Before broaching our main subject, and exploring why, among all disorders of the mind, obsessive-compulsive disorders have a place apart, I would like to start from a dilemma that is well-known to historians interested in mental disorders. According to one approach, a mental illness X is considered as a bona fide or ‘genuine’ illness if, and only if, it originates from a disturbance of the brain. Its neurobiological form is in this case considered as invariant, whatever cultural veneer might give (...) it a different aspect in accord with historical and local settings. The assumption is that this veneer does not, properly speaking, have any deep grounding in reality... (shrink)

Reflective capacity is integral to core healthcare professional practice competencies. Reflection plays a central role in teacher education as reflecting on teaching behaviours with critical analysis can potentially improve teaching practice. The humanities including narrative and the visual arts can serve as a valuable tool for fostering reflection. We conducted a multinational faculty development workshop aiming to enhance reflective capacity in medical educators by using a combination of abstract paintings and narratives. Twenty-three family physicians or physicians-in-training from 10 countries participated (...) in the workshop. Qualitative assessment of the workshop showed that the combined use of art and narrative was well received and perceived as contributing to the reflective exercise. Participants generally felt that viewing abstract paintings had facilitated a valuable mood transformation and prepared them emotionally for the reflective writing. Our analysis found that the following themes emerged from participants’ responses: narratives from different countries are similar; the use of art helped access feelings; viewing abstract paintings facilitated next steps; writing reflective narratives promoted examination of educational challenges, compassion for self and other, and building an action plan; and sharing of narrative was helpful for fostering active listening and appreciating multiple perspectives. Future research might include comparing outcomes for a group participating in arts–narrative-based workshops with those of a control group using only reflective narrative or in combination with figurative art, and implementing a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods of assessment. (shrink)

This paper provides an overview, prepared by Robert Castel himself, of his last book, La montée des incertitudes. It describes how a new regime of capitalism has weakened and sometimes destroyed forms of social organization that had been established at the end of industrial capitalism. It discloses three main ongoing transformations: Labour market deregulations – in the sense of questioning both the right to work and the employment statute, and advances in insecurity; The reconfiguration of protective measures – in the (...) sense of the restriction of rights and a rapid rise in social insecurity; The paths of disaffiliation – or how it is that some categories of individuals find themselves destabilized and threatened with social invalidation in this new conjuncture. (shrink)

Previous work has shown that memory performance in older adults is affected by activation of a stereotype of age-related memory decline. In the present experiment, we examined whether stereotype threat would affect metamemory in older adults; that is, whether under stereotype threat they make poorer judgments about what they could remember. We tested older adults (MAge= 66.18 years) on a task in which participants viewed words paired with point values and “bet” on whether they could later recall each word. If (...) they bet on and recalled a word, they gained those points, but if they bet on and failed to recall a word, they lost those points. Thus, this task required participants to monitor how much they could remember and prioritize high value items. Participants performed this task over six lists of items either under stereotype threat about age-related memory decline or not under stereotype threat. Participants from both groups performed similarly on initial lists, but on later lists, participants under stereotype threat showed impaired performance as indicated by a lower average point score and a lower average gamma coefficient. The results suggest that a modest effect of stereotype threat on recall combined with a modest effect on metacognitive judgments to result in a performance deficit. This pattern of results may reflect an effect of stereotype threat on executive control reducing the ability to strategically use memory. (shrink)

Au XVIIème siècle, c’est la découverte du principe d’inertie, un concept purement physique, qui permit de débloquer la théorisation du mouvement, en panne depuis Aristote. La plupart des philosophes et historiens des sciences caractérisent le tournant de la « science moderne » par sa mathématisation, arguant, comme Koyré, que le principe d’inertie découlerait de cette dernière, ou bien, comme Duhem, qu’il était déjà contenu dans l’impetus médiéval, ou encore, comme, Husserl et Kojève, en s’abstenant d’en parler. Et pourtant, la mathématisation (...) de la physique était en marche depuis l’époque hellénistique. L’originalité de Galilée est d’avoir mathématisé non pas la nature, mais, via le principe d’inertie, le temps. (shrink)

It is no easy task to answer Jerry Wakefield’s comments, for I feel at risk of merely pitting two major paradigms in the history and epistemology of psychiatry against each other: the one historical/anthropological, the other epistemological/naturalistic. Fortunately, Wakefield and I do share enough to find a middle ground. This commonality should allow me to reconcile his opinions and mine, by dissipating a few misunderstandings, and also to state more clearly why I am dubious about some of his proposals. First, (...) let me repeat that, in my argument, the lived experience of having an inner mental space is not primarily a psychological phenomenon—at least in the.. (shrink)

The consideration of deliberate versus automatic processing of numeric representations is important to math education, memory for numbers, and decision-making. In this commentary, we address the possible roles for numeric representations in such higher-level cognitive processes. Current evidence is consistent with important roles for both automatic and deliberative processing of the representations.