Neuropsychoanalysis represents a synthesis of psychoanalysis and modern neuroscience. It is based on Sigmund Freud's insight that phenomena such as innate needs, perceptual consciousness and imprinting (id, ego and superego) take place within a psychic apparatus to which "spatial extension and composition of several pieces" can be attributed and whose "locus ... is the brain (nervous system)". [1]
Neuropsychoanalysis emerged as an interdisciplinary field of research after advances in technology made it possible to observe the bioelectrical activities of neurons in the living brain. [2] This allowed to differentiate where, for example, the need for food begins to show neuronally, in which area of the brain the highest performance of conscious thinking of the ego is focussed (s. frontal lobe), and that the department of the limbic system can permanently store (imprint, 'learn') the experiences partly initiated by the ego itself. The fact that experiences are stored in the brain structure in a retrievable way was already suspected by Freud in 1895, when he described this imprinting process as “a permanent alteration following an event”. [3] This assumption basically formulates the old philosophical thesis that the memory of living beings at birth is similar to a blank slate (on which ‘experiences’ are soon engraved more or less deeply) and characterises the main function of the superego.
The results of neuropsychoanalysis confirm Freud's three instances model of the soul (s. its technical elaboration in Metapsychology [4] ) Despite this advantage for psychoanalysis resulting from the technical possibilities of today's neurology, many analysts express reservations: knowledge about the anatomical structure of the brain cannot replace interpersonal dialogue and free association in psychoanalytic therapy; the organically precise localisation of the three instances in the brain contributes nothing to the understanding of dreams. Neither does it shed light on the instinctivly behaviour of the various innate needs of the id, nor on the natural social interaction of the original Homo sapiens, as Freud noted when he lamented the lack of primate research. Without findings about the social structure of our genetically closest relatives, his hypothesis of Darwin's primordial horde (as presented for discussion in Totem and Taboo) cannot be tested and, where possible, replaced by a well-founded model. Because of this deficiency in contemporary science, Freud felt compelled to leave his metapsychology in the unfinished state of a Torso [5] and to call once again for the future development of primate research in The Man Moses. [6]
Apart from this, other critics of the neuropsychoanalytic approach point to the subjective colouring of the emotionally expressed needs or individually experienced traumas that are examined in the sessions of clinical psychoanalysis and claim that this cannot be fully reconciled with the objective nature of the findings of a scan of bioelectrical brain activity. [7]
Proponents of neuropsychoanalysis counter this criticism by pointing out that Sigmund Freud himself was once neuroanatomist before he developed psychoanalysis, and further argue that research in this field has finally proven that the psychodynamic activity of the mind is inextricably linked to the neuronal activity of the brain. Indeed, advances in the imaging capabilities of modern technology have made it possible to study the neuronal activity of the brain during a dream experienced during sleep, for example, the message of which is then deciphered using the tools of psychoanalysis. Proponents therefore point to the ability of current research to capture both the subjective content of psychic phenomena and the objectively given structure of the neuronal network in order to enable a better overall understanding and holistic healing methods through findings from both areas. [8] Neuropsychoanalysis therefore aims to bring psychoanalysis, a field that is often seen as more humanistic than scientific, under a common umbrella that contributes to the wealth of knowledge it has gained. [2]
Neuropsychoanalysis is best described as a marriage between neuroscience and psychoanalysis. [9] Furtherhin neuropsychoanalysis seeks to remedy classical neurology's exclusion of the subjective mind.
