The Case for Neuropsychoanalysis
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Reich Was Right
Reich Was Right Self Regulation from Wilhelm Reich to Contemporary Applied N Euroscience' By JAcquEline A. Carleton Introduction thnis paper, I begin to explore the reie/a:-::e o~ Reich'sthought, especially his OCIS;C CrnC.C.E of self regulation, to contemporary ne.iro- Iscientific research and to neuroscientificafly- based treatments of trauma. The two treatments I have selected to reference for this paper are Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing© and Pat Ogden's Sensorimotor Processing©. In subsequent papers, many of the topics only touched upon lightly will be greatly expanded? After a brief introduction, this paper will be divided into 5 sections: " 1. Reich, Freud and Self Regulation 2. Reich and the Autonomic Nervous System 3. Reich, Pierrakos and Contemporary Neuroscience 4. Neuroscientific Principles in Adult Treatment 5. Case Vignette and Conclusion For Reich, self regulation was a philosophy of chil- drearing as well as a principle of healthy adult func- tioning throughout the lifespan. He was particularly interested in the prevention of developmental trauma and of shock trauma to infants, especially newborns. In the late 1930's, as an outgrowth of his theoretical and clinical experience with adults and his profound interest 1 An EarliEr version ofthis papEr wAs presentED At tHE European AssocIAtion For BoDy Psychotherapy ConFErence, November 8-1 I, 2008, Paris. 2 One oF tHE areas I finD fascinAting Is complEx selF-organizInG systems theory. OnE Could view selF rEgulAtion As onE aspECt oF tHE Human psycHE/nErvous systEm's selF-orGAnization. TBAt is Bow REICH saw It. 26 Jacqueline A. Carleton Reich Was Right in children, Wilhelm Reichbegan to formulate a theory of [More generally,] sublimation of instinct is an especially child-rearing and healthy adult functioning that he and conspicuous feature of cultural development; it is what his followers would refer to as "self regulation". -
From Dynamic Lesions to Brain Imaging of Behavioral Lesions: Alloying the Gold of Psychoanalysis with the Copper of Suggestion
Neuropsychoanalysis, 2010, 12 (1) 5 From Dynamic Lesions to Brain Imaging of Behavioral Lesions: Alloying the Gold of Psychoanalysis with the Copper of Suggestion Amir Raz (Montreal) & Joanna B. Wolfson (New York) Contemporary studies in the cognitive neuroscience of attention and suggestion shed new light on psychoanalytic concepts of yore. Findings from neuroimaging studies, for example, seem to revive the notion of dynamic lesions—focal brain changes undetectable by anatomical scrutiny. With technologies such as brain imaging and reversible brain lesion, some findings from modern biological psychiatry seem to converge with nineteenth-century psychiatry, reminiscent of the old masters. In particular, suggestion has been shown to modulate specific neural activity in the human brain. Here we show that “behavioral lesions”—the influence that words exert on focal brain activity—may constitute the twenty-first-century appellation of “dynamic lesions.” While recent research results involving suggestion seem to partially support Freudian notions, correlating psychoanalysis with its brain substrates remains difficult. We elucidate the incipient role of cognitive neuroscience, including the relative merits and inherent limitations of imaging the living human brain, in explaining psychoanalytic concepts. Keywords: fMRI; genetics; hypnosis; neuroscience; ontology; suggestion “It is very probable, too, that the large-scale application of Indeed, these psychological constructs draw on over- our therapy will compel us to alloy the pure gold of analysis lapping brain circuitry, functional neuroanatomy, neuro- freely with the copper of direct suggestion . .” modulators, and cellular structure (Fernandez-Duque Sigmund Freud, Fifth International Psycho-Analytical & Posner, 2001; Posner & Fan, 2004; Raz, 2006; Raz, Congress, Budapest (Freud, 1919 [1918], pp. -
Mapping the Cerebral Subject in Contemporary Culture DOI: 10.3395/Reciis.V1i2.90En
