Commentaries

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66660/2/10.1177_00030651970450031209.pd

Howard Shevrin on Peter Wolff

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68168/2/10.1177_00030651990470011701.pd

Empirical evidence for Freud's theory of primary process mentation in acute psychosis

Freud (1895/1966; 1900/1953; 1915/1957) has proposed that primary process functioning is typical for acute psychosis. A non-verbal method, the ‘Geocat’ (Brakel, Kleinsorge, Snodgrass and Shevrin, 2000), measures primary processes operationalised as attributional categorisation, which considers exemplars as similar if particular features match, even if these components are arranged in a quite different configuration. With the use of GeoCat we explored primary process mentation in 127 psychiatric patients. Results show that (1) there are substantially higher levels of attributional choices in our sample of psychiatric patients, independently of diagnosis, than in a non-patient population; (2) psychotic patients tend to have more attributional choices than non-psychotic patient; patients with acute psychotic symptoms show more attributional responses than patients without acute psychotic symptoms; (3) this increase of attributional choices with the psychotic condition is independent of self-rated anxiety or medication intake. We propose that, instead, this increase of attributional levels in the acutely psychotic patients reflects a predominance of primary processing which is specifically tied to the acutely psychotic condition, as proposed by Freud

Psychoanalysis as the Patient: High in Feeling, Low in Energy

This paper examines the increasingly important role that affect is assuming in psychoanalytic research and practice. This rise in the centrality of affect has been at the expense of an independent role for motivation and a dismissal of any energy concept. Difficulties with this affect-first approach are identified and an alternative offered that accords motivation an independent role and accommodates a useful energy concept. Research on esophageal atresia, addiction, and infant suckling are cited in support of this position.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66624/2/10.1177_00030651970450031101.pd

Event-related potential indicators of the dynamic unconscious

The present study applies a new method for investigating dynamic unconscious processes. The method consists of (1) selection of words from patient interview and test protocols that in the clinicians' judgments capture the patients' conscious symptom experience (i.e. [phobia) and the hypothetical unconscious conflict related to the symptom, (2) subliminal and supraliminal presentation of these words, (3) signal analysis of event-related potentials (ERPs) obtained to the word presentations. Eight phobics and three patients suffering from pathological grief reactions served as subjects. A time-frequency (Williams & Joeng, 1989) ERP analysis revealed that subjects' ERPs classified the unconscious conflict words better subliminally than supraliminally, while the reverse was true for the conscious symptom words (t(20) = 2.82, P = .011). The relationship between frequency and latency revealed a similar mirror image pattern for the unconscious conflict and conscious symptom words (F(4/36) = 4.14, P = .007). This method demonstrated that objective, brain-based evidence for unconscious conflict can be obtained.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/29875/1/0000225.pd

Phonological Ambiguity Detection Outside of Consciousness and Its Defensive Avoidance

Freud proposes that in unconscious processing, logical connections are also (heavily) based upon phonological similarities. Repressed concerns, for example, would also be expressed by way of phonologic ambiguity. In order to investigate a possible unconscious influence of phonological similarity, 31 participants were submitted to a tachistoscopic subliminal priming experiment, with prime and target presented at 1 ms. In the experimental condition, the prime and one of the 2 targets were phonological reversed forms of each other, though graphemically dissimilar (e.g., “nice” and “sign”); in the control condition the targets were pseudo-randomly attributed to primes to which they don't belong. The experimental task was to “blindly” pick the choice most similar to the prime. ERPs were measured with a focus on the N320, which is known to react selectively to phonological mismatch in supraliminal visual word presentations. The N320 amplitude-effects at the electrodes on the midline and at the left of the brain significantly predicted the participants' net behavioral choices more than half a second later, while their subjective experience is one of arbitrariness. Moreover, the social desirability score (SDS) significantly correlates with both the behavioral and the N320 brain responses of the participants. It is proposed that in participants with low SDS the phonological target induces an expected reduction of N320 and this increases their probability to pick this target. In contrast, high defensive participants have a perplexed brain reaction upon the phonological target, with a negatively peaking N320 as compared to control and this leads them to avoid this target more often. Social desirability, which is understood as reflecting defensiveness, might also manifest itself as a defense against the (energy-consuming) ambiguity of language. The specificity of this study is that all of this is happening totally out of awareness and at the level of very elementary linguistic distinctions

The Mediation of Intentional Judgments by Unconscious Perceptions: The Influences of Task Strategy, Task Preference, Word Meaning, and Motivation

In two experiments subjects attempted to identify words presented below the objective threshold using two task strategies emphasizing either allowing a word to pop into their heads (pop condition) or looking carefully at the stimulus field (look condition). Words were selected to represent both meaningful (pleasant vs unpleasant) and structural (long vs short) dimensions. We also asked subjects to indicate their strategy preference (pop vs look) and to rate their motivation to perform well. In the absence of conscious perception, both strategy preference and word meaning interacted with strategy condition, mediating the accuracy of subjects' direct word identification judgments. Motivation also mediated performance. Word structure had no effect. Unconscious perception manifested only in the pop condition, underscoring the importance of task strategy in determining whether subliminal effects are observed. A follow-up control experiment using sham flashes demonstrated that strategy preference and motivation effects were not artifacts resulting from performance feedback cues.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/30593/1/0000230.pd