Sigmund Freud Institut

BackgroundAlthough prior research has explored the roles of attachment styles and defense mechanisms in marital satisfaction, limited attention has been given to how these two factors interact. This study investigates the combined influence of attachment styles and defense mechanisms on marital satisfaction in Iranian couples.MethodsA total of 228 participants (114 couples) completed three online questionnaires: The Revised Adult Attachment Scale, the Marital Intimacy Needs Questionnaire, and the Defense Style Questionnaire. Hierarchical multiple regression with interaction terms was used to examine the moderating effects of attachment styles and defense mechanisms on marital satisfaction.ResultsAnalyses showed several connections between marital satisfaction and attachment styles as well as defense mechanisms. Notably, in the prediction of marital satisfaction, secure attachment enhanced marital satisfaction when paired with mature defense mechanisms.DiscussionOur findings highlight potential interactive effects of attachment styles and defense mechanisms in shaping marital satisfaction. The results emphasize the need for therapeutic interventions that integrate both attachment-based and defense-oriented approaches to enhance marital well-being.

In Mexico, an average of 11 women are murdered every day as victims of feminicide, making gender-based violence an urgent and pervasive crisis. In response to this extreme context of violence, feminist activists have developed creative, embodied forms of resistance and collective healing. One such practice is el bordado (embroidery), which holds a long tradition in feminist protest across Latin America. In this article, I explore the multiple and layered meanings of bordado in feminist activism, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork - including participant observation, field notes and group interviews - with two collectives in Mexico City: Las Siemprevivas and Fuentes Rojas. The results show that embroidery can become a form of emotional solidarity and collective healing, providing a way to express the "unspeakable", and share experiences of injustice and loss. Embroidery fosters the establishment of meaningful connections, "affective communities" and "de-privatising" the pain. Bordado also serves as a form of (counter-)memory work - dignifying and humanising the victims of feminicide while creating a "textile archive" against forgetting. The embroidery circles (juntanzas) offer spaces of mutual support, practices of care, and empowerment. Furthermore, as a political act of resistance and denunciation, activists carry the bordados to demonstrations, exhibit them in museums and public spaces across Mexico and globally. By occupying sidewalks and plazas, activists reclaim public space and transform urban landscapes into sites of counter-memory and feminist resistance. In doing so, they fight the normalisation of violence, oppose victim-blaming, and sensitise the public. In short, bordar (to embroider) is a political, affective, and artistic practice that challenges gender-based violence and enacts collective feminist resistance in Mexico.

Abstract This chapter expands on Boesch’s I-Theory and its relevance to work and industrial psychology, particularly in relation to job satisfaction. Within the framework of Boesch’s Symbolic Action Theory, the “I” is conceptualized as an integrative stance that negotiates private and social should-values, which function as overarching meaning-making systems guiding individual actions. These should-values should not be regarded as static but rather as dynamic elements that evolve over time. Consequently, the integrative stance of the individual is not a fixed ontological structure but an open system that continuously adjusts. This adaptability enables individuals to reassess past experiences and anticipate future developments, shaping their present conduct. Drawing on Boesch’s I-Theory, a more holistic approach to job satisfaction is proposed, employing the multiple blank method to systematically uncover personal and ecological determinants within the action field. These insights are further applied to the challenges of leadership. Finally, the chapter explores how Boesch’s theory contrasts with other overarching theoretical frameworks.

ABSTRACTThis introduction is part of a special section on the anthropology of anxiety. As a collection, it offers an innovative anthropological approach to anxiety as a social, political, and ontological condition rather than a clinical disorder. Each paper builds on theoretical and philosophical traditions, from Heidegger to Tillich to Lacan to Freud, to explore how anxiety inhabits fields of relations defined by radical social shifts, existential uncertainties, or political, moral, or ethical crises. What is unique about this collection is that each article argues anxiety is found when semantically overdetermined and conflicting scripts of the future, narratives of the past, and potentialities for selfhood collide. It defines anxiety as a condition of multiple disturbances that can inhabit various discourses and practices, affects and feelings, collective actions, and individual sensibilities. It emphasizes the leaky, destructive, emancipatory, and transformative nature of anxiety by examining institutional and political borderlands, liminal and multivocal identities, emerging and disrupting configurations of intimacy, and, by doing so, defines anxiety in relation to courage, love, desire, pain, hurt, and guilt rather than simply fear.

Various systematic reviews underscore the relevance of social support for resilience among refugees. This meta-analysis aims to determine the quantitative assessment of social support and resilience among refugees and the extent of the associations between social support and resilience among refugees. After a systematic literature search, we included twenty-three studies, and performed random-effects meta-regressions. Studies on resilience and social support among refugees very heterogeneously operationalize both constructs. While increases in social support among refugees accompany higher resilience in numerous studies, these associations are not significant. In contrast to previous reviews' conclusions, the current data cannot confirm a relationship between resilience and social support among refugees. Substantiated conclusions about the relationship between resilience and social support among refugees might be reached by a population-specific clear conceptualization and operationalization of the constructs, the content differentiation of the constructs, representative samples, and longitudinal and intervention studies.

As mass violence—especially that occurring during periods of war, colonialization, or foreign occupation—is generally accompanied by contested perceptions of geopolitical space, the subsequent question of where the violence took place is inevitable. This issue is of central importance for how we understand, commemorate, and teach these important historical events. Did the violence take place in the country that existed there before the violence began, in the country that existed at the time of the violence, in the country that covered that area after the violence had ended, or in the country to which that region now belongs? This set of four studies ( N = 841) examines how the geopolitical framing of historical violence influences perceptions of collective responsibility for that violence, and whether the effects of geopolitical framing extend across time and interpersonal communication partners. The findings suggest that by placing the violence within a given country, that nation was perceived as more responsible for it, an effect that continued to influence memory and assessments of responsibility over time. These effects also influenced how people told others about the violence, thereby influencing the subsequent assessments of others in a similar fashion.

Introduction: The Weight Control/Blame (WCB) subscale of the Antifat Attitudes Test (AFAT) measures weight stigma, particularly beliefs linking obesity to personal responsibility, which contributes to discrimination and negative psychological, often reinforced by political ideologies and authoritarian attitudes. This study sought to (1) develop and validate an economic version of the WCB subscale and (2) evaluate associations between weight stigmatizing attitudes, authoritarian beliefs, sexist attitudes, and conspiracy mentality. Methods: A four-item short form of the WCB subscale (WCB-4) was developed using a representative sample of the German population (N = 1,000) and validated on a second sample (N = 2,524). We assessed psychometric properties, convergent, and divergent validity. Results: The four-item solution demonstrated good internal consistency (ω = 0.807) and favorable confirmatory factor analysis results. Weight stigma positively correlated with authoritarian and sexist beliefs, and negatively with depression, anxiety, and body mass index. Conclusion: The WCB-4 is a reliable and valid tool for assessing weight stigma in epidemiological research. It highlighted positive associations with authoritarian beliefs and sexist attitudes, reflecting an interconnected system of biases against marginalized groups. Though a minor correlation was found between conspiracy mentality and authoritarian beliefs, no significant link emerged between conspiracy mentality and weight stigma.