[www.reciis.cict.fiocruz.br] ISSN 1981-6286 Researches in Progress Mapping the cerebral subject in contemporary culture DOI: 10.3395/reciis.v1i2.90en Francisco Fernando Vidal Max Planck Institute for the Ortega History of Science, Berlin, Instituto de Medicina Social Germany da Universidade do Estado [email protected] do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil [email protected] Abstract The research reported here aims at mapping the “cerebral subject” in contemporary society. The term “cerebral subject” refers to an anthropological figure that embodies the belief that human beings are essentially reducible to their brains. Our focus is on the discourses, images and practices that might globally be designated as “neurocul- ture.” From public policy to the arts, from the neurosciences to theology, humans are often treated as reducible to their brains. The new discipline of neuroethics is eminently symptomatic of such a situation; other examples can be drawn from science fiction in writing and film; from practices such as “neurobics” or cerebral cryopreservation; from neurophilosophy and the neurosciences; from debates about brain life and brain death; from practices of intensive care, organ transplantation, and neurological enhancement and prosthetics; from the emerging fields of neuroesthe- tics, neurotheology, neuroeconomics, neuroeducation, neuropsychoanalysis and others. This research in progress traces the diversity of neurocultures, and places them in a larger context characterized by the emergence of somatic “bioidentities” that replace psychological and internalistic notions of personhood. It does so by examining not only discourses and representations, but also concrete social practices, such as those that take shape in the politically powerful “neurodiversity” movement, or in vigorously commercialized “neuroascetic” disciplines of the self. -
Preliminaries for an Integration of Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience Mark Solms, Ph.D
(2000). Annual of Psychoanalysis, 28:179-200 Preliminaries for an Integration of Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience Mark Solms, Ph.D. It is not difficult to understand why the relationship between psychoanalysis and neuroscience should interest us. Psychoanalysis is a science of the mind, and we have known since ancient times that the activities of the mind are in some intimate way connected with the tissues of the brain. This connection was established, from the start, on clinical grounds. Physicians through the ages recognized that diseases of the brain–unlike those of any other organ–had immediate effects on the functions of the mind. The celebrated case of Phineas Gage, which was first reported in 1848, is classically cited in this context (Harlow, 1948, Harlow 1968). A tamping rod passed through the frontal lobes of his brain, with the following results: “His physical health is good, and I am inclined to say that he has recovered … [but] his mind was radically changed, so decidedly that his friends and acquaintances said that he was ‘no longer Gage’” (Harlow, 1868). Observations such as these, which demonstrate that the brain and the personality are inextricable, make it clear that the object of study in psychoanalysis is somehow intrinsically connected with the object of study of neuroscience. Freud himself recognized this fact in his neurological writings, and he continued to acknowledge it throughout his psychological writings. Nevertheless psychoanalysis developed almost completely independently of neuroscience. We all know the reason for this: Despite the fact that Freud acknowledged that ‘the mental apparatus… is also known to us in the form of an anatomical preparation,’ as he put it (Freud, 1900, p. -
Files/2014 Women and the Big Picture Report.Pdf>, Accessed 6 September 2018
The neuroscientific uncanny: a filmic investigation of twenty-first century hauntology GENT, Susannah <http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0091-2555> Available from the Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive (SHURA) at: http://shura.shu.ac.uk/26099/ A Sheffield Hallam University thesis This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Please visit http://shura.shu.ac.uk/26099/ and http://shura.shu.ac.uk/information.html for further details about copyright and re-use permissions. THE NEUROSCIENTIFIC UNCANNY: A FILMIC INVESTIGATION OF TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY HAUNTOLOGY Susannah Gent A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Sheffield Hallam University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy October 2019 Candidate Declaration I hereby declare that: 1. I have not been enrolled for another award of the University, or other academic or professional organisation, whilst undertaking my research degree. 2. None of the material contained in the thesis has been used in any other submission for an academic award. 3. I am aware of and understand the University’s policy on plagiarism and certify that this thesis is my own work. The use of all published or other sources of material consulted have been properly and fully acknowledged. 4. The work undertaken towards the thesis has been conducted in accordance with the SHU Principles of Integrity in Research and the SHU Research Ethics Policy. -