The subjective of our perception consists of consciousness itself: its sensations, thoughts and feelings, and can be described as antithesis of the cellular matter that characterises the objectively given neurobiological structure of our brain. In contrast to this dual situation, Freud is often regarded as the pioneering founder of the modern science of the mind, aka psyche, whose research nevertheless remained rooted in the ground of such distinctly physical phenomena as Darwin's Origin of Species or the neuronal network of human's brain. Thus it can't be a question of that psychoanalysis aiming to split mind and matter. Also not Freud first, but Descartes came to the conclusion that both were two different types of "stuff": the thinking substance res cogitans on the one hand, and the extended substance on the other. [10] Accordingly, he invented the dualism of the mind, the "mind-body dichotomy". Body is one kind of thing, and mind (or psyche) another. But since this second kind of 'stuff' does not lend itself to scientific inquiry, many of today's psychologists and neuroscientists have seemingly rejected Cartesian dualism. [11]
Freud himself wasn't ignorant in this regard, on the contrary: he delved deeply into the duality of our conscious thought. Thus he wrote that essentially two things are known about the living soul: the brain with the nervous system and the acts of consciousness. Consciousness is given directly, it cannot be explored more through any description. In Freud's opinion, the fact that the findings of a biological phenomenon such as our living brain can be integrated between "both endpoints of our knowledge" only contributes to the "localization of the acts of consciousness", not to their understanding. [12] (This radical view coincides with the current theory of Roger Penrose, according to which "proto-consciousness" emerge in the microtubules of cells, but can'nt represent anything that is somehow ‘calculable’. Consciousness in its focal point is ‘understanding’; it creates algorythms, for exampel, but does'nt itself represent an algorythm; it is'nt a computer. Penrose's theory attempts to unite a proto mind with quantumphysics and to anchor both in that energetic singularity from which cosmic and biological matter evolves up to homo sapiens, for example.. [13] [14] ) Thus, the soul (or id) for Freud is the "function" of the psychic apparatus, which is composed of two more complementary working instances, similar to how a cell is made up of its organelles or a microscope from its lenses. [15] Achored in the reservoir of Libido in direct reference to the universal desire that Plato assigned to Eros, [16] [17] Freud saw the monistic moment of his psychology in this drive energy, which branches out from the id into two main areas: the ‘’bodily‘’ urge to act and the ‘’mental‘’ urge to know. In this way, he takes account of the body-mind dualism, illustrating it further with his parable of a rider and his horse: man must restrain and direct the superior energy of his animal and enable it to satisfy its drives if he wants to keep it alive and the species healthy. The ego therefore has "the habit of putting the will of the id into practice as if it were its own". [18]
Neuropsychoanalysis respond to this viewpoint by adopting dual-aspect monism, sometimes referred to as perspectivism. That is, our souls are monistic from their libidinal energy. We as living beings consist of matter - Cells, their superstructuring into organs, ‘individual’ living beings, instinctively social groups - and a spirit active in it. That's why we perceive the phenomena from two seemingly opposite perspectives. [19] : 56–58
Perhaps because Freud himself began his career as a neurologist, psychoanalysis has given the field of neuroscience the platform upon which many of its scientific hypotheses were founded. [20] With the field of psychoanalysis suffering from what many see as a decline in innovation and popularity, a call for new approaches and a more scientific methodology is long overdue. [21] [9] The history of neuropsychoanalysis therefore, goes some way in explaining why some consider it the logical conclusion, and representative of an evolution that psychoanalysis was in need of. [2] Since the mind itself is viewed as purely ontological, our appreciation of reality is dependent on neurobiological functions of the brain, which we can use to observe "subjectively," from inside, how we feel and what we think. Freud refined this kind of observation into free association. He claimed that this is the best technique that we have for perceiving complex mental functions that simple introspection will not reveal. Through psychoanalysis, we can discover mind's unconscious functioning. [21]
Due to the very nature of neuropsychoanalysis, those working in this burgeoning field have been able to draw useful insights from a number of distinguished neuroscientists, indeed many of these now serve on the editorial board of the journal Neuropsychoanalysis. Some of these more notable names foundational to the development of neuropsychoanalysis include:
