Month: July 2016

Patrizia Guarnieri, Italian Psychology and Jewish Emigration under Fascism. From Florence to Jerusalem and New York

New York, Palgrave Macmillan US, 2016, 275 pages, Hardcover $100.00; E-Book: $79.99,  ISBN: 978-1-137-30655-5/978-1-137-30656-2

by John Foot

This is a difficult and at the same time a fascinating book. It has many sites of focus and can also be read as a set of collective biographies or individual pathlines through the worlds of psychology, fascism and Jewish identity in Italy and elsewhere. The overall analysis of the book is linked to the study of psychology and psychologists in Italy – and the way this nascent and marginalised discipline developed in that country before, during and after fascism – and in particular in the city of Florence. Thus, Guarnieri tells us a number of important stories of individuals who carried forward this discipline and taught and research within various areas of psychology. Within this world, in Italy, we quickly come across the all powerful role played by Agostino Gemelli in the private Catholic University in Milan. As Guarnieri points out, Gemelli had institutional resources behind him. Gemelli, a friar, turns up time and time again in this book as a king-maker, able to create or destroy careers – and someone who, within Italian psychology, it was very difficult to avoid.

For me, the most fascinating parts of this volume are those linked to the pernicious effects of Italy’s anti-semitic laws of 1938.  These laws led in most cases to the expulsion of all Jews from academic posts in Italian universities.  These people were forced to find another job – not easy in a country which officially discriminated against Jews and where psychology itself was hardly a major discipline. Guarnieri then takes up individual pathways of certain key psychologists. There is the detailed and extraordinary story of Enzo Bonaventura, who emigrated to Palestine in March 1939 and became Professor of Psychology in the Hebrew University.

But perhaps the most shocking part of this book are the stories of what happened to these Jewish psychologists after fascism had fallen during and after World War Two. Unfortunately, as with many other Jews who had been discriminated against or sacked in a variety of sectors, their reintegration and rehabilitation was neither easy nor straightforward. Would these people simply be offered their former jobs back? Some were happy to stay where they were, but others tried to return to Italy. Others appeared lost – nobody seemed to know where they were or what they were doing. Should those who ‘replaced’ these people be themselves sacked or moved on?

In 1947 a national competition was opened up for a Professor of Psychology (in reality this was for three prestigious Chairs).  Bonaventura was an obvious candidate for one of these posts. But Gemelli was to play a key role in deciding who got these jobs, despite his (to put it mildly) co-habitation with fascism. In the end Bonaventura did not even put himself forward. Guarnieri argues that this was thanks to political and personal manoeuvres designed to keep him out and assign these jobs to others. This is also – for Italy – a sad and depressing tale of half-truths and conspiracies, of the re-writing of the past and of continuity with fascism (something which was particularly true within academic institutions).  Bonaventura died in April 1948 during clashes with what Guarnieri calls ‘Arab forces’ in Jerusalem. A street there is still named after him.

More controversially, Guarnieri also points the finger at the role played by Cesare Musatti in this story. Musatti was a legendary public figure in Italy – the first intellectual to bring psychoanalysis to the masses and a frequent presence in the press and on television during his lifetime. He was also, very clearly, a man of the left and someone with – it seems – impeccable anti-fascist credentials. Guarnieri does not pull her punches concerning Musatti – and it is surprising that this ‘case’ has not been taken up in the Italian press in any way. In short, Guarnieri accuses Musatti of having re-invented his own past – both before and after obtaining the coveted chair of psychology in Milan’s Statale University. Worse, Guarnieri argues that Musatti had ‘not made any bones about collaborating with the promoters of racist theories’ under fascism. This is explosive stuff to say the least. It is to be hoped that a debate and further historical research will follow these revelations about Musatti’s role before and after fascism.