The Scientific Standing of Psychoanalysis
Landman P. (2013) Tristesse Business; le Scandale du DSM 5. Editions Naccache L. (2006) Le Nouvel Inconscient. Freud, Christophe Colomb Milo. des Neurosciences. Odile Jacob. Lehembre O. (2004) Qui sommes-nous? Que faisons-nous? Une Roudinesco E. (1982) Histoire de la Psychanalyse en France, vol. 1. enquête du Syndicat des Psychiatres Français et de l’Association Le Seuil (réédition Fayard 1994). Française de Psychiatrie. La Lettre de Psychiatrie Française, 31, 15–19. Roudinesco E. (1986) Histoire de la Psychanalyse en France, vol. 2. Ménéchal J. (2008) Psychanalyse et Politique. ERES. Le Seuil (réédition Fayard 1994). THEMATIC The scientific standing of psychoanalysis PAPER Mark Solms University of Cape Town, South • We need to destroy frustrating objects Africa; This paper summarises the core scientific email [email protected] claims of psychoanalysis and rebuts the (things that get between us and satisfac- prejudice that it is not ‘evidence-based’.I tion of our needs). This is rage. Conflicts of interest. None. • address the following questions. (A) How does We need to attach to caregivers (those who look after us). Separation from © The Author 2018. This is an the emotional mind work, in health and fi Open Access article, distributed disease? (B) Therefore, what does attachment gures is felt not as fear under the terms of the Creative but as panic, and loss of them is felt as Commons Attribution- psychoanalytic treatment aim to achieve? ‘ NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (C) How effective is it? despair. (The whole of attachment the- licence (http://creativecommons. ory’ relates to vicissitudes of this need.) org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which • permits non-commercial re-use, We need to care for and nurture others, distribution, and reproduction in especially our offspring. -
BRAINHOOD, ANTHROPOLOGICAL FIGURE of MODERNITY 7 to Support in Detail Such a Thesis, I Want to Suggest That It Makes Both Histori- Cal and Conceptual Sense
HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES Vol. 22 No. 1 © The Author(s), 2009. Reprints and Permissions: pp. 5–36 http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav [22:1; 5–36; DOI: 10.1177/0952695108099133] Brainhood, anthropological figure of modernity FERNANDO VIDAL ABSTRACT If personhood is the quality or condition of being an individual person, brainhood could name the quality or condition of being a brain. This ontological quality would define the ‘cerebral subject’ that has, at least in industrialized and highly medicalized societies, gained numerous social inscriptions since the mid-20th century. This article explores the historical development of brainhood. It suggests that the brain is necessarily the location of the ‘modern self’, and that, consequently, the cerebral subject is the anthropological figure inherent to modernity (at least insofar as modernity gives supreme value to the individual as autonomous agent of choice and initiative). It further argues that the ideology of brainhood impelled neuroscientific investigation much more than it resulted from it, and sketches how an expanding constellation of neurocultural discourses and practices embodies and sustains that ideology. Key words brainhood, brain imaging, cerebral subject, modernity, neuroculture, self INTRODUCTION The hype about neuroscientific results, especially those that come in the form of brain scans, began in the early 1990s, and shows no signs of relenting. It is not, however, a purely media event. In addition to the manifold develop- ments it might be connected to – from the rise of biological psychiatry and Downloaded from hhs.sagepub.com at Mina Rees Library/CUNY Graduate Center on February 21, 2015 6 HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES 22(1) the interests of pharmaceutical industries to the privatization of health systems and the interests of insurance companies – the neuroscientific hype highlights the ascendancy, throughout industrialized and highly medicalized societies, of a certain view of the human being. -
