At the crossroads of psychoanalysis and neuroscience

Recent advances in the cognitive, affective and social neurosciences have enabled these fields to study aspects of the mind that are central to psychoanalysis. These developments raise a number of possibilities for psychoanalysis. Can it engage the neurosciences in a productive and mutually enriching dialogue without compromising its own integrity and unique perspective? While many analysts welcome interdisciplinary exchanges with the neuro-sciences, termed neuropsychoanalysis, some have voiced concerns about their potentially deleterious effects on psychoanalytic theory and practice. In this paper we outline the development and aims of neuropsychoanalysis, and consider its reception in psychoanalysis and in the neurosciences. We then discuss some of the concerns raised within psychoanalysis, with particular emphasis on the epistemological foundations of neuropsychoanalysis. While this paper does not attempt to fully address the clinical applications of neuropsychoanal-ysis, we offer and discuss a brief case illustration in order to demonstrate that neuroscientific research findings can be used to enrich our models of the mind in ways that, in turn, may influence how analysts work with their patients. We will conclude that neuropsychoanalysis is grounded in the history of psychoanalysis , that it is part of the psychoanalytic worldview, and that it is necessary , albeit not sufficient, for the future viability of psychoanalysis.

International Forum of Psychoanalysis, 2010

The relations between psychoanalysis and neuroscience have undergone considerable changes during the last two decades. From the cool distance that was maintained on both sides, a new neuroscientific basis has emerged for a dialogue between psychoanalysis and neuroscience. A crucial question then arises about the identity of psychoanalysis in this dialogue. What will be the effects of the growing impact of neuroscientific discoveries on psychoanalysis? Freud regarded psychoanalysis and the natural sciences as having a similar epistemological foundation determined by their relation to unknown aspects of reality. The author proposes that this viewpoint creates equal ground for psychoanalysis and neuroscience in their evolving mutual relationships. In the clinical realm, however, psychoanalysis cannot work without clinical, developmental, and metapsychological premises, which render clinical ontological autonomy to psychoanalysis in its relationship with the other sciences. This fact also needs to be taken into account when brain imaging techniques are applied to outcome research of psychotherapy.

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2001

This review discusses the relationship between neuroscience and psychoanalysis and introduces a new scientific method called neuro-psychoanalysis, a combination of the two phenomena. A significant difference between the two is that psychoanalysis has not evolved scientifically since it has not developed objective methods for testing ideas that it had formulated earlier. In contrast, neuroscience includes a range of subsidiary disciplines, each having its own specific methods used to study different aspects of the nervous system. The review specifically discusses the neurodynamics of dreaming and provides evidence that dreams are motivated by certain phenomena. It reviews information on Broca's aphasia to demonstrate that not all brain-injured patients are alike. The review assists in explaining why patients with right-hemisphere lesions who have only access to the intact positive emotions of the left hemisphere often feel inappropriately positive about their condition, whereas depression is much more common in patients who have only access to the negative emotions generated by the intact right hemisphere. It concludes that both sciences can make a contribution to each other, and that the predictive gap between neural and psychoanalysis processes can best be narrowed through the development of a conciliatory framework. (Contains 30 references.) (JDM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.

Collegium antropologicum, 2008

The "inner world" of the mind was, in the past, the traditional preserve of psychoanalysis and related disciplines, and it was therefore placed at the margins of neural science. During 1990-ies numerous investigations in the field of neuroscience have led to significant findings, which explain biological correlates ofpsychological functions. There are much scientific evidence that support association between psychoanalysis and neuroscience. Psychoanalysis offers a unique in-depth perspective on the psychology of human motivation, and furthermore has contributions both to make and to receive in the gathering scientific integration.

2021

The present work discusses widely and with well-founded arguments, the current view of autism and the way that the neurosciences developments, added to prejudices, are used to disqualify psychoanalysis as a treatment in this field. It analyzes five of the so-called “myths” in this article. They were originated in the historical oscillation of paradigms, that at one time emphasized the environment in the aetiology of autism and today emphasizes the biological, without true integration and without knowledge of the pyschoanalytical approach from an updated perspective. The author supports the hypothesis that the common denominator as well as the heterogeneity of the DSM V category of ASDs is explained by various combinations of neurobiological vulnerability factors that prevent the adequate reception of responses from the environment and lead to a similar response modality, observed in the behavior and autistic maneuvers. She also maintains that psychoanalysis focuses on the subjectifi...