This is a book packed to the brim with interesting material for further study and pathways to be followed. It is intensely multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary – touching not just on psychology, but also on social history, trans-national history, cultural studies, Jewish studies, politics and memory. However, the text itself is a major hindrance to an understanding of the arguments made within the book. Much more copy-editing was needed and I can find no reference as to whether this is a translation or was directly written in English. Either way, it needed an extensive re-write to clarify much of what is included here. And this is a great pity, because this book sheds light not just on the history of academic psychology in Italy, but also on a complicated and painful past which has remained hidden for some time. In that sense, it is a brave and important book.

John Foot is professor of modern Italian history at Bristol University. His most recent book, The man who closed the asylums: Franco Basaglia and the revolution in mental health care, is available now from Verso.

Louise Sundararajan, Understanding Emotion in Chinese Culture: Thinking Through Psychology. 

Springer International Publishing, 2015, 201 pages, Hardcover £90.00/-Book £72.99, ISBN: 978-3-319-18220-9/978-3-319-18221-6

by Gerald C. Cupchik

Louise Sundararajan’s book offers a comparison between Western and Chinese culture based in part on differing modes of cognition that underlie lived experiences. Her approach is more nuanced than the usual East and West comparison. First, she is careful to focus on Chinese culture instead of making sweeping generalizations about the East. Second, while using the term “West,” she focuses on contemporary Western psychology. Since scientific psychology does not necessarily represent the full scope of knowledge about Western emotions, this book pertains primarily to western psychological conceptualizations of emotions, not Western emotional experiences per se. Sundararajan presents as a scholar with a foot in each of two worlds. On the one hand, she introduces many valuable concepts from Chinese culture and, in particular, the contrast by Confucian and Daoist approaches to life and meaning. On the other hand, she is well versed and established in the mainstream literature from Western psychology with a bit of philosophy thrown in.

Sundararajan summarizes the challenge of understanding Chinese emotions as follows: ‘This suggests that a central problem for understanding Chinese emotions is the gap between mainstream western scientific terminology and indigenous Chinese psychology.’  At the heart of her book is the bridging of dynamics of emotional processes in Chinese culture with concepts and findings in the Western empirical tradition. Implicitly juxtaposed against mechanistic thinking in Western psychology is the Chinese approach that focuses on dynamic processes.  Sundararajan explains this difference in terms of that between non-relational and relational cognition. Relational cognition, which applies to Chinese culture, focuses on holistic mind-to-mind transactions based on shared meanings. Western culture embodies more linear non-relational cognition emphasizing mind-to-world transactions and mastery over the environment. Whereas the former is marked by Communal Sharing, the latter is reflected in Market Pricing. Understood in terms of a “dual processing model,” the Chinese mode of thought is automatic, intuitive, and holistic (System 1), whereas the Western approach is effortful and reflective (System 2). Summing up these differences in mindsets, she claims that the Western and Chinese cultures are ‘upside-down universes of each other.’

Obviously, establishing broad categories and binary oppositions such as the ‘West’ and the ‘East’, involves many levels of abstraction. To some, this distinction is suspect and ultimately misleading. One of the most stringent critics of this approach is Edward Said[ref]Said, E.W. (1978). Orientalism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.[/ref]  who considers it a legacy of Orientalism, the persistent East and West comparison.

“Throughout the exchange between Europeans and their ‘others’ that began systematically half a millennium ago, the one idea that has scarcely varied is that there is an ‘us’ and a ‘them,’ each quite settled, clear, unassailably self-evident.”  (Said, 1993, p. xxv)[ref]Said, E. W.  (1993). Culture and Imperialism.  New York:  Alfred A. Knopf.[/ref]

Continuing this line of criticism, Sundararajan uses the East and West comparison in a subversive manner. First, instead of using the West-East comparison in an ‘us versus them’ fashion, she suggests that the two conceptualizations of emotion are complementary– somewhat like yin and yang with each taking turns being the under-current of the other. Second, she turns cultural reductionism on its head.  Instead of reducing all cultural phenomena to collectivism versus individualism, she uses the cross cultural findings on cognitive styles as an explanatory framework to foreground the rich cultural phenomena of Chinese emotions, with special focus on the nuanced differences in conceptualization of emotion between China and modern Western psychology.

