writing the terrorist self: the unspeakable alterity of Italy's female perpetrators

This paper examines texts written by, or in collaboration with, female ex-members of the Italian left-wing armed organization, the Red Brigades. The corpus differs from male-authored or male-centred texts in that issues relating to identity and selfhood lie at the very heart of the project of narrating the terrorist past; the primary concern of Italian women's post-terrorist narration is not to narrate the experience of belonging to an armed organization, but to construct a new identity distinct from a pre-existing self identified exclusively with the transgressive experience of political violence. I consider the corpus in the light of a number of critical problems posed both by the specificity of female perpetration and by the dearth of theoretical writings on perpetrator trauma more generally. I identify in each text an acute anxiety about the very act of speech or narration and find that, in order to circumvent the perceived prohibition on speech, the women of the Red Brigades subtly insinuate into their life writing a discourse of alterity bordering on subalternity that obscures the boundary between victim and perpetrator. The unacknowledged slippage between discourses of perpetration and victimization is explored in relation to Ruth Leys’ critique of Cathy Caruth's formulation of trauma as the wound that cries out through the voice of the victim. The paper concludes by questioning whether perpetrator trauma can ever be articulated as such and by considering the implications of that question for traumatized perpetrator and victimized society alike.     

A shift in emphasis: Adolescent psychotherapy and the psychology of the self

The methodology of both psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, which is that of introspection and empathy, is simply not the same as that of chemistry and physics. We are part of the system and we cannot observe without participation. Although this is a fact that we all are quite aware of, usually we treat it as an unfortunate contaminant and this then leads us to try to ignore its theoretical import. Classical psychoanalysis would do away with or minimize it by interpretation; the viewpoint of Kohut would replace it by transmuting internalizations as well as interpretations; but in psychotherapy we have an added task of assessing just how much we must work on the need for the elimination of the functional role of the therapist. To be sure, one must differentiate and clarify the so-called transference reactions related to the incestuous objects of childhood from those directed to self objects. In truth, this is an easier job in analysis, where the focus of the neurosis is enhanced and encouraged. In therapy, such clarity often is lacking or confused. The psychology of the self best allows us to determine how and when we are utilized by our patients, and to test how well they can handle our absence. The major advantage given to us by this perspective is that of being aware of the mirroring and idealizing aspects of self development.Presented as the Judith Baskin Offer Memorial Lecture. From the Institute for Psychosomatic and Psychiatric Research and Training of the Michael Reese Medical Center, Chicago, October 31, 1976.also is in private practice. Received his M.D. from the University of Illinois. Main interest is psychoanalysis.     

Attention under repair: asceticism from self-care to care of the self

This essay examines the contemporary mindfulness movement as a cultural response to a larger problem of attention in the United States. As raw material for both capital (re)production and subjectivity, attention is a zone of indeterminacy and struggle for workers in a so-called immaterial economy. This essay suggests that the rise of concern around “paying attention” from the 1950s onward is driven by post-Fordist labor requirements more than networked technologies. First, it examines mindfulness as a technique of attention management for businesses and gives a broad survey of its current popularity and prevalence in US culture. Second, it proposes viewing techniques of attention like mindfulness through a triple lens of repair: (1) as managerial tools to repair psychic labor capacity for capital; (2) as practices that subjects use to repair alienation; and (3) as sites for reparative reading. Third, the essay illuminates the ties between Eve Sedgwick’s repair and Michel Foucault’s care of the self in order to suggest that resistance to practicing the self is founded on a paranoid defense. Its central argument is that attention is a method in Foucault's care of the self, and, as such, a potential portal into pleasure and political change rather than a mere feedback loop into capital.     

“Taking care”: Maintaining the self and the home in early adolescence

This paper explores young adolescents' experience of basic daily tasks: personal maintenance (e.g., grooming and eating) and household maintenance (e.g., chores and errands). Quantity of time, companionship, and subjective states in these activities were examined during one week in the lives of 401 5th–9th graders with the Experience Sampling Method (Csikszentmihalyi and Larson, 1987). Our findings show that these tasks are particularly subject to sex typing. Girls engaged in grooming more often than boys, and this time increased in the higher grades, while boys showed no age effects. Boys did more outside chores while girls did more indoor chores. Girls were also more likely to carry out household tasks with family while boys did more chores alone. An examination of subjective states during household maintenance revealed that older girls reported a greater sense of motivation and choice than younger girls, but boys' experience did not differ. Experience of maintenance as socialization for adult activities is discussed.This research was supported by NIMH grant number MH38324, Stress in Daily Life During Early Adolescence, awarded to Reed Larson.Current research interests are the effects of maternal employment on children and adolescents, and the study of day care.Current research interests are family relationships in early adolescence, interpersonal conflict and the study of daily psychological experience.Current research interests are pubertal development, precursors of eating disorders, and the effects of maternal employment on young adolescents.     

Early work experience: A partial antidote for adolescent egocentrism

One of the most important lessons a young person may learn from working is how to interact effectively with others. This potential outcome of work experience has received virtually no attention from proponents of the early integration of adolescents into the workplace. In this paper we suggest that working may contribute to the development of more advanced social understanding (i.e., social sensitivity, social insight, and effective social communication and manipulation) by requiring youngsters to (a) shift back and forth between diverse roles and (b) interact frequently with strangers. Illustrative material is presented from interviews with 100 working adolescents and their parents.This study is part of a large-scale investigation of the costs and benefits of part-time employment during the high school years. The first two authors are Co-Principal Investigators of the Spencer Foundation grant and share primary and equal responsibility for this report.Received Ph.D. in human development and family studies from Cornell University. Main research interests are adolescent development, life-span development, and social policy.Received Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Harvard University. Main research interests are adolescence and social institutions, life-span development, and social policy.Main research interests are environmental and community psychology.Main research interests are human development and social policy.     

The life space and socialization of the self: Sex differences in the young adolescent

In this conclusion we examine the implications of the special issue findings for the development of the self. We discuss how well the young adolescent experiences in schoolwork, maintenance, talk, and leisure provide bases for an evolving adjstment to the adult roles of work, love, and play. Gender differences clearly emerged in the experience of daily life; children entered adolescence with differences in how time is experienced already firmly established, and by midadolescence these differences were intensifying. Our data support the three heuristics of communion versus agency, gender intensification, and the public versus private dichotomy. Concern is raised as to the viability of traditional sex role socialization when adult roles may demand more egalitarian behavior.     

On the adolescent process as a transformation of the self

The purpose of this paper is to clarify and extend the psychoanalytic theory of adolescence. Three sources of data are used: biographical source material about Freud's adolescence, introspective accounts from the self-analysis of psychoanalysts, and other biographical vignettes and reports from the psychoanalytic literature. It is proposed that a change in the self emerges as the pivotal focus during adolescent development. An intense peer relationship serves to maintain narcissistic balance and the cohesion of the self. This allows deidealization of archaic parental imagoes and their transformation into newly internalized idealizations. The newly acquired idealizations consolidate into a stable ego ideal which eliminates the need for an alter ego relationship. The self-objects chosen for these new idealizations are related to the need to overcome specific disappointments in the archaic self-objects. The stability of the new ideals depends on the invulnerability of the idealized self-objects. Transient states of narcissistic disequilibrium manifest as turmoil. Presented at a meeting of The Chicago Psychoanalytic Society on May 23, 1972.Received M.D. from the University of Maryland; psychiatric training at the Cincinnati General Hospital; graduate of The Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. Main interests are the development of psychoanalysis from a historical perspective and the psychology of adolescence.Received M.D. from New York University; psychiatric training from Associated Psychiatric Faculties of Chicago; graduate of The Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. Main interest is the intellectual history of psychoanalysisReceived M.D. from the University of Chicago; psychiatric training at Michael Reese Hospital, Chicago; graduate of The Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. Main interest is psychoanalytic metapsychology of development.     

Constructing the self in mental health practice: identity,individualism and the feminization of deficiency

The discursive production of the ‘self’ in the context of mental health care has potential implications for how the subjects of intervention come to understand and experience themselves. Eating disorders provide an illustrative example of the ways in which conceptualizations of the self that structure mental health practices can be gendered, because they are mainly diagnosed in women and dominant explanations of their origins are feminized. This discourse analytic study examines the gendered nature of mental health workers' constructions of the eating-disordered self through the psychological construct of ‘identity’, examining the dominant discourses implicated in the feminization of deficient identity, and addressing the implications of this construction for mental health practice.     

The separative self in Sylvia Plath's the bell jar

Plath's novel The Bell Jar dramatizes the collusion between the notion of a separate and separative self (or bounded, autonomous subject) and the cultural forces that have oppressed women. The pervasive imagery of dismemberment conveys the alienation and self‐alienation leading to Esther Greenwood's breakdown and suicide attempt; the recovery which Plath constructs for her heroine merely reenacts the dismemberments obsessively imaged in the first half of the novel. This “recovery” denies the relationality of the self and leaves Esther to define herself unwittingly and unwillingly in relation to culturally‐ingrained stereotypes of women. Contemporary feminist theory has questioned the validity of the separative model of selfhood, but literary critics have brought to the novel the same assumptions about the self which inform Plath's book. Thus they have failed to recognize what the novel has to teach about the destructive effects — at least for women — of our cultural commitment to that model.