Psychoanalytic psychotherapy and its supervision via videoconference: experience, questions and dilemmas.

The patient lives in Berlin, the therapist in Lisbon and the supervisor in Budapest. Not long ago, continuous psychotherapy and supervision would have been impossible in such a setting. Nowadays, modern communication technologies via the Internet create new possibilities for patients, therapists, and supervisors. However, when we engage in psychoanalytic practice via modern means of telecommunication, we need to examine if the fundamental tenets of the psychoanalytic process are preserved. We need to think about initial assessment, about how we arrange the setting, how we work with transference and countertransference, what kinds of new forms of resistance we are facing and, indeed, how we can recognize new phenomena and handle inevitable problems. In this clinical paper, we tackle these questions in the context of three-times-a-week psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Reasoning about intentions: counterexamples to reasons for actions.

Four experiments tested the idea that people distinguish between biconditional, conditional, and enabling intention conditionals by thinking about counterexamples. The experiments examined intention conditionals that contain different types of reasons for actions, such as beliefs, goals, obligations, and social norms, based on a corpus of 48 intention conditionals established through an extensive materials test (n = 136). Experiment 1 (n = 19) showed that retrieved alternative reasons suppress the affirmation of the consequent and denial of the antecedent inferences from conditional intentions, whereas retrieved disabling reasons suppress the modus ponens and modus tollens inferences from enabling intentions. Experiment 2 (n = 61) showed that the suppression effects also occur for explicitly provided alternatives and disablers, for a large corpus of 80 intention conditionals. Experiment 3 (n = 60) showed that the suppression effects also occur for unfamiliar content, for which participants cannot rely on prior knowledge or beliefs about probabilities. Experiment 4 (n = 26) showed that participants retrieve alternatives and disablers readily for intentions just as they do for causal conditionals. The implications of the results for alternative accounts based on possibilities and probabilities are discussed.

Temporal and spatial relations in sentential reasoning.

The mental model theory postulates that the meanings of assertions, and knowledge about their context can modulate the logical meaning of sentential connectives, such as "if" and "or". One known effect of modulation is to block the representation of possibilities to which a proposition refers. But, modulation should also add relational information, such as temporal order, to models of possibilities. Three experiments tested this prediction. Experiment 1 showed that individuals spontaneously matched the tense of their conclusions (in Portuguese) to embody implied, but unexpressed, temporal relations in conditional premises. Experiment 2 demonstrated the same phenomenon in inferences from disjunctions. Experiment 3 showed that the number of such implicit relations in inferences from conditionals affects both accuracy and the speed of reasoning. These results support the modulation hypothesis.

The modulation of conditional assertions and its effects on reasoning.

The theory of mental models postulates that conditionals of the sort, if A then C, have a "core" meaning referring to three possibilities: A and C, not-A and C, and not-A and not-C. The meaning of a conditional's clauses and general knowledge can modulate this meaning, blocking certain possibilities or adding relations between the clauses. Four experiments investigated such interpretations in factual and deontic domains. In Experiment 1, the participants constructed instances of what was possible and what was impossible according to various conditionals. The results corroborated the general predictions of the model theory and also the occurrence of modulation. The resulting interpretations governed the conclusions that participants accepted in Experiment 2, which also yielded the predicted effects of a time limit on responding. In Experiment 3, the participants drew the predicted conclusions for themselves. In Experiment 4, modulation led to predicted temporal relations between A and C. We relate these results to current theories of conditionals.

Reasoning with 'Unless' counterfactual conditionals

Este artículo aborda el estudio de enunciados contra fácticos con 'a menos que', tales como 'Virginia no aprobará el examen a menos que estudie más' y 'Virginia no habría aprobado el examen a menos que hubiera estudiado más'. 'A menos que' es un condicional negativo que es semánticamente equivalente a 'si no'; sin embargo, algunos autores han sostenido que 'a menos que' está más estrechamente relacionado con 'sólo si' que con 'sino'. En este trabajo se presentan dos experimentos en los que se comparan las inferencias condicionales a partir de enunciados fácticos y contrafácticos con 'a menos que', 'si no' y 'sólo si'. En el primer experimento se comparó 'no-A a menos que B' y 'si no-B entonces no-A' y se encontraron diferencias sólo en los enunciados 'si no' fácticos entre las inferencias afirmativas (B luego A, A luego B) y negativas (no-B luego no-A, no-A luego no-B). En el segundo experimento se comparó 'no-A a menos que B' y 'A sólo si B'. No se encontraron diferencias entre las inferencias afirmativas y negativas con los enunciados 'a menos que' y 'sólo si' fácticos, mientras que hubo más inferencias afirmativas que negativas con los enunciados 'a menos que' y 'sólo si' contrafácticos. En ambos experimentos las latencias de respuesta fueron más rápidas para las inferencias de 'B a A' que para las inferencias de 'A a B'. En la discusión se analizan, en el contexto de la teoría de los modelos mentales, las implicaciones de los resultados encontrados respecto al procesamiento y representaciones mentales de los enunciados contrafácticos con 'a menos que', 'si no' y 'sólo si' (AU)

