model of musical dramaturgy – canon, “eternal circle“, from the repetitions of which there begins the universal sequence of the fluctuation, the paradigm of creation (Kutavičius, Pärt).

Are we overpathologizing everyday life? A tenable blueprint for behavioral addiction research

Author(s): Joël Billieux,Adriano Schimmenti,Yasser Khazaal,Pierre Maurage,Alexandre Heeren / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2015

Behavioral addiction research has been particularly flourishing over the last two decades. However, Recent publications have suggested that nearly all daily life activities might lead to a genuine addiction. Methods and aim: In this article, we discuss how the use of atheoretical and confirmatory research approaches may result in the identification of an unlimited list of “new” behavioral addictions. Results: Both methodological and theoretical shortcomings of these studies were discussed. Conclusions: We suggested that studies overpathologizing daily life activities are likely to prompt a dismissive appraisal of behavioral addiction research. Consequently, we proposed several roadmaps for future research in the field, centrally highlighting the need for longer tenable behavioral addiction research that shifts from a mere criteria-based approach toward an approach focusing on the psychological processes involved.

Around the Bloc: Polanski Should Face U.S. Justice for Child Sex, Poland Says

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English / Issue: 06/07/2016

Director has eluded several U.S. requests for his extradition to be sentenced for the 1977 abuse of a 13-year-old girl.