Search

Copyright of Psychofenia: Ricerca ed Analisi Psicologica is the property of Psychofenia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The literature on mental manipulation is often spoiled by a specious use of the "brainwashing" metaphor. This is sometimes done as a pretext to emphasize its irrationality and its being outside the scientific field. Instead, this paper aims to demonstrate how the knowledge acquired by experimental psychology and behavioural economics leads to the identification of a process of modification of thought and behaviour that can be described in scientific terms. This process is carried out with a slow self-selection of recruits and an equally gradual increase in demands. The classic Milgram experiment is a suitable tool to explain this. The framing effect identified by Tversky and Khaneman, and which is so important in marketing, is perfectly capable of inducing counterproductive choices in a context that makes them reasonable for those who act them. It is intended to demonstrate that there is nothing magical or metaphysical about mind control, as long as it is interpreted as a process of conditioning operating through a progressive selection and that leads to an increase of conformism in a closed environment. Instead, what is thrown out of the scientific field is the idea of Rational Choice on which the defense of manipulative cults is based. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has an objective: to tell about schizophrenia's history between Nineteenth and Twentyeth century by mean of the work of C. G. Jung and E. Bleuler. If E. Kraepelin characterized schizophrenia as dementia praecox, Bleuler wrote that this disease is a Spaltung (tearing) that concerns thinking and feeling, while Jung introduced a new concept adopted by Freud too: the complex, meaning a representation with emotional characteristics. The effects generated by the complex come into the consciousness and are the cause of disease. Jung affirms that dementia praecox has psychological origins and he was persuased by this theory until his death. In the last part of this paper, we write about Janet's idèes fixes and complex: which were their similarities? Which their differences? We write about this because, although there are short accounts about this problem, however the subject is even more notewhortier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is divided into three chapters concerning the aesthetic-philosophical vision, the neuro-psychological vision and the historical-artistic vision (plus a fourth and short chapter dedicated to two art critics). The first part (Chapter I, the aesthetic-philosophical vision) traces the question of Beauty, the genesis of aesthetics and its history, starting from its birth and then probing the various speculations produced by some of the most important philosophers and thinkers of Western culture: we go from the post-Socratic, Plato and Aristotle, then going through the centuries with Tommaso D'Aquino, the Renaissance period with its values and the Baroque, followed by Kant with the Critique of Pure Reason, Schelling with the concept of Spirit and Natura, Schiller and Goethe, Hegel with his Aesthetics, the comparison between Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer and, finally, Nietzsche and the Crocian aesthetic. The second section then continues (Chapter II, the neuropsychological view), where the concepts of psychology are introduced, the person of Freud and, especially, through his writings, his vision of art. It then continues with the topical moment of the transition between psychology and neuroscience, explaining the mechanisms of the visual system (the eye, its functioning, etc.) and of visual perception (as we look at, with what and in what way), the bottom-up and top-down information, the "way of what" and the "way of where". The chapter ends with an introduction to the inevitable passage in art from figuration to abstraction (the first attempts with Cézanne, Picasso, from the Impressionists to Turner up to Kandinsky and Mondrian). In the third block we investigate what is the New York School, its protagonists (Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem De Kooning) and the historical-artistic context in which they lived, made by post-war upheavals and mass escapes from Europe to the New Continent and very specific cities such as New York. Here the first Art Galleries are born, thanks also to figures like Peggy Guggenheim, gallerist, friend and patron of many of the painters of Abstract Expressionism. In section 4 the historical-artistic picture reappears, but presenting two of the most illustrious figures in the sector of the forties and fifties, art critics Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg. We proceed with the biography of the two and we underline how the caliber of certain figures has influenced, celebrated or destroyed some of the most important artists of that historical moment. It is thanks to them that the world of art becomes what it is today, made up of magazines, exhibitions, a melting pot of artistic personalities, ever more powerful and / or always different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Management of change has become a strategic skill for organizations in the present turbulent scenario. To support human resources in overcoming their resistances and in defining appropriate coping strategies is a crucial process that the management is called to carry on as main agent of change. Moving from this evidence, the present action research has investigated in a longitudinal perspective managers' emotional skills, resistance to change and leadership style. The context is the healthcare sector. More specifically, 38 managers working in an Oncological Institute have been invited to assess their emotional skills, their leadership style and their resistance to change. Then they have been involved in a training session that lasted 3 months and after 8 months they have been called to reassess their skills. The MSCEIT was used to assess Emotional Intelligence (Italian version by Curci & D'Amico, 2011), Transformational Leadership was assessed through the scale developed by Rafferty and Griffin (2004) and resistance to change through the Italian version of the Oreg Scale (2003). Results and implications are discussed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The way we perceive the world affects our being and vice versa. The sense organs are the first information's source, representing the first filter that considers certain input and ignores others. Even the attention is a mental function, directed voluntarily or recalled by the characteristics of the stimulus, selects incoming information material, based on energy stimulus, attentional resources and information potential. The reason that stimulus is not implemented is its lack of information potential: we are not interested. A stimulus can occur aggressively to our senses, but if it lacks attractiveness it is not perceived. If the brain filters the input redundant, in the opposite situation you need to create them. Subjects deprivated of the senses show agitation, discomfort and growing