Freud, Luria and the Clinical Method Introduction the Historical Origins
] (2000). Psychoanalysis and History, 2:76-109 Freud, Luria and the Clinical Method Mark Solms Introduction One of the pressing problems facing psychoanalysis today is its relationship with the neurological sciences. The educated public in most developed countries (and especially in the United States of America) seem to have concluded that psychoanalytical therapies, research methods and theories are - to say the least - no longer at the cutting edge of mental science. Almost all the generally recognized therapeutic, technical and scientific advances in recent years have emanated from neuroscience. How should we respond to this situation? Is the educated public misinformed? Are the recent advances in mental science not really advances at all? Are they concerned with a fundamentally different subject matter? Do they have nothing at all to teach us? Can we simply ignore them? I want to show how an historical study of the origins and early development of our discipline can shed light on these questions, and thereby guide us in our current and future efforts to grapple with this problem. The Historical Origins of Psychoanalysis in Neuroscience Psychoanalysis, we are told by Freud, was born in 1895 or 1900 or somewhere in between. But when we identify the birthdate of psychoanalysis in this way, we should not forget that its birth was preceded by a long period of gestation, which included two decades of painstaking neuroscientific research. During that period (1877-1900), Freud published more than 200 books, articles and reviews (Meyer-Palmedo & Fichtner 1982), including numerous significant contributions (Jellife 1937; Brun 1936; Jones 1953; Vogel 1955; Triarhou & Del Cerro 1985), some of which established Freud as a leading international authority in the specialized fields of aphasia and cerebral palsy (Stengel 1954; - 76 - Vogel 1956; Russin 1968; Accardo 1982). -
The Neural Basis of the Dynamic Unconscious
Neuropsychoanalysis, 2011, 13 (1) 5 The Neural Basis of the Dynamic Unconscious Heather A. Berlin (New York) A great deal of complex cognitive processing occurs at the unconscious level and affects how humans behave, think, and feel. Sci- entists are only now beginning to understand how this occurs on the neural level. Understanding the neural basis of consciousness requires an account of the neural mechanisms that underlie both conscious and unconscious thought, and their dynamic interac- tion. For example, how do conscious impulses, thoughts, or desires become unconscious (e.g., repression) or, conversely, how do unconscious impulses, desires, or motives become conscious (e.g., Freudian slips)? Research taking advantage of advances in technologies, like functional magnetic resonance imaging, has led to a revival and re-conceptualization of some of the key concepts of psychoanalytic theory, but steps toward understanding their neural basis have only just commenced. According to psychoanalytic theory, unconscious dynamic processes defensively remove anxiety-provoking thoughts and impulses from consciousness in re- sponse to one’s conflicting attitudes. The processes that keep unwanted thoughts from entering consciousness include repression, suppression, and dissociation. In this literature review, studies from psychology and cognitive neuroscience in both healthy and patient populations that are beginning to elucidate the neural basis of these phenomena are discussed and organized within a con- ceptual framework. Further studies in this emerging field at the intersection of psychoanalytic theory and neuroscience are needed. Keywords: unconscious; psychodynamic; repression; suppression; dissociation; neural “Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.” 1998a). Early psychodynamic theorists attempted to Ludwig Wittgenstein [1889–1951] explain phenomena observed in the clinic, but lat- er cognitive scientists used computational models of the mind to explain empirical data. -
Humoural Bodies and Balanced Minds