To elaborate on this central theme, Sundararajan devotes one chapter each to the three foundational ways of thinking in Chinese history — harmony, Confucianism and Daoism.  Chinese discourse on emotion is founded on the notion of harmony which is ‘understood as moderation’ based on self-regulation. There is a dynamic quality associated with the search for complementary relations between seeming opposites (the yin and yang dialectic). This effort after optimal harmony leads to emotional refinement as exemplified in this description of Confucius as ‘mild, and yet dignified; majestic, and yet not fierce; respectful, and yet easy.’ Framed in terms of Western psychology, this effort after harmony is characterized in terms of ‘concurrent goal pursuit’ so as to be inclusive and make the best possible choices.

The Confucian approach to social development emphasized strong social ties and inner/private consciousness in a ‘rites-based’ society. This contrasts with a Western emphasis on ‘big gods,’ laws, and public spaces. The Chinese communal approach emphasizes the quality of relationships and concern for the other. The goal was to humanize power so that respect was ‘earned through sharing and helping.’ Accordingly, ‘the ideal model of the social order is the family’ and the cultivation of an inner sense of self that is sincere and cultivated through the arts, in particular music and poetry. Thus, emotional engagement is fundamental to ritual performances as in mourning where deep sorrow is considered more important than attention to minute details of observances. The outcome of this approach is filial piety combining intimate benevolence with respect for authority.

The ideals of Daoism are exemplified in the attributes of hermits who abandon the existing social order in favour of the solitude preferred by wanderers. Giving up the comforts of society and social status enabled inward hermits to achieve a state of transcendence and a deeper appreciation of harmony with nature. This was embodied in a spiritualized approach to social relations which emphasized equality in contrast to the hierarchy embodied in a Confucian emphasis on elder and younger, father and son, and so forth. The Daoist approach to independence and transcendence focussed on uniqueness rather than on egocentrism and competition with the attendant deleterious effects on health. The acceptance of an eremetic life style flourished when Chinese civilization was at its zenith during the Tang and Song dynasties rather than during its decline under the Mongol rulers.

The second part of the book is dedicated to exploring complementary ‘contours of the emotional landscape’ in Chinese culture. An example of dynamic harmony is embodied in deep feelings (qing) surrounding ‘heart-aching love’ (xin-teng) which can be both bitter and sweet at the same time. In Western language, this emotion combines the perception of vulnerability with empathy and anxiety over the well-being of another. These feelings are situated in a ‘gut-feeling approach to morality’ that is central to Chinese culture. This analysis of intimacy is predicated on ‘we–ness,’ bonding that is based on shared mind-to-mind intention and modelled after the parent-child relationship rather than the mating pair. Metaphysically, the Chinese notion of affect implies a sympathetic universe which is sustained by an affective bond among all things from humans to stones and rocks in nature. Emotion in this context works by means of a ‘resonating feedback loop’ not unlike that of a tuning fork. The importance of emotional resonance/attunement is brought home through examples of paradoxical communications of affect such as an expressed emotion of seeming anger that masks the underling feeling of relief and gratitude.

Of particular importance in a Chinese context is the presence of spontaneity, authenticity, and creativity in an emotion. Wisdom of the ancients helps to explicate these different facets of emotion. As in the case of traditional poetry, the ideal state of emotion freely embodies a simple message that is deeply felt. Thus, an authentic expression of emotion is sensitive to the meaning of a situation and is free from the interference of intentions to control it by a deliberate mind. This account of spontaneity in the Chinese expression of emotion is at odds with a Western academic emphasis on appraisal and purposive action. But it does fit with a mystical approach such ‘that the unleavened bread of mystical experience has no use for the yeast of discursive thought.’

