Biomedical subjects

Marc-André Bouchard

Publications and source records attributed to Marc-André Bouchard.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Differential diagnosis between borderline personality disorder and organic personality disorder following traumatic brain injury.

Organic personality disorder (OPD) is the traditional diagnostic category used to account for personality disturbances after traumatic brain injury (TBI). The recent use of Axis-II personality disorders, notably borderline personality disorder (BPD), has appeared in the TBI literature as an alternative to OPD. This would presumably offer a better description and understanding of the multiple clinical manifestations of these personality changes and disorders. This article offers a view that it is possible and fruitful to use both diagnoses in a complementary manner. An accurate recognition of the respective phenomenologies of both BPD and OPD is a key factor in achieving a differential diagnosis, including, if required, a dual diagnosis. The phenomenology of both conditions in reference to DSM-IV criteria is compared and illustrated through two clinical vignettes.

Borderline Personality Disorder↗

PubMed2004

Analyzing forms of superego functioning as mentalizations.

The concept of mentalization seeks to understand the transformation processes of physical quantity into psychical quality through the emergence, development and organization of mental representations. Often discussed in relation to the functioning of both the id and the ego, it is here proposed that the degree of mentalization also determines the level of functioning and maturity of the hostile, self-punitive superego. Luquet's description of four layers of thought (primary mental representations, metaprimary thinking, metaconscious intuitive thinking, conscious verbal thought) serves as a guide to explore issues of the forms of thinking involved in punitive superego activity. Technical implications are also examined to suggest that three steps can be differentiated in the developing capacity to represent the superego and to become conscious of its workings. The first objective is to help the ego observe its own activity, in the face of a still, unobserved hostile endopsychic agent (Gray, 1994). The second step is to meet the form and intentions of this agent, to facilitate its mental representation and elaboration. Achievement of the final step implies a growing capacity to take some responsibility for this hostile inner agent, once its activity is comparatively more available to self-observation.

Cognition↗

PubMed2004

Linguistic styles and complementarities in analyzing character.

This paper discusses and illustrates some technical implications of D. Liberman's contributions to character analysis. Psychoanalysis is an extended conversation, and character structure is expressed linguistically as part of an interactive linguistic field. Liberman's notions of linguistic styles and communicative interaction define a unique analytic surface from which to examine the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects of character. The presence of a rigid and defensive linguistic style reflects resistance and communicative impasse within the transference and countertransference matrix. A fully interactive communicative experience integrates all aspects of the conversation and allows both participants to take part in a shared semantic field, the precondition to the generation of new meanings. Liberman suggests responding to miscommunication by means of a methodical linguistic attitude. Various such complementary responses are explored through several vignettes, with a particular focus on the interplay of the epic and narrative modes.

Character↗