Frenis Zero, 2020

The article criticizes the idea of integrating neurobiology and psychotherapy based mainly on the study of psychoanalysis and neuropsychoanalysis. The author focuses on the philosophical and methodological problems which arise from attempts to carry out this integration. The article presents the view that this approach is a harmful reduction. It also proposes a look at the relationship between psychotherapy and neurobiology as an area of cooperation that avoids the confusion of theoretical languages.

2018

That knowledge is conceived in the hot womb of violence …' 'Oxford' W.H. Auden (2004) The question of whether psychoanalysis and the neurosciences need each other is often posed in the scientific literature, but never adequately resolved. Publications by a variety of authors, amongst them Mark Solms & Oliver Turnbull (2002), Eric Kandel (1999), Regina Pally (2000) and others, as well as ongoing debates in learned journals including Neuropsychoanalysis attest to this-even the theme of the 10 th International Neuropsychoanalysis Congress in Paris was a variation on this very topic. As most contributions to the ongoing debate tend to be in favor of need, the position I would like to advance in this paper, is the defense of the autonomy of psychoanalysis i.e. to present psychoanalysis as an independent, stand-alone discipline, inter pares with every other discipline including neuroscience, and not in need of any one of them. The proposition that psychoanalysis is the science of subjectivity, has been widely promoted and

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2012

One of the counterarguments against empirical research in psychoanalysis is that research negatively infl uences the treatment situation. In this paper, the impact of a neurobiological study on psychoanalytically oriented treatments is presented from three different perspectives: patients ' views, a study group of participating psychoanalysts and a clinical case example. Twenty chronically depressed patients, 20 healthy controls and 16 psychoanalysts participated in the project on research. Results show a clear infl uence of the neurobiological study on the course of treatments. Patients consistently reported that study participation had a positive impact on their treatment experiences. However, study participation was confl ictual for the psychoanalysts and forced them to carefully refl ect on their unconscious and conscious involvement to establish a psychoanalytic stance independent from empirical research.

Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience: The Bridge Between Mind and Brain, 2019

In 1895 in the Project for a Scientific Psychology, Freud tried to integrate psychology and neurology in order to develop a neuroscientific psychology. Since 1880, Freud made no distinction between psychology and physiology. His papers from the end of the 1880s to 1890 were very clear on this scientific overlap: as with many of his contemporaries, Freud thought about psychology essentially as the physiology of the brain. Years later he had to surrender, realizing a technological delay, not capable of pursuing its ambitious aim, and until that moment psychoanalysis would have to use its more suitable clinical method. Also, he seemed skeptical about phrenology drift, typical of that time, in which any psychological function needed to be located in its neuroanatomical area. He could not see the progresses of neuroscience and its fruitful dialogue with psychoanalysis, which occurred also thanks to the improvements in the field of neuroimaging, which has made possible a remarkable advance in the knowledge of the mind-brain system and a better observation of the psychoanalytical theories. After years of investigations, deriving from research and clinical work of the last century, the discovery of neural networks, together with the free energy principle, we are observing under a new light psychodynamic neuroscience in its exploration of the mind-brain system. In this manuscript, we summarize the important developments of psychodynamic neuroscience, with particular regard to the free energy principle, the resting state networks, especially the Default Mode Network in its link with the Self, emphasizing our view of a bridge between psychoanalysis and neuroscience. Finally, we suggest a discussion by approaching the concept of Alpha Function, proposed by the psychoanalyst Wilfred Ruprecht Bion, continuing the association with neuroscience. The real difference lies rather in the fact that the kind and direction of the physical vectors in Aristotelian dynamics are completely determined in advance by the nature of the object concerned. In modern physics, on the contrary, the existence of a physical vector always depends upon the mutual relations of several physical facts, especially upon the relation of the object to its environment. Levin (1935), p. 35.