The author reminds us of the duality in Chinese culture, between the hierarchical nature of social relations from a Confucian perspective (e.g., between parent and child) and the horizontal emphasis on egalitarian relations in Daoist thought (e.g., between person and nature). In a hierarchical context, we find the complex intimacy between parent and child who may be “spoiled rotten,” given vulnerability and immaturity. This transforms into caring gestures toward parents as youth gives way to indebted gratitude in adulthood. Thus, the good feelings attendant to gratification of impulses leave a glow of self-worth that changes to filial piety and caring gestures. As my young guide on a tour of Nanjing expressed it to me: ‘I am nothing without my family.’

Refinement in Chinese culture is embodied in the concept of savoring which applies both in everyday life and in an aesthetic context. This concept is unique in that it encompasses both positive and negative episodes. Temporality plays an important role encompassing both immediate and retrospective experiences in subtle nuances. Thus, from a Chinese perspective, savoring includes mindful awareness of sensory experiences that are integrated in an ideal mental world best expressed in poetry. The greatest challenge to a Western mind is appreciating the insight into emotions that comes from experiencing emptiness which may also apply to negative experiences in one’s life. Savoring without blinding expectations (thus emptiness) enables the person to appreciate the gist of things and also fosters novel connections. This new understanding is enhanced by reflective self-consciousness that formalizes relationships and sets the stage for “enlightenment.”

When placed in a broad multicultural and historical context, the Chinese approach to emotion differs substantially and substantively from that favoured in the West. While the West has long been concerned with the ways that emotion can distort ‘reality,’ the Chinese notion of qing holds that emotion ‘discloses something that is true about the person and the world’ by grounding the person in reality. This sensitizes the person to the undisclosed or implicit impact that the world has upon us. While Western theory focuses on differences (‘symmetry breakdown’) that foster action and control, the Chinese privilege symmetry as evidenced by a heightened appreciation of harmony and resonance with others and nature as a whole.

My reading experience heightened an understanding of the ways that the principle of complementarity is actively embodied in Chinese philosophy and social relations. The Confucian emphasis on hierarchy, and its effects on maintaining social harmony through parent-child relations, is complemented by a Daoist appreciation of how silence and intimacy helps us savour subtle qualities of nature and our social world.

Sundararajan makes a valiant attempt to build a bridge between traditional Chinese concepts and thinking through ideas in contemporary psychology. In part, this effort is successful because it shows how Western ideas and findings can resonate with Chinese culture. But it also indirectly reveals the burdens of Western mechanistic ideas that are worlds apart from the holistic attitude underlying Chinese thought. This awakens a savouring mind to the need for Western culture to be more reflective about its own purposive and ‘Enlightened’ biases or,  as the subtitle of the book suggests, ‘thinking through psychology.’

I hope that Europeans/North Americans appreciate Sundararajan’s in-depth representation of their work. But I personally feel that her account of Chinese emotion does not need Western psychology at all since, from my perspective, Western research seems to have lost ecological validity. Thus, the value of this book is not just that it introduces us to principles underlying the empathic, moral, and aesthetic values of Chinese culture. It shows us the limitations of our own Western concepts and empirical methods that may lead us away from a resonant understanding of the social world. In Chinese landscape paintings, we project ourselves into the empty spaces and resonate (from Hsieh Ho’s Six Principles) with the implied meanings; in other words, projection and empathy. Thus, by adopting a Daoist worldview, we enter into phenomena and overcome the alienating effects of experimental conditions and method as a whole. We essentially adopt the Verstehen orientation at the heart of a German Romantic perspective that is both empathic and intuitive rather than the British Enlightenment emphasis on distant and logical sympathy. Incorporating a sense for “emptiness” and “resonance” can help us think through the biases of Western psychology and enhance the insightful outcomes of our empirical projects.

 

Gerald C. Cupchik  is Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, Scarborough. His book The aesthetics of emotion: up the down staircase of the mind-body is out now from Cambridge University Press. 

