Research on the psychological root and transmission mechanism of rumours in major epidemics based on the perspective of psychoanalysis

Since the Covid-19 epidemic, many rumours have been generated under the main theme of a whole people fighting the epidemic together. From the standpoint of depth psychology, a psychoanalytic perspective has its own advantages and unique research value on the psychological roots of rumours in major epidemics and their mechanisms of transmission, which this article discusses, along with the anxiety and fear created by the life instinct, the elements of attack and projection under the death instinct, and conjectures how the role of Lacan’s postulation that the unconscious is constituted like language all play a role as main causes of a current epidemic of rumours. The transmission mechanisms of epidemic rumours are the following: the spreading of panic caused by the interruption of emotional connection, aggressive spreading of rumours caused by hostility in processes of identification, and problems in mechanisms of projective identification, and the combined effect of audiovisual media. Furthermore, the authors make specific suggestions on how to deal with rumours in major epidemics, so as to improve understanding and response to these in cases of major epidemics.

Thoughts from French Psychoanalysis on the Absence of Corporeality in the Unconscious of Emerging Complex Cognitive System

In this text we answer at the same time to two recent interesting works of Giancarlo Minati and Luca Possati in which they both called to work on the development, one from the part of the computer side, and the other of the humanities one of an IA unconscious in complex cognitive systems as an experiment to come to more anthropomorphic machines, performance added by the unconscious will not be addressed in this paper. We gathered many sources in psychoanalysis to help us understand what could be the barriers dressed against us. In the light of Lacan, Anzieu, Leclaire and Winnicott amongst others we tried to explain how having a body, in the biological sense, makes a difference with recreating—this is a typical human preoccupation—an unconscious in IA. Of course, from a French psychoanalytic standpoint there are many conservative objections, while some can be easily overcome, the matter of innate desire and body seems an understandable concern. It is also important to consider the interesting conjecture of Possati (i.e., a computer can be a projective identification object); while we only may say that it is a transitional object in the sense of Winnicott. Also, we can study further within psychotherapy the behaviour of the patient and therapist, with an algorithm we developed. In the end we address the objection of French postructruralist psychology objections to the creation of a human-like unconscious and advise the experimenting of Possati’s theory with our device.

Inter-rater Reliability and Construct Validity of the Lerner Defense Scale in Clinical and Non-clinical Groups

The current study investigated the inter-rater reliability and the construct validity of the Rorschach Lerner Defense Scale (LDS). In particular, it aimed to explore the inter-rater reliability, analyzing the most frequent coding mistakes in an attempt to improve the coding guidelines, and to investigate the ability of the scale to distinguish between individuals with neurotic-level and borderline-level personality organization, according to the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual-2 (PDM-2), and non-clinical subjects. Eighty clinical subjects and 80 non-clinical ones participated in the study. Among the clinical subjects, 40 have borderline-level personality organization and 40 have neurotic-level personality organization. Non-clinical subjects were drawn from an archival dataset of non-clinical individuals who previously participated in a Rorschach normative study. The LDS showed substantial inter-rater reliability; however, guidelines could be improved, specifically with regard to the threshold for coding Devaluation and Idealization at level 1. Furthermore, more examples should be included in the manual about the coding of Projective Identification and Denial. The LDS distinguished borderline-level subjects from both the non-clinical and neurotic groups with regard to Devaluation and Projective Identification, with borderline-level personality organization subjects reporting higher scores than either of the two other groups. Only the Denial scale discriminated between the non-clinical and neurotic group, with the latter reporting higher scores of high-level Denial.

A strange case of gendercide: fascination, psychotic features, archaic elements, and phantasmatic metamorphosis

This is a strange case of murder: a mafia pentito, an informer, reveals after ten years that the death of a man which had been considered natural, had in fact been a murder. The victim, a loan shark associated with crime people, was the companion of his lover at the time. The strange aspect is the way in which the mobster, with a couple of hired killers and helped by the woman, organised the murder: a shot of pesticide while the man was lying in bed with the woman. This modality was suggested by a veterinarian friend of the mobster who claimed that the pesticide would not be detected. The interviewer's imagination/vision of a metamorphosis while he was interviewing the woman in a forensic setting; the dream he had immediately after the interview; the bizarre construction of the crime; the seductive abilities of the woman linked to the choice and the type of partners she had and the bonds she had created; and the almost dreamlike description of the crime itself, suggest the emergence of primitive mechanisms of mental functioning: splitting, the use of massive projections of partial aspects and projective identification. A fragile and hidden common thread is hypothesised in this work. A common thread whose core is the desire for the narcissistic realisation of a woman who, in order to achieve it, puts eros at the service of thanatos. A red thread that connects all the different events, the real and the phantasmatic ones: from seeking a role as a woman of the criminal underworld to the magic fascination of an archaic Sicily, evoking primitive mechanisms of functioning typical of psychosis.

Lord of the flies: a psychoanalytic view of the gang and its processes

Gangs are usually seen to exist on the edge of society, in the Mafia, on the street corner, or among those engaged in people- or drug-trafficking. In this article I take a different approach and argue that, especially in response to trauma, gang functioning may be present at the very centre of our society, and is sometimes to be found in governmental, business, public and voluntary sector organisations, as well as the groups and teams within them. Using Nobel-prize winner William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies to give shape to my ideas, I develop a psychoanalytic theory of gang functioning. I draw in particular on Kleinian psychoanalytic ideas as well as concepts from the psychoanalytic study of groups and organisations. I argue that the establishment of the gang involves primitive splitting and projective identification and the perversion of adult authority. I suggest further that gang functioning involves the destruction of the sensory and communicative apparatuses that alert the gang to reality, coupled with the creation of a substitute, false "reality". These features enable the avoidance of painful truths and experiences and facilitate the enactment of hatred that is so characteristic of ganging behaviour.

Psychoanalysis and Telepathic Processes

Freud’s writing on the topic of thought-transference stimulated controversy among analysts and original reflection on psychoanalytic understandings of the psyche. The notion of telepathy has also contributed significantly to the development of fundamental psychoanalytic concepts, including transference, projective identification, and primary forms of symbolization processes. The notion of telepathy, especially in light of current trends in post-Bionian and field theories, is used to outline an epistemological framework in which the clinical relevance of this notion becomes clear. Epistemological questions raised by telepathy and how this notion relates to the most originary and primary forms of the intersubjective relationship are addressed before questioning the conditions for the emergence of telepathy, its integration within contemporary psychoanalytic theory, and its ontological nature.

Murderous Racism as Normal Psychosis: The Case of Dylann Roof

Dylann Roof killed nine people in a Black church in 2015 in order to start a “war” between the white and Black races. This case is used here to develop a psychoanalytic theory of murderous racism, and even genocide. Major concepts from Freud (self-preservation, hatred, narcissism, life and death drives, delusion), Klein (projective identification), and Bion (psychotic and nonpsychotic parts of the personality) are employed. Particular attention is given to the hearing to determine Roof’s capacity to represent himself after he dismissed his lawyers, who wanted to use an insanity defense to avoid the death penalty. This hearing was confronted with an undecidable dilemma, which led to legal cooperation with Roof’s suicidal impulses. The deconstructive approach to undecidability, and its use in questions of law, especially as concerns the relation between psychoanalysis and the death penalty, leads to tentative recommendations for the prevention of racist murder.