THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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I. Identification of significant interpersonal contexts, fantasies, and corresponding object
relations derivatives
A table was created to provide a schematic organisation of six aspects of the subjects'
narratives. Each aspect was assigned a column in the table. Three aspects, namely self
representations, object representations, and the affect link between these representations,
derived from Kernberg's schema.
These aspects were obtained by identifying and
labelling constellations of self-other references in the subjects' narratives, and the
affective tone ofthese constellations. These constellations, it is inferred, signifY manifest
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derivatives ofunderlying internal object relations structures. The fourth aspect concerned
the interpersonal context in which the self and object representations were situated and
mobilised.
Identifying the interpersonal context serves to establish both the historicaldevelopmental
transactions from which self and object representations arise, as well as
the current transactional settings which elicit the experiential and behavioural
manifestation ofinternal object relations.
The fifth column was devoted to the subjects' fantasies relating to the identified
interactional contexts. This column includes, where relevant, two levels of interpretation.
The first level, which stays close to the conscious experience of the subjects, expresses
the subjects' explicit or implicit perceptions of the related interpersonal context.
These
fantasies are expressed as statements in the first person, to convey more vividly the
experiential quality of the subjective perceptions.
The second level (printed in italics
between square brackets) provides a psychoanalytic interpretation of the unconscious
mental processes inferred to underlie the more conscious level of fantasy.
These mental
processes involve introjective and projective mechanisms in relation to objects,
(
instinctual drive derivatives, anxieties, and defence mechanisms. These
metapsychologically explicit psychoanalytic interpretations are omitted on those
occasions when they either do not add to the first level understanding, or cannot be
readily inferred from first level statements.