Stephen T. Casper, The Neurologists: A History of a Medical Specialty in Modern Britain c. 1789-2000

Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2014, 288 pages, hardcover £70.00, ISBN: 978-0-7190-9192-6

Stephen T. Casper’s first book is an interesting reflection on the early origins of neurological sciences and the reasons why they came to dominate descriptions of mental processes and human reasoning.  Casper uses traditional techniques in the history of medicine to reveal the long history of the birth and development of the specialism of neurology in Britain.

One of the most important contributions of this book is its consideration of how late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century descriptions and understandings of the brain and the nervous system fell within a wider humanistic project. Casper’s exploration of the archives of the Neurological Society of London offers a unique window onto the nature of debates on topical issues at the time, in particular the conflict between specialisation and general medicine or generalist approaches to the body and mind.  As Casper argues, ‘specialisation’ was an idea that was ‘peculiar to modernity’ which otherwise employed the language of evolution to develop organic models of society ultimately within functionalist sociology. His reflection on neurology as a discipline thus offers insights into how and why neurological hypotheses and ideas prospered in the British context as well how neurologists themselves negotiated their ability to offer wider insights on human nature whilst simultaneously protecting their own science.

Although the term ‘neurology’ can be traced to 1664 in the work of Thomas Willis, and was used by phrenologists in the late 18^th-century, it appeared rarely in both medical and lay literature until the latter part of the 19^th century.  The specialty of neurology also emerged at this time. Its origins are associated with the foundation of the journal Brain: A Journal of Neurology in 1876. However, Casper argues, neurology did not achieve a coherent form until the interwar period.  And even when it did, there were always attempts to protect it from the constraints of disciplinary limitations and to promote its insights more widely.

The Neurological Society of London had some pretty important members.  In 1886, John Hughlings Jackson became first president of the Society, its members also consisting of David Ferrier, who had famously experimented on cerebral localization of function in animals; Francis Galton, statistician and general polymath; and Herbert Spencer who had been critical in establishing the discipline of psychology using the logic of evolutionary sciences. The society brought thus together a highly significant group of intellectuals, providing a venue for the integration of multiple fields of knowledge.  Most physicians who were members of the Society regarded themselves as generalists with broad interests in physiology, medicine and the general issue of nervous conditions. As Robert Young has argued, these thinkers were critical to harnessing epistemological questions in psychology and relating them to theories of brain and nerve function. [ref]Robert M. Young, Mind, Brain and Adaptation in the Nineteenth Century : Cerebral Localization and Its Biological Context from Gall to Ferrier, History of Neuroscience ; No. 3 (New York ; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).[/ref] Casper’s first chapter reflects on how these ideas influenced the formation of a distinct medical discipline of neurology in the twentieth century.

As many historians have noted, the First World War was critical in the rationalisation of medical practice and the drive for efficiency and economy that compelled the specialisation of both hospital care and scientific disciplines.[ref]Roger Cooter, Mark Harrison, and Steve Sturdy, War, Medicine and Modernity (Stroud: Sutton, 1998).[/ref] Casper’s second chapter explores the significance of this to the science of neurology where, he argues, it was particularly transformational.  This chapter looks in depth at the work of Henry Head and Russell Brain, neurologists at the London Hospital, and their discussions of war injuries.  It also examines how they considered the significance of their own practice, which is very revealing in its grandiosity, for example Head’s claim that he worked ‘in the passage-way between the physical universe and the dwelling place of the mind.’  There is something exceptional about these general claims to cultural and scientific knowledge and Casper elucidates this well.

Chapter three explores a controversial episode in the history of scientific research concerning Kathleen Chevassut’s research under James Morgan Purves Stewart into the spinal fluid of patients with multiple sclerosis. Chevassut claimed to have found an organism responsible for causing the disease and argued that a vaccine could be produced, publishing in the Lancet, but wider medical opinion turned against her, guided by the research of emerging expert Edward Carmichael.  Casper argues that this episode drew attention to the need for further regulation in neurological research and the formation of a new professional association, The Association of British Neurologists, from which Purves Stewart was forever excluded. The scandal brought to light the significance of professional guidelines and the threat of the Victorian ideal of united social and medical investigations.  Casper claims that it demonstrated why the science of neurology was restricted in its scope.

