The current experiment employed a thought suppression paradigm to investigate whether repressors (N=40) are more skilled in suppressing positive and anxious autobiographical thoughts than low anxious (N=40), high anxious (N=40), and defensive high anxious (N=40) individuals, both immediately and over a longer time period (i.e., 7 days). Regardless of suppression instructions, repressors reporte...

There are many artists today who appropriate – in a repetitive or even obsessional manner preexisting visual documents. This growing recourse to ‟already there” representations has often been linked the current plethora of images, fostering desire avoid producing new objects. But this attraction for ready-made images reflects above all an awareness agency contributing construction collective im...

Drawing on a table talk by Martin Luther, this essay first presents new taxonomy of blasphemy, in which instances injurious speech are distributed along four fundamental axes, designated as ‘quality’, ‘source’, ‘judgement’ and ‘response’. This elementary is then refined via re-reading the way blasphemy occurs Freud’s case-study Rat Man, generates an additional axis, notably that ‘object’. It ar...

OBJECTIVE To illustrate common psychogenic factors involved in undereating and undernutrition in the elderly. METHOD Two cases are described. RESULTS In the context of age-related physical and social factors, obsessional, phobic, and hypochondriacal anxieties can lead to significant food restrictions and undernutrition. DISCUSSION Psychogenic factors need to be considered in undernutritio...

Regional cerebral oxygen metabolism was measured before and after limbic leucotomy in a patient with Gilles de la Tourette syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorder, and obsessional slowness. The preoperative scan showed hypermetabolism in the caudate nuclei, which normalised after operation. It is proposed that the beneficial effects of this operation on both tics and obsessive compulsive behavi...

Restrictions of the cranium at birth probably affects all of us to some degree. It is thought that in severe instances this restriction may lead to brain damage, cerebral palsy (spasticity) or autism, or may contribute towards Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (cot death). In less severe cases it may lead to dyslexia, learning difficulties, hyperactivity, epilepsy, obsessional behaviour, personality...

Although comorbid depression is a predictor of poor treatment response in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), there is limited understanding of factors that contribute to depression severity in OCD. The current study examines the influence of OCD-related factors (autogenous obsessions and obsessional beliefs) and non-specific factors (avoidance and anxiety) on depression severity in a sample o...