Resisting Amnesia in the Countertransference: A Clinical Strategy for Working with Lesbian Patients

Seldom emphasized in clinical writings are the ways in which lesbians construct and revise multiple narratives to create and navigate their lesbian identity within the clinical relationship. Case material is presented to show how the examination of the psychic meaning of the move from lesbian child to lesbian woman can be explored retrospectively through the collaborative therapeutic relationship set forth in the constructivist approach. To address the potential countertransference problems for clinicians working with this population, the concept of countertransference amnesia is introduced to describe a particular type of forgetting that reproduces within the clinical relationship the subtle forms of discrimination that restrict lesbian expression within the culture at large. This work also seeks to liberate lesbian identity formation from previous explanations and to demonstrate the construction of a lesbian identity as a psychically organizing process, which integrates inner and outer experience and allows the girl or woman to adapt to the social world.     

“Vygotskian-izing” Psychotherapy

Although Vygotsky’s ideas are applied to dozens of disciplines/practices, psychotherapy is not among them. With few exceptions, contemporary Vygotskians have stayed clear of the subject; and most psychotherapy researchers and clinical practitioners have little familiarity with Vygotsky—despite Vygotsky’s challenge to psychology’s isolation of the intellectual from the affective. Recent manifestations of psychotherapy’s cognitive bias are discussed, showing the need to “Vygotskian-ize” the discipline. The Vygotskian-influenced social therapy, focused on group creativity and emotional development, is presented as an expansion of Vygotsky’s dialectical methodology: method as tool-and-result, the unity learning-and-development, the zone of proximal development of play, and language completing thought.     

Youth at a Leftist and Rightist Political Rally: Reasons for Participating

Abstract

This paper investigates the degree of uniqueness of the contribution of youth to an anti-war rally of 1970. It contrasts that contribution to the part played by youth at a pro-war rally of the same year. Both rallies took place near the Washington Monument in Washington, D. C. Data collection consisted of on-the-spot interviews of a sample of participants at both rallies. The focus of the interview was on reasons expressed by participants for their attendance at the rally. The data support the following hypotheses: that youth at the anti-war rally were more highly oriented towards specific objectives and general objectives than were older participants at that rally or youthful ones at the pro-war rally; that youth at the anti-war rally were less highly oriented towards personal reasons than older participants at that rally or younger ones at the pro-war rally. Generally reasons for participating were found to be influenced by the interaction of age cohort and ideological thrust of the rally. The importance of belonging to the modal age group for a particular rally was discussed, along with other implications such as the role of generational conflict during the late 1960s and early 1970s.     

The private journey: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of exclusive breastfeeding

Background

Exclusive breast milk provides complete nutrition for a baby’s first six months of life. In Australia, breastfeeding initiation rates are high, however duration rates are low. Although numerous studies have explored the reasons behind low levels of breastfeeding, few have examined the experiences of women who maintain exclusive breastfeeding for the recommended six-month duration.

Innovation as a cause of highly skilled migration: Evidence from Greece

This study investigates innovation as a cause of highly skilled migration. Drawing on a totally new database that includes all the Greek PhD holders, combined with panel data from the Global Innovation Index covering 57 countries over the 2009–2020 period, we find that innovation constitutes a strong determinant for highly skilled migration. That is, a rise in innovative performance is positively associated with an increase in the number of highly skilled Greek migrants. We further find a two-way causality between innovation and highly skilled migration. Namely an increase in the number of highly skilled Greek migrants positively affects innovative performance. While most of the recent studies have comprehensively addressed the positive effects of skilled migration on innovation, they have not looked at innovation as a determinant of highly skilled migration. We further discuss the potential implications of our findings on countries displaying low innovative performance coupled with brain drain.