Mental Representation in The Thought of Sidney Blatt: Developmental Processes

2017 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-523 ◽  
Author(s):  
John S. Auerbach ◽  
Diana Diamond
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Attachment Theory ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Conscious Awareness ◽  
Object Representations ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Developmental Processes ◽  
Relational Experiences ◽  
Interaction Research

Mental representation was a central construct in Sidney Blatt’s contributions to psychology and psychoanalysis. This brief review demonstrates that Blatt’s understanding of representation was always informed by basic psychoanalytic concepts like the centrality of early caregiver-infant relationships and of unconscious mental processes. Although Blatt’s earlier writings were informed by psychoanalytic ego psychology and Piagetian cognitive developmental psychology, they focused nonetheless on how an individual uses bodily and relational experiences to construct an object world; they also consistently presented object representations as having significant unconscious dimensions. From the mid-1980s onward, Blatt’s contributions, in dialogue with his many students, moved in an even more experiential/relational direction and manifested the influence of attachment theory, parent-infant interaction research, and intersubjectivity theory. They also incorporated contemporary cognitive psychology, with its emphasis on implicit or procedural, rather than explicit, dimensions as a means of accounting for aspects of object representations that are not in conscious awareness. Throughout his career, however, Blatt regarded mental representation as the construct that mediates between the child’s earliest bodily and relational experiences and the mature adult’s symbolic, most emotionally profound capacities.

Developmental Perspectives on Parenting

2021 ◽  
pp. 25-49
Author(s):  
Rochelle F. Hentges ◽  
Meredith J. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Child Development ◽  
Life Span ◽  
Attachment Theory ◽  
Reproductive Strategies ◽  
Life History Theory ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Psychological Needs ◽  
Middle Level ◽  
Secure Base ◽  
Parenting Influences

This chapter discusses two leading middle-level theories within evolutionary psychology, which attempt to explain both how and why parenting influences child development across the life span. First, it presents an overview of one of the most influential evolutionary theories in developmental psychology: John Bowlby’s attachment theory. Attachment theory revolutionized the way people understand the nature of the parent–child bond, framing the parent as not just a provider of physical needs but also as a secure base for emotional and psychological needs. These early-life bonds between the caregiver and infant are further proposed to form the basis for relationship attachments across the life span. Next, the chapter addresses how competing strategies toward resource allocation can influence individual differences in parental investment and sensitivity. According to life history theory, differences in the caregiving environment, in turn, promote the formation of distinct reproductive strategies, resulting in behavioral, social, and physiological differences across child development.

scholarly journals Intentionality: A philosophical-cognitive approach to mental representations

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (39) ◽  
pp. 819
Author(s):  
Cleverson Leite Bastos ◽  
Tomas Rodolfo Drunkenmolle
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Hard Core ◽  
Explanatory Models ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Definition Of

This article critically analyses the notion of intentionality from several philosophical cognitive points of view. The authors argue that the notion of mental representation in the wider sense and intentionality in the narrower sense remains elusive despite accommodated paradoxes, improved semantic precision and more sophisticated strategies in dealing with intentionality. We will argue that different approaches to intentionality appear to be coherent in their inferences. However, most of them become contradictory and mutually exclusive when juxtaposed and applied to borderline questions. While the explanatory value of both philosophy of mind as well as cognitive psychology should not be underestimated, we must note that not even hard-core neuroscience has been able to pin point what is going on in our minds, let alone come up with a clear cut explanation how it works or a definition of what thought really is. To date, however, intentionality is the best of all explanatory models regarding mental representations.

Babies and bathwaters: attachment, neuroscience, evolution and the left

Soundings ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (73) ◽  
pp. 111-128
Author(s):  
Graham Music
Keyword(s):  
Attachment Theory ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Huge Amount ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Interpersonal Neurobiology ◽  
Selfish Genes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Orders ◽  
Crucial Part ◽  
The Brain

This article challenges thinkers and activists on the left who are over-suspicious of ideas heralding from disciplines such as interpersonal neurobiology, attachment theory, developmental psychology, and perhaps especially, evolutionary theory. Although scepticism is frequently warranted, especially as such discourses are often co-opted for neoliberal or far right ends, there is much in all of them that melds well with critiques of hegemonic social orders, providing potential fuel for those working for social change. Much work, for example that of Amy Cuddy, can be interpreted both conservatively and progressively. Work from within an attachment theory paradigm can play a crucial part in the battle of ideas: it has a huge amount to teach about how to create a more humane and egalitarian world, and in countering neoliberal beliefs that humans are innately primarily aggressive, competitive or selfish, or have selfish genes. The days are now over when the biological, psychological and the social need to be pitted against each other. Rather, they now have to be seen as mutually constituted. The brain is a social organ, embedded, embodied, enactive and extended, in large part a reflection of the social conditions in which it grows.