Situating Mental Illness: Between Scientific Certainty and Personal Narrative Berlin, 28-29 April 2011 Humoural bodies and balanced minds It’s a tall order to speak after these wonderfully rich, wide-ranging, provocative papers – and thank you Giovanni for your generous invitation, and for organizing such a stimulating conference. Since my talk closes it, I want to take us further away from where we stand today than we have so far – beyond the immediate European past, beyond the immediate cultural framework within which we have been speaking, and also into our bodies. I would begin, if you may, on a personal note – for my father died exactly one year ago today. So today is his Jahrzeit, and it seems perfect to mark it here - he would be proud to see me standing at this podium, and I would like to think he would appreciate what I have to say now. He died without believing in an after-life – he was too much of a naturalist, too passionate a follower of scientific endeavours to imagine that anything could survive our bodies once they stopped working, to believe that the mind could outlive the brain. He believed in some sort of soul, I think, but did not dare pronounce himself as to the possibility of its survival. Survival was of the work – he was a painter, and his work is what remains of his embodied existence.[2] He counted on that to be the case. Of course genetic material also survives – and indeed, he died knowing I was carrying a baby, his grandson, who was born two months later, guaranteeing a continuum, and representing a genetic reincarnation of sorts. -
A Quoi Sert La Dépression? Une Perspective Neuro-Psychanalytique
Psychotherapie - Wissenschaft (2011) 2 : 85-93 Originalarbeit Mark Solms1 A Neuropsychoanalytic Perspective: What is Depression for? Kurzfassung: Als Psychoanalytiker glaube ich, dass bewusste seelische Phänomene (wie z.B. Gefühle) in Bezug auf die Arbeit des Gehirns kein Epiphänomen sind. Gefühle haben sich aus guten biologischen Gründen entwickelt; sie liefern spezifische, konkrete Beiträge zum (unbewussten) Funktionieren des Gehirns. Ungeachtet all der philosophischen Komplexitäten (siehe Solms 1997) sind die Interaktionen zwischen diesen bewussten und unbewussten Funktionen meiner Meinung nach kausale Interaktionen. Das heißt, Gefühle spielen eine Rolle; sie bewirken etwas. Die Tendenz moderner Neurowissenschaftler (und biologisch orientierter Psychiater), das Bewusstsein in Bezug auf die Arbeitsweise des Gehirns zu marginalisieren, führt sie wahrscheinlich sehr in die Irre. Hier stelle ich diese Sicht dar, indem ich versuche die Frage anzugehen: Wozu dient die Depression? Schlüsselwörter: Depression; Gefühle; bewusste seelische Phänomene; das Funktionieren des Gehirns; Neurowissenschaft. Abstract: As a psychoanalyst, I believe that conscious mental phenomena (such as feelings) are not epiphenomenal to the workings of the brain. Feelings evolved for good biological reasons; they make specific, concrete contributions to (unconscious) brain functioning. Notwithstanding all the philosophical complexities (see Solms 1997) the interactions between these consciousness and unconscious functions are, in my view, causal interactions. That is -
What's the Point of Neuropsychoanalysis?
The British Journal of Psychiatry (2013) 203, 170–171. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.113.127217 Reappraisal What’s the point of neuropsychoanalysis? Franck Ramus Summary Neuropsychoanalysis is a new school of thought attempting neuroscientists. The present paper discusses whether such to bridge neuroscience and psychoanalysis. Yet few support is warranted. neuroscientists and psychiatrists would have heard of it if it had not recently received public support from notable Declaration of interest None. According to Panksepp & Solms, ‘Neuropsychoanalysis seeks to between passions and reason, via countless intermediaries. But understand the human mind, especially as it relates to first-person these authors do not seem to seek any other source than Freud, experience. It recognizes the essential role of neuroscience in such a curious form of historical scholarship. Armed with exclusively quests. However, unlike most branches of neuroscience, it Freudian literature and with a liberal use of analogy and positions mind and brain on an equal footing’.1 In a landmark metaphor, there is no doubt that ‘consistencies’ can be found. 1998 paper framed as a challenge to psychoanalysts, Kandel But what does this mean for modern neuroscience and psychiatry? further stressed that psychoanalysis had an essential part to play Do empirical studies of the default-mode network, of the in such a legitimate enterprise: emotional brain or of psychiatric disorders benefit in any way ‘As a result of advances in neural science in the last several years, both psychiatry from