boredom; Finally there is a very strong need for stimulation, sought with frantic movements and mismatched behaviours. Expectations are expectations, desires, related to an event or projected into the future. To explain what is a mind and how it works we can mention proximal planning, linked to processing feasible in a very close time. Miller writes: "The closer in time is given the reward to the desired behavior, the quicker that same behavior will be reinforced. (...) Animals, in short, has denied our reasoning about the distant future, defined as distal planning. Cognitive-behavioral development of animals is very different from ours, and this is much more evident in the prey animals, which are born already mature and know only the development mediated by learning.". But even in the case of dogs (predatory species like us) the differences are many: in general, while the canine development (physical and neuropsychological) is accomplished in the early weeks, running out in one step, the human knows periods of stasis and other rapid progression, so that we can talk of polyphasic development. Also the way we grow follows not only different times, but also a certain hierarchy: from the more "animal" to the more "human"; from the concrete to the more abstract. Although the initial stages of our lives are marked by a rapid physical and neuro-psychological progress, that is important but nothing special (in fact it is possible to compare animals and children), the culmination of this growth comes typically with large human abilities, which are the last to appear: capacity for abstraction, to manipulate complex symbols, and language. These two capacities (which together form the basis of culture) allow us unlimited growth. As the animals learn and retain information in memory - following in this way a kind of limited development of behavior - they never reach our results. In the path of life, we and animals, we begin at birth by more or less close positions, and maintain this vicinity for a short period. Soon, however, we overgrow them, and as we move into a solitary race on what is authentically human. The development of preys is very fast, even non-existent or minimal physically and neurologically: the horses are born mature and senses are fully functional. The imprinting period is very short and pretty close to the birth. The situation is different for the predatory species, which at birth have a progeny immature and helpless. This category comprises dogs, cats, eagles, bears and, of course, humans. The paper examines and review all main data in human and animal cognitive development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The metapsychology of Freud had a great success in promoting psychoanalysis because it was an easy and accessible explanation, in accord with the concepts of the time. Today, after a century and more, this function has failed, because the general scientific concepts wich we can refer to are different, psychoanalysis itself is quite different and more advanced than that of Freud's time. Methapsychology has been criticized and now appears questionable, but ordinary people - ie the not expert ones - know only and in part the Freud's methapsycology. The result is a current negative image of psychoanalysis and of SPI itself: the Freud's legacy in actual perception becomes an identification of SPI to a theory that was popular a century ago but is nowaday judged as no longer scientific. In this paper we argue that our present clinical practice contains a new and different methapsychology that needs to be extracted, formulated, formalized in order to relaunch a new and adequate picture of psychoanalysis and SPI itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper are investigated the common elements of prevalent diseases in our society. In particular the statistic correlation between addiction and alexithymia, the storical evolution from a common somatic dimension to a emtpiness, the comorbidity to depression and the importance of traumatic experiences, the mentalisation and affect regulation. After analysing these elements we focus on the question: could the difficulty to draw the suffering and problems of identity be a vulnerability both at individual and social levels? Limitations and potentialities are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the doctor-patient relationship through the narrative medicine approach. The Medical Humanities perspective makes it possible to describe the limits of the traditional biomedical model in treating the patient as a person, and offers a wider range of instruments for recognizing and responding to the needs of those who are ill. However, the analysis presented here focuses not so much on the patient as on the attending physician. The protagonist is "the Professor", a prominent clinician and representative of the traditional biomedical model. His biographical and professional profile reveals the strengths and weaknesses of a style of medical practice which, even with its successes in defeating diseases, is characterized by the difficulty in engaging in a real dialogue with the patient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work begins with a bibliographic analysis devoted to the literature on the theories of adolescence, focusing on restructuring and brain development typical of this age with the various developmental outcomes that lead to a secure or insecure attachment. Based on pregnancy as an event "out of phase' with respect to the specific tasks of adolescence. Are then presented the problematic aspects of a teenage pregnancy with attention to possible "risks' to which may be exposed their children and a brief reference is made to the figure of father/husband. The second part of the work presents the principals tools of intervention and the techniques setups by the various researches to analyze the problem of the maternity in young age and to promote the parentchild relationship. It is taken in examination the model Vipp-r (Video Intervention to promote Positive Parenting) presenting the research promoted by the FAV in collaboration with the university Milano Bicocca. The paper ends with the presentation of the research tools more used for examining the psychological and social problem list of "teen-mothers'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of alexithymia in burnout of socio-health staff: A review of research results This paper presents a review of research investigating the role of alexithymia in burnout of socio-health staff, made by consulting the electronic databases Medline/PubMed, PsychInfo and Scopus. We think that alexithymia, far from being an all-or-nothing phenomenon, might be an indicator of a cross-emotional competence that takes the value of a real competence of competences in the relationship between individual and context, as a positive dimension for organizational health. The research findings highlight the potential role of alexithymia as a risk factor for burnout onset, predisposing the individual to acquire a maladaptive pattern in dealing with work-related stress, although further studies are needed about this subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]