Chana Ullman

Psychological Adjustment Among Israeli Adolescent Immigrants: A Report on Life Satisfaction, Self-Concept, and Self-Esteem

Our research examined central issues in the psychological adjustment of adolescents who immigrate: self-concept, self-esteem, and life satisfaction. Questionnaires were administered to newcomers from the former Soviet Union (n = 119) as well as to their Israeli host classmates (n = 135) attending secondary schools. Our findings indicate that immigrant adolescents as compared to their counterparts express less satisfaction with their lives and report less congruence between their self-concept and the ways in which in their opinion they are perceived by others. The 2 groups do not differ in global self-esteem. Among the immigrants, the length of stay in Israel was related to the extent of their life satisfaction, and to the degree of similarity between the constituents of their self-concept and those of their classmates. Across the sample, gender and age were also related to self-esteem and self-concept. Our discussion highlights the psychological tasks faced by immigrant adolescents and provides possible implications for enhancing their well-being.

Commentary on special issue on ‘Relational psychoanalysis in Europe’: How is this dialogue different?

I am pleased to be given this opportunity to comment on the papers in this special issue which together illustrate how the relational perspective is changing psychoanalysis. My reading of these rich and often moving accounts of therapeutic interactions and impasses (as in the papers by Cornell, CowanJenssen, Nodelman and Orbach) and of the theoretical as well as cultural contexts that inform them (as in Orbach’s and Anderson’s papers) induced my own movement as a reader between insider and outsider positions. I am an insider, for, since I attended the first IARPP conference in New York City, I have embraced this perspective, seeking training analysis, supervision and professional affiliations that are consistent with this approach. I am now on the international board of the IARPP and a member of the Tel-Aviv institute of contemporary psychoanalysis, which includes members from different schools in fruitful dialogue, which Steven Mitchell helped to establish. Yet, I also read the papers with the interest and the judicious eye of an outsider, as I am less familiar with the relational perspective as practiced in Europe, more specifically the UK, where most of the papers originate. I shall begin with the perspective of the insider. The insightful papers in this issue touch upon the most important controversies that contemporary psychoanalysis faces and indicate the points of tension between ‘one-person’

Introduction to Margalit's Paper and Aron's Discussion: Contextualizing Memory and Nostalgia

The paper “Nostalgia” by Avishai Margalit and Lew Arons discussion of it, which were the opening papers for the IARPP 2009 conference in Tel-Aviv, explicate the complex nature of memory and its ethical and relational components. Margalit explores the evaluative and ethical dimensions of memory in the private and collective spheres, describing “good” and “bad” nostalgia, and Aron brings Margalits arguments to a meeting with psychoanalytic ideas of the transformative as well as defensive functions of memory and of “lived memory.”

Introduction to Panel: Dissociation, Enactment and Collective Trauma: The Role of Psychoanalysis

This introduction to a panel presented in Santiago, Chile, highlights the consequences of social violence focusing on the need for institutionalized action to counteract institutional violence, on the interaction of vulnerabilities of patient and therapist expressed as enactments in the treatment, and on the complex interplay of risk and resilience mediating repetition of trauma.

Haven of Last Resort

Thomas, the protagonist of Milan Kundra’s story The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1983), describes his thoughts following the religious conversion of his estranged son: I used to admire believers. I thought they had an odd transcendental way of perceiving things which was closed to me. Like clairvoyants, you might say. But my son’s experience proves that faith is actually quite a simple matter. He was down and out, the Catholics took him in and before he knew it, he had faith. So it was gratitude that decided the issue, most likely. (p. 308)

The Relationship with Authority

The members of the People’s Temple cult who committed collective murder/suicide in their agricultural haven in Guayana addressed Jim Jones, the cult’s founder and destroyer, as “Daddy.” “Dad knows best,” “Just do as Dad tells you,” and “Forgive me, Father” were frequently repeated in the letters and interviews they left behind. Indeed, the Temple members accepted Jim Jones as their only father, re-creating in this relationship the total dependence of a helpless infant on the perfect parent. Like a child eager for the protection and approval of a parent perceived as omnipotent, they totally submitted to Jones’ authority and swallowed without reservation his increasingly deranged vision of the menacing outside forces out to destroy their haven. In his account of the rise and fall of the Guayana commune, Naipaul (1981) describes this relationship: Jim Jones was the axis about which the Temple revolved. The Temple was not devoted to abstract ideas and principles. It was not love as such or compassion as such that redeemed but Jim Jones’ love, Jim Jones’ compassion. (p. 229)

Conversion and the Quest for Meaning

The focus of previous chapters on the search for psychological salvation, for relief and approval, raises a difficult but inevitable question: Are there motives that precipitate the religious turnabout other than the avoidance of mental anguish? Describing conversion as an infatuation geared to provide psychological relief, are we excluding the possibility of a spiritual quest? Can one, in fact, differentiate a spiritual quest from a psychological one, a search for truth from a search for relief?

Merger with the Perfect Object

Previous chapters described conversions that centered on an attraction to tangible human figures, powerful authorities, or loving peers. This chapter centers on conversions in which the object of infatuation is primarily a transcendental object. As one would expect, in some conversion stories the love relationship is between the convert and the Divine, but in these stories the Divine becomes a personalized, concrete object responsive to the convert’s needs. The conversion is the occasion for a nondemanding love relationship that offers unconditional salvation through a union in which the convert’s wishes are promptly recognized and cared for. In the religious revelation the object of infatuation is experienced as merged with the self, thereby endowing the convert with new powers. A wish to unite with a perfect, idealized object, a sense of being a pawn in a struggle of giants and yet of being chosen or called for a special mission, and the perception of personalized miracles—special messages to the self that the convert decodes in common, everyday events—these themes are examined in this chapter and are discussed in light of the development of narcissism and self-worth.

The Infatuation with the Group

Linda is a Jewish woman who became a devout Christian at the age of 20. Her religious turnabout occurred in the midst of a typical, though unusually intense adolescent struggle. When she left home for the first time to go to college, she felt overwhelmed and bewildered by the lack of structure in her life and by the perils of impending sexual involvements: There was increasing confusion, maybe about what my place in the world was, the alternatives in college were so broad, drugs and lots of men. You know, all of a sudden going out with lots of guys and the choices of sexual involvement and being easily influenced... all that presented a lot of confusing choices and I was not very happy with the choices I made.

Adolescent Conversion and the Search for Identity

Dramatic religious experiences may occur at any age. Leo Tolstoy experienced his at the age of 50, by which time he was already well known and admired for his masterpiece War and Peace. Thomas Merton, who converted to Catholicism, experienced his first profoundly moving religious experience at the age of 19. At the time he was vacationing in Italy, still mourning the death of his father a year earlier (Furlong, 1980). In the intense religious fervor of some revival meetings of the early 19th century, children as young as seven were reported to have undergone conversions: Services were held for seven days and sometimes all night. A girl of seven preached from a man’s shoulders till she fell exhausted, a lad of twelve exhorted till he fell and was then held up and continued till the power of speech was lost. (Hall, 1905, p. 286)