Chapter four explores the relationship between neurology and state medicine from the 1940s to the 1960s, pointing out that the success of the Association of British Neurologists and the growing monopoly of neurologists in carving out a well-supported and stable field of clinical practice.  The Association of British Neurologists lobbied the Ministry of Health to appoint an advisor in neurology, which they finally did in 1958.  As Casper notes, it was the success in the formation of neurology as a clinical science that ironically led to its demise as a comprehensive field of scientific enquiry.  At that point, laboratory research was increasingly conducted by basic scientists who did not have a wider interest in clinical problems. Neither did they necessarily have interests in the wider human sciences on the relation between psychology, physiology and evolution. What came to be known as the ‘neurosciences’ were demarcated as a separate field.

As Casper argues in the final chapter, the rise of specialized clinical neurology never fully replaced the earlier model of neurological sciences as part of a wider reflection on human nature and motivation. The formation of the ‘neurosciences’ that drew together biological sciences and social sciences have provided a new kind of outlet for these questions, although within a very different framework of professional expertise.

There are some limitations to Casper’s approach and his focus purely on neurology as a disciplinary practice.  Although this enables precision and focus, sometimes it detracts from the wider debates and discussions about nerves within other fields such as psychoanalysis, psychology and endocrinology.  Furthermore, greater contextualization of debates within the social sciences and the wider political landscape of Britain, particularly in the post-war period, would have enriched the discussion. The history of neurology and the neurosciences is becoming increasingly topical as today’s scholars wrestle again with the hierarchy of the disciplines and the potential of current neuroscience and epigenetics to renew or revitalize the disciplines of sociology and history.[ref]e.g. D. Fitzgerald, N. Rose, and I. Singh, “Revitalizing Sociology: Urban Life and Mental Illness between History and the Present,” Br J Sociol 67, no. 1 (2016).[/ref][ref]e.g. Renwick, C 2016, ‘Biology, Social Science, and History: Interdisciplinarity in Three Directions’ Palgrave Communications, vol 2, 16001 (2016).[/ref] Although Casper makes links between the historical discipline of neurology and today’s neurosciences, it would have been useful for him to have used more innovative questions to engage more strongly with work by Nikolas Rose and Fernando Vidal on the dominance of the neurosciences and the significance of this in relation to other social sciences, particularly in the post-war period.[ref]e.g. Nikolas S. Rose and Joelle M. Abi-Rached, Neuro : The New Brain Sciences and the Management of the Mind (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2013)[/ref][ref] F. Vidal, “Brainhood, Anthropological Figure of Modernity,” Hist Human Sci 22, no. 1 (2009).[/ref] There is much more to be said on how disciplinary lines in the ‘neuro’ disciplines have been drawn and how they may be drawn in the future.

Nevertheless, Casper’s book is a very good reflection on the history of disciplinarity and how knowledge has been created and passed down in the field of neurology. It is an excellent complement to histories of psychological and psychiatric knowledge. It is also a very good reference book as it presents a close reading of archival sources and is meticulously referenced. Casper’s first work also demonstrates his ability to think widely on the connections between disciplines in the creation of medical knowledge. It is thus a welcome addition to the literature on the history of neurology and other disciplines and their relation to the wider history of the human sciences.

Bonnie Evans is a Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London.  She is conducting a project on Neuroscience, Psychology and Education: Autism in the UK 1959-2014. Her peer-reviewed publications include a recent article in History of the Human Sciences: ‘How Autism Became Autism: The Radical Transformation of a Central Concept of Child Development’. Her forthcoming book The Metamorphosis of Autism: A History of Child Development in England (Manchester University Press) is due out in December.