Approaches to Comparison and Their Influence on Social Comparison

2019 ◽  
pp. 430-442
Author(s):  
Arthur B. Markman
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Computational Complexity ◽  
Social Comparison ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Spatial Models ◽  
Structural Models ◽  
Low Complexity ◽  
Comparison Process ◽  
Social Settings ◽  
Computationally Intensive

Cognitive psychology identifies different assumptions about the mental representations that form the basis of theories of comparison. Each representation requires a different process to generate a comparison, and both the computational complexity and the output of the different processes differ. Spatial models require a low-complexity process but only reveal the distance between points representing individuals. Featural models are more intensive than spatial comparisons but provide access to particular commonalities and differences. Structural models are more computationally intensive but support a distinction between alignable and nonalignable differences. Social comparison theories make assumptions about how knowledge is represented, but they are rarely explicit about the type of comparison process that is likely to be involved. The merging of work on social comparison with more explicit cognitive science theories of comparison science has the potential to both identify gaps in the literature and expand our knowledge about how comparison operates in social settings. This chapter first discusses the concept of mental representation and then addresses spatial models of comparison, featured models of comparison, structural models of comparison, transformation models. The chapter concludes with a discussion of similarity models and social comparison.

Love is a wondrous state:1 origins and early debates

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Sue White ◽  
Matthew Gibson ◽  
David Wastell ◽  
Patricia Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Object Relations ◽  
Attachment Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Object Relations Theory ◽  
Clinical Observations ◽  
John Bowlby ◽  
Primary Object ◽  
Mary Ainsworth ◽  
State 1

This chapter traces the origins of attachment theory and reviews its component parts, including the seminal empirical research on animals and humans. Attachment theory, popularised during the 1940s and 1950s, is a synthesis of object relations theory and ethological developmental psychology. It suggests a symbiotic dance of nature and nurture, achieved through the ministering of the mother. It shares with object relations theory an emphasis on the infant's relationship with the ‘primary object’, but these ideas are combined with those from cognitive psychology, cybernetics (control systems theory), ethology, and evolutionary biology. The theory is thus an elegant, but pragmatic mishmash, arising from attempts to make sense of empirical, clinical observations of real children experiencing distressing separations, together with aspirations to make the world a better place for everybody by understanding the medium of love. Attachment theory as used in child welfare is generally attributed to the work of John Bowlby, James Robertson, and Mary Ainsworth. The chapter then considers the controversies that attachment theory has faced, particularly in the latter half of the 20th century.

Biology and the drive for human improvement

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Wastell ◽  
Sue White
Keyword(s):  
Attachment Theory ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Historical Origins

This chapter reviews the historical origins of the project of human improvement, from the Enlightenment onward, coming to the fore especially during the Victorian era. It traces the ascendancy of developmental psychology and ‘infant determinism’ which has always been a key part of the project of human improvement. Attachment theory has played an important part in this this; we draw attention to the contradictions and inconsistencies in this influential body of thought.

A Common Language for the Psychotherapies?

1978 ◽  
Vol 132 (6) ◽  
pp. 585-594 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Ryle
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Psychoanalytic Theory ◽  
Common Language ◽  
Mental Processes

SummaryThe account of mental processes emerging from the work of cognitive psychologists is briefly reviewed, and aspects of the theoretical basis of the work of psychoanalytic and behaviourist psychotherapists are considered in the light of this. It is argued that in both traditions increasing attention is being paid to cognitive processes. A restatement of psychoanalytic theory in cognitive terms could free it from its present confusion of metaphors, and an extension of behaviourist theory in this direction could free it from reductionism. The advantages of the adoption of a common language, based on the models of cognitive psychology, to theory, practice and research are briefly considered.

Expressed emotions, early caregiver–child interaction, and disorders

2009 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 406-406
Author(s):  
Andreas Wiefel ◽  
Renate Schepker
Keyword(s):  
Attachment Theory ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Clinical Perspective ◽  
Child Interaction ◽  
Dynamic Interpretation ◽  
Expressed Emotions ◽  
Relational Framework

AbstractIn addition to the socio-relational framework of expressive behaviors (SRFB), we recommend integrating theoretical and empirical findings based on attachment theory. We advocate a dynamic interpretation of early caregiver–child interaction. The consequences of models from developmental psychology for the occurrence of psychopathology are demonstrated from a clinical perspective.

Attachment Theory: A Biological Basis for Psychotherapy?

1993 ◽  
Vol 163 (4) ◽  
pp. 430-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Attachment Theory ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Insecure Attachment ◽  
Secure Base ◽  
Biological Basis ◽  
John Bowlby ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shared Narrative ◽  
Biological Foundation

John Bowlby bemoaned the separation between the biological and psychological approaches in psychiatry, and hoped that attachment theory, which brings together psychoanalysis and the science of ethology, would help bridge the rift between them. Recent findings in developmental psychology have delineated features of parent–infant interaction, especially responsiveness, attunement, and modulation of affect, which lead to either secure or insecure attachment. Similar principles can be applied to the relationship between psychotherapist and patient - the provision of a secure base, the emergence of a shared narrative (‘autobiographical competence’), the processing of affect, coping with loss - these are common to most effective psychotherapies and provide the basis for a new interpersonal paradigm within psychotherapy. Attachment theory suggests they rest on a sound ethological and hence biological foundation.

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