This article tackles factual and counterfactual 'unless' expressions such as 'Virginia will not pass the exam unless she works harder' and 'Virginia would not have passed the exam unless she had worked harder'. 'Unless' isa negative conditional that is semantically equivalent to 'if not'. However, some authors have claimed that 'unless' is more closely related to 'only if' than to ‘if not'. We report two experiments that compare conditional inferences from ‘unless' to 'if-not'’ and 'only if' factual and counterfactual conditionals. The first experiment compared 'not-A unless B' and 'if not-B then not-A' and showed a difference between affirmative (i.e. B therefore A, A therefore B) and negative (i.e. not-B therefore not-A, not-A therefore not-B) inferences only for factual 'if not'. The second experiment compared 'not-A unless B' and 'A only if B' and showed no difference between affirmative and negative inferences for factual 'unless' and 'only if', where as the affirmative inferences were higher for counterfactual 'unless' and 'only if'. In both experiments latency results confirmed that inferences from 'B to A' were faster than from 'A to B' for 'unless' and 'only if'. The implications of the results for the mental representations and processing of counterfactual 'unless', 'if not' and 'only if' are discussed in the context of mental model theory (AU)

Reasoning with ‘Unless’ counterfactual conditionals

This article tackles factual and counterfactual 'unless' expressions such as 'Virginia will not pass the exam unless she works harder' and 'Virginia would not have passed the exam unless she had worked harder'. 'Unless' is a negative conditional that is semantically equivalent to 'if not'. However, some authors have claimed that 'unless' is more closely related to 'only if' than to 'if not'. We report two experiments that compare conditional inferences from 'unless' to 'if-not' and 'only if' factual and counterfactual conditionals. The first experiment compared ‘not-A unless B’ and 'if not-B then not-A' and showed a difference between affirmative (i.e. B therefore A,A therefore B) and negative (i.e. not-B therefore not-A, not-A therefore not-B) inferences only for factual ‘if not’. The second experiment compared‘ not-A unless B’ and 'A only if B' and showed no difference between affirmative and negative inferences for factual ‘unless’ and ‘only if’, where as the affirmative inferences were higher for counterfactual ‘unless’ and ‘only if’. In both experiments latency results confirmed that inferences from 'B to A' were faster than from 'A to B' for 'unless' and 'only if'. The implications of the results for the mental representations and processing ofcounterfactual 'unless', 'if not' and 'only if' are discussed in the context of mental model theory (AU)

Este artículo aborda el estudio de enunciados contrafácticos con 'a menos que', tales como 'Virginia no aprobará el examen a menos que estudie más' y 'Virginia no habría aprobado el examen a menos que hubiera estudiado más'. 'A menos que’ es un condicional negativo que es semánticamente equivalente a 'si no'; sin embargo, algunos autores han sostenido que ‘a menos que’ está más estrechamente relacionado con 'sólo si' que con 'sino'. En este trabajo se presentan dos experimentos en los que se comparan las inferencias condicionales a partir de enunciados fácticos y contrafácticos con 'a menos que', 'si no' y 'sólo si'. En el primer experimento se comparó 'no-A a menos que B' y 'si no-B entonces no-A' y se encontraron diferencias sólo en los enunciados 'si no' fácticos entre las inferencias afirmativas (B luego A, A luego B) y negativas (no-B luego no-A, no-A luego no-B). En el segundo experimento se comparó ‘no-A a menos que B' y 'A sólo si B'. No se encontraron diferencias entre las inferencias afirmativas y negativas con los enunciados 'a menos que' y 'sólo si 'fácticos, mientras que hubo más inferencias afirmativas que negativas con los enunciados 'a menos que' y 'sólo si' contrafácticos. En ambos experimentos las latencias de respuesta fueron más rápidas para las inferencias de 'B a A' que para las inferencias de 'A a B'. En la discusión se analizan, en el contexto de la teoría de los modelos mentales, las implicaciones de los resultados encontrados respecto al procesamiento y representaciones mentales de los enunciados contrafácticos con 'a menos que', 'si no' y 'sólo si' (AU)

Counterfactual thinking and functional differences in depression.

The purpose of the studies reported in this paper was to evaluate the function of counterfactual thinking (CT) in depression. In Experiment 1, depressed and non-depressed participants were asked to imagine themselves as the protagonist of a hypothetical situation, and to think counterfactually about three different scenarios. The results showed that there was a similar CT style (in terms of direction, structure and focus of mutation) for the depressed and the non-depressed groups. It was also found that the perceived preparation for a future similar situation increased after CT and, contrary to our hypotheses, this effect was observed in both groups. In Experiment 2, a real-life situation was used (a course examination) in which participants experienced a negative outcome (a poor score on the test). Again, it was observed that depressed and non-depressed participants showed the same CT style, but non-depressed participants were more likely to use CT spontaneously. In addition, the second study showed further differences between the two groups: depressed participants not only showed a lack of cognitive benefits from thinking counterfactually (i.e., after CT they do not feel more prepared for future similar events, nor able to avoid a similar bad outcome, in contrast to the non-depressed participants), but also show a lack of behavioural changes (both intentions to change and actual changes over the subsequent week). In conclusion, these results provide evidence about the function of CT both in depressed and in non-depressed thinking, and highlight both the similarities and differences for these two groups.