Neuroscientists, often studying the same cognitive functions of the brain as psychoanalysts, do so in quantitative methods such as dissection post mortem, small lesions administered to create certain curative effects, or with the visual and objective aid of brain imaging, all of which enable researchers to trace neurochemical pathways and build a more accurate understanding of the physical functioning of the brain. Another branch of neuroscience also observes the "mind" from outside, that is, by means of neurological examination. This is often done in the form of physical tests, such as questionnaires, the Boston Naming test or Wisconsin Sorting, creating bisecting lines, acting out how one performs daily tasks such as a screwdriver, just to name a few. Neurologists can compare the changes in psychological function that the neurological examination shows with the associated changes in the brain, either post mortem or by means of modern imaging technology. [22] Much of neuroscience aims to break down and tease out the cognitive and biological functions behind both conscious and unconscious actions within the brain. In this way it is no different than psychoanalysis, which has had similar goals since its inception. Therefore, to ignore the additional insight neuroscience can offer psychoanalysis would be to limit a huge source of knowledge that can only enhance psychoanalysis as a whole. [9]
Heinz Böker and Rainer Krähenman proposed a model of depression as dysregulation of the relationship between the self and the other. This psychodynamic model, is related to the neurobiological model of the default mode network, DMN, and the executive network, EN, of the brain, noting experimentally the DMN seemed to be more active in depressed patients. The psychological construct of rumination is conceptualized which is experimentally more common in depressed patients, is viewed as equivalent to the cognitive processing of the self, and therefore the activation of the DMN. Similarly, experimentally measurable constructs of attribution bias are viewed as being related to this "cognitive processing of self". It has been shown that forms of psychodynamic therapy for depression have effects on the activation of several areas of the brain. [23]
Neuropsychoanalysis as a discipline can be traced as far back as Sigmund Freud's manuscript, "Project for a Scientific Psychology". Written in 1895, but only published posthumously, Freud developed his theories of the neurobiological function of the storage of memory in this work. His statement, based on his theory that memory is biologically stored in the brain by, "a permanent alteration following an event", had a prophetic insight into the empirical discoveries that would corroborate these theories close to 100 years later. [24] Freud speculated that psychodynamics and neurobiology would eventually reunite as one field of study. While time would eventually prove him correct to some degree, the latter half of the 20th century only saw a very gradual movement in this direction with only a few individuals championing this line of thought. [25]
Significant advances in neuroscience throughout the 20th century created a clearer understanding of the functionality of the brain, which have vastly enhanced the way we view the mind. This began in the 1930s with the invention of electroencephalography, which enabled imaging of the brain as never seen before. A decade later the use of dynamic localization, or the lesion method, further shed light onto the interaction of systems in the brain. Computerized tomography lead to even greater understanding of the interaction within the brain, and finally the invention of multiple scan technologies in the 1990s, the fMRI, PET, and the SPECT gave researchers empirical evidence of neurobiological processes. [2]
It was in 1999, just before the turn of the century, that the term "neuropsychoanalysis" was used in a new journal entitled with the same name. [2] This term once was hyphenated to indicate that the conjoining of the two fields of study did not suggest that they had been fully integrated, but rather that this new line of scientific inquiry was interdisciplinary. With repeated use, the hyphen was lost, and the name appears as we see it today. [9]
Neuropsychoanalytic relate unconscious (and sometimes conscious) functioning discovered through the techniques of psychoanalysis or experimental psychology to underlying brain processes. Among the ideas explored in recent research are the following:
Psychoanalysis is a theory and field of research developed by Sigmund Freud. It describes the human mind as an apparatus that emerged along the path of evolution and consists mainly of three functionally interlocking instances: a set of innate needs, a consciousness to satisfy them by ruling the muscular apparatus, and a memory for storing experiences that arises during this. Furthermore the theory includes insights into the effects of traumatic education and a technique for bringing repressed content back into the consciousness, in particular the diagnostic interpretation of dreams. Overall, psychoanalysis is a method for the examination and treatment of mental disorders.
Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies seen as originating from conflicts in the psyche, through dialogue between patient and psychoanalyst, and the distinctive theory of mind and human agency derived from it.
