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Donnel Stern and I met in the spring of 2016, when I was a fourth year candidate at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. He had begun teaching a new course there in interpersonal and relational psychoanalysis. I soon became fascinated with the contrast between the relational perspective and the classical one; the latter was more familiar to me from my education and training. In the years since, Don served as discussant in a clinical case presentation, and I have participated in a weekly study group he leads. More importantly, he functioned as one of several, crucial interlocutors that helped shape my development as a psychoanalyst. I came to understand his perspective further through an in-depth, critical study and consideration of his own work, mine, and that of others and came to count on him as a friend and colleague. What follows is a rather wide-ranging discussion between Don and me about his views and experiences as a psychoanalyst. It begins with an exploration of aspects of his life that affected his outlook on the profession of psychoanalysis, and then moves into a discussion about the nature of the practice itself. In the process, I expressed my own related but somewhat distinct views. Our conversation ventured freely into the meaning of each of our own experiences as psychoanalysts, with the hope that this may be of interest in thinking about psychoanalysis more generally. No part of the discussion is prescriptive regarding what psychoanalysis or a psychoanalyst should be. Our hope is that the interview provides an important articulation of Don's unique theoretical perspective, but in a fashion that remains approachable. What follows is simply a discussion between two people from different backgrounds who found a way to explore a variety of significant ideas with one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantifying predator–prey interactions and gaining insights into predator behavior are crucial for optimizing restoration strategies. However, such knowledge is often lacking for marine invertebrates. We examined potential impacts of predation by channeled Busycotypus canaliculatus and knobbed whelks Busycon carica on natural and planted populations of bay scallops in the Peconic Bays, New York, through laboratory and field investigations. In lab experiments, mean predation rates exhibited by small channeled whelks were low: 0.06 and 0.005 scallops d−1 for adult and juvenile scallops, respectively. Predation rates of small knobbed whelks on juvenile scallops were 22 × higher. Eighty-six percent (86%) of scallops consumed by channeled whelks had undamaged shells, while 73% eaten by knobbed whelks had notched ventral margins. In field plots where scallop densities were manipulated via removals/plantings, whelks consumed ~ 2% of ~ 19,100 planted juveniles, whereas crabs and presumably finfish consumed > 40% overall. Acoustic telemetry revealed that tagged channeled whelks moved shorter distances and spent more time in plots planted with scallops versus those without scallops. Whelks spent more time in low versus high-density plots, but consumed far more scallops in the latter. In trials without scallops, whelk movement rates were 5 × higher, presumably due to increased exploratory behavior. Overall, whelks were most active during crepuscular hours and during periods of increasing wind speeds. Our results, combined with population abundance data, suggest that whelks (especially B. carica) are drawn to planted bay scallop aggregations, but probably contribute to relatively low overall mortality in the context of restoration efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In respect to ecological psychology processes of attunement and calibration, this critical review focusses on how exploratory behaviors may contribute to skilled perception and action, with particular attention to sport. Based on the theoretical insights of Gibson (The senses considered as perceptual systems, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1966) and Reed (Encountering the world: Toward an ecological psychology, Oxford University Press, New York, 1996), exploratory and performatory actions have been differentiated in numerous experiments to study the perception of opportunities of action. The distinction between exploratory and performatory actions has informed the study of infant behavior in developmental psychology. In the current article, we highlight limitations with this distinction in the study of sports performers. We propose that a dynamic view of exploratory behavior would reveal how individuals develop exploratory activity that generates information about the fit between environmental properties and action capabilities. In this aim, practitioners should: (1) give learners the opportunity to safely develop exploratory behaviors even when they act outside their action boundary; and (2) guide learners to search for more reliable information to develop exploratory behaviors that would enhance the transfer of skills to various performance contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]