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Biomedical subjects

N Yampey

Publications and source records attributed to N Yampey.

11 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1994

[The myth of the good savage].

The conquest of the New World gave way to the myth of the Good Savage. For the Renaissance intellectuals, the ancient ideas about the Golden Age (an ideal society promising an unending bliss) seemed to be brought back to life at last. Sharply contrasting with the European exacerbated unrest of the time, America stood for a redeeming hope, a symbol of a better future. The myth of the Good Savage assumes people to be naturally good, but civilization has led them into the realm of violence, hatred, and cruelty. Besides being naturally good, nice-minded people, "good savages" were also useful, obedient people, most likely to be easily exploited by Europeans--a source for the historical drama to come. On the verge of freeing itself from the Spanish rule, Latin America--fighting its way toward independence, had three enlightened mentors: Voltaire, Rousseau, and Montesquieu. There, again, another deep contrast arose between the abstract characteristics of Latin American aims to perfection, and people's actual behaviors. The former "good savage" became the modern "Latin American" embodying an utopia as well as a hope in his eagerness for setting up a plural, and humanized culture. The myth of the Good Savage represents a deep longing for an objectivation of the ego-ideal: it has been used, so to speak, in collective mobilizations as well as dogmatic crystallizations, to escape from ignominous realities or to project alternatives for a better socially-shared life.

History, 15th Century↗
PubMed1993

[The myth of the saint of the sword].

The authors delve into an Argentine enigma: The character of Gen. José de San Martin--a historical figure that has been sacralized as Father of the Homeland, and hailed by historians as a saint with a sword. A short biographical sketch is offered prior to an analysis of Gen. San Martin's psychological traits coupled to his work with masonic lodges that allowed him to display his abilities as strategist and political ruler. The mystery of his giving up his military and political tasks after his meeting with Simon Bolivar in Guayaquil can be compared to an epilogue to the "destiny" of a paradigmatic hero. Such a paradigm unites Gen. San Martin's own traits on the one hand, and a longing for a powerful fatherly image among Latin American communities, on the other hand. San Martin was no saint, no prophet, and no "shrewd half-breed" whose ultimate ambitions fell apart: Instead, he was a stoic revolutionary very much "de son temps"--however, his fellow countrymen simply cannot accept or admit that he was no worshipper or that his were very human qualities, and defects.

Anthropology, Cultural↗
PubMed1992

[Creative moments during analytical processes].

Examples from his clinical work are used by the author to illustrate creative instances during analysis. First, there appear a dis-idealization and a threat of chaos, followed by mourning, reparation and sublimation. The creative function originates in a patient's attempt to objectify his or her ego in different ways--which involves a phantasy of being re-born in order to love someone and be loved in turn. It represents a triumph of life over death, of health over madness. In other words, the creative function means putting psychic chaos into order with pre-existing elements by means of original, new, better-integrated changes.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

[Change and conflict].

Owing to the all-accelerating rhythm in present life changes, alienation is likely to be envisioned as the main feature of our time. To the traditional change factors handed down through centuries on, modern life patterns add fresh ones up, ss: 1) transformations at an accelerated pace, b) evolution of both scientific knowledge and technology, c) development of massive media, d) political challenges, e) crisis of both life and relationships models, f) crisis in ideologies and the scientific as well as the philosophical principles, and g) intense transculturation. These challenges are to be met by means of a permanent learning i.e. Man is to enterprise an educating process aiming at a body, character, and spirit forming up of every individual within the frame of his very culture. It is also suggested that the mourning process is essential to either success or failure in changes to be achieved.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1985

[The myth of the Gaucho Martín Fierro].

The Gaucho Martín Fierro, written by José Hernández in 1872 and 1879, is today considered the most beautiful of the original productions of the River Plate literature. It is the one that best represents the mentality and the individual and social attitudes and customs of the common people. Hernández re-creates not only their rustic speech, but also the natural prosody peculiar to the peasant. Most especially, he gives vivid and pathetic shape to the myth of the gaucho in his context: the rural community in its early stages. This paper analyzes the epic nature of the poem (its glamour of adventure, courage and destiny), its nature as a national epic (depecting the values and aspirations of a developing society) and especially its character as a mythical prototype (referring to origins, to destiny and to a "primitive crime"). This myth is embodied by a stoic and conflictive figure, product of an ethnic mixture, but more essentially of transculturation. The conflict and dissociations are revealed as much by the two contrasting parts of the poem as by the vicissitudes of Hernández' own life. The psychological, historical, social and political effects of the poem are analyzed. Argentines have identified themselves on several planes with this mythical hero, since Martín Fierro represents the drama of dissociation, trikery, and unsuccessful attempts at social integration or compromise throughout Argentina's dramatic history.

Argentina↗
PubMed1981

[The transcultural process in Latin America].

Are we living in an age of rapid changes, or are we actually experiencing an existencial mutation? The author believes the analysis of today's transcultural processes in Latin America to be vital to the understanding of the society which is an emergent of these processes. He defines the concepts of transculturation, aculturation, adaptation creative integration and of assimilation in its biological, cultural and religious aspects. He outlines the general characteristics of a complex problem: the unity or heterogenity of the Latin American people with relation to the interaction, juxtaposition or synthesis of their different indigenous, european and african cultures over a period of four centuries. He classifies five ideological proposals which have arisen from this process: 1) the ultraconservative proposal; 2) the nationalistic proposal; 3) the indigenistic proposal; 4) the proposal of imitation; 5) the proposal of a transcendent synthesis. The subject is the transcultural process in persons who have migrated from rural areas to large cities, and from one country to another. The author describes four adoptive or integrative phases; he emphasizes that this experience implies mourning, transition and working-through for both the individual and the community. Migrants are faced with "horizontal" as well as "vertical" mobility, thus having to deal with a mobilization implying changes which may cause persecutory, depresive and confusional anxieties. These crises test the person's degree of individuation and identity, as reflected in different types of behavior.

Acculturation↗
PubMed1980

[The concept of happiness].

The author points to the universal character of this complex psychic reality, i.e. happiness, and intends to define and describe its characteristics. Etymologically speaking, it means joy that is experienced through the object reached or the objective achieved, achievements which presuppose activity and effort. This psychological state is a pleasant, relative and dynamic one and shows itself up through the impulses that lead to spontaneous actions which are in harmony with the fundamental tendencies of the subject. They are not alien to running risks and to the will of victory. Some people believe happiness is attained at random, others think it is an art and a science to be developped by voluntary effort. Limited as it is by the order of universe and human constitution, its being a spiritual condition conveys a transcendency to it but by the same token it implies the sacrifice of immediate pleasure. Love between two people is its paramount paradigm. Love originates in sexual attraction but in its development and at its summit there is tenderness and companionship in a mutual relation between two people who share their genitality. Individual happiness is inseparable of collective happiness and on this idea stands social welfare. From the psychoanalytical point of view, the feeling of happiness relates itself to the personality as a whole and presupposes the cooperation in harmony of all the constituents of the self. It occurs when there is an experience of unity between Ego and World, Id or Ego Ideal, unity which is a consequence of having liberated oneself from the repressive instance. It is the result of a synthetic process, is essentially endogenous and is reached by the linking force of narcissistic libido. It is submitted to internal laws, that is why it possesses a passing condition. Enjoyment of happiness presupposes psychic integration and in this sense it is related to the modern health approach as stated by World Health Organization. In this conference both concepts, i.e., happiness and health are correlated.

Happiness↗