In psychoanalysis and other psychological theories, the unconscious mind is the part of the psyche that is not available to introspection. Although these processes exist beneath the surface of conscious awareness, they are thought to exert an effect on conscious thought processes and behavior. Empirical evidence suggests that unconscious phenomena include repressed feelings and desires, memories, automatic skills, subliminal perceptions, and automatic reactions. The term was coined by the 18th-century German Romantic philosopher Friedrich Schelling and later introduced into English by the poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
In psychoanalytic theory, the id, ego and superego are three different, interacting agents in the psychic apparatus as Sigmund Freud summarized and defined it in his structural model of the psyche. He developed these three terms to describe the basic structure and various phenomena of mental life as they were encountered in psychoanalytic practice. Freud himself used the German terms das Es, Ich, and Über-Ich, which literally translate as "the it", "I", and "over-I". The Latin terms id, ego and superego were chosen by his original translators and have remained in use.
Psychoanalytic theory is the theory of personality organization and the dynamics of personality development relating to the practice of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology. First laid out by Sigmund Freud in the late 19th century, psychoanalytic theory has undergone many refinements since his work. The psychoanalytic theory came to full prominence in the last third of the twentieth century as part of the flow of critical discourse regarding psychological treatments after the 1960s, long after Freud's death in 1939. Freud had ceased his analysis of the brain and his physiological studies and shifted his focus to the study of the psyche, and on treatment using free association and the phenomena of transference. His study emphasized the recognition of childhood events that could influence the mental functioning of adults. His examination of the genetic and then the developmental aspects gave the psychoanalytic theory its characteristics.
Free association is the expression of the content of consciousness without censorship as an aid in gaining access to unconscious processes. The technique is used in psychoanalysis which was originally devised by Sigmund Freud out of the hypnotic method of his mentor and colleague, Josef Breuer.
Prenatal and perinatal psychology explores the psychological and psychophysiological effects and implications of the earliest experiences of the individual, before birth, prenatal, as well as during and immediately after childbirth, perinatal. Prenatal and perinatal psychology can be seen as a part of developmental psychology, although historically it was developed in the heterogenous field of psychoanalysis. Prenatal and perinatal psychology are often discussed together to group the period during pregnancy, childbirth, and through the early stages of infancy. The role of prenatal and perinatal psychology is to explain the experience and behavior of the individual before birth, postnatal consequences, and the lasting effects on development that occur during this time period.
In psychology, the subconscious is the part of the mind that is not currently of focal awareness.
Biological psychiatry or biopsychiatry is an approach to psychiatry that aims to understand mental disorder in terms of the biological function of the nervous system. It is interdisciplinary in its approach and draws on sciences such as neuroscience, psychopharmacology, biochemistry, genetics, epigenetics and physiology to investigate the biological bases of behavior and psychopathology. Biopsychiatry is the branch of medicine which deals with the study of the biological function of the nervous system in mental disorders.
Psychodynamics, also known as psychodynamic psychology, in its broadest sense, is an approach to psychology that emphasizes systematic study of the psychological forces underlying human behavior, feelings, and emotions and how they might relate to early experience. It is especially interested in the dynamic relations between conscious motivation and unconscious motivation.
John Allan Hobson was an American psychiatrist and dream researcher. He was known for his research on rapid eye movement sleep. He was Professor of Psychiatry, Emeritus, Harvard Medical School, and Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Psychoanalytic dream interpretation is a subdivision of dream interpretation as well as a subdivision of psychoanalysis pioneered by Sigmund Freud in the early 20th century. Psychoanalytic dream interpretation is the process of explaining the meaning of the way the unconscious thoughts and emotions are processed in the mind during sleep.
In psychoanalytic theory, the term psychic apparatus refers to the mental structures and mechanisms of the psyche. In Freud's 'topographical' model of the psyche, it refers to three systems – the Unconscious, the Pre-conscious, and the Conscious. In his later 'structural model', Freud described the psychic apparatus in terms of the id, ego and super-ego.
Mark Solms is a South African psychoanalyst and neuropsychologist, who is known for his discovery of the brain mechanisms of dreaming and his use of psychoanalytic methods in contemporary neuroscience. He holds the Chair of Neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital and is the President of the South African Psychoanalytical Association. He is also Research Chair of the International Psