This paper describes two experiments which investigate how believers in the paranormal (labelled 'Sheep') and disbelievers (labelled 'Goats') recall different aspects of pseudo-psychic demonstrations (i.e., conjuring tricks that can be misinterpreted as genuine psychic phenomena). In both experiments Ss were first shown a videotape containing pseudo-psychic trickery. They were then asked to rat...

This paper aims to review the topic of psychic envelopes and to sketch the main outlines of this concept in infancy. We first explore the origins of the concept in Freud's "protective shield" and then its development in adult psychoanalysis before going on to see how this fits in infancy with post-Bionian psychoanalysis and development. Four central notions guide this review: (1) Freud's "prote...

Countertransference: The Psychoanalyst's Shared Experience and Inquiry with his Patient Benjamin Wolstein From all that has been said about countertransference during the last 70 years, I have selected for discussion a theme that has not received the full attention it deserves; that of countertransference as part of a field of experience and inquiry, belonging as much to that field for shared e...

We synthesize the financial crisis contagion literature through the gravity model from physics and test the hypothesis that the severity of contagion relates positively to trade and financial linkages but negatively to psychic distance between countries, when macroeconomic fundamentals and institutional factors are controlled. The psychic distance variable, a behavioral predictor constructed al...

Organizations are supposed to be systems and consequently require defining the notion of equilibrium within. However, organizations comprise people and unavoidably entail their irrational aspects. Then, the question is what is the organizational equilibrium and equilibrating mechanisms considering these aspects. Hence, some arguments are provided here to conceptualize human unconsciousness, irr...

Projective identification is a clinical enactment and part of the common currency of the psychoanalytic process that occurs especially around the difficult nodal points at the deepest levels of our psychic organization that seem resistant to change. Neurophysiological studies of pre-symbolic, unconscious emotional systems offer a biological explanation for the clinical experience of resistance ...

This paper explores the notion that people who believe in psychic ability possess various psychological attributes that increase the likelihood of them misattributing paranormal causation to experiences that have a normal explanation. The paper discusses the structure and measurement of belief in psychic ability, then reviews the considerable body of work exploring the relationship between beli...

Most people are caring and will exert great effort to rescue individual victims whose needy plight comes to their attention. These same good people, however, often become numbly indifferent to the plight of individuals who are “one of many” in a much greater problem. Why does this occur? The answer to this question will help us answer a related question that is the topic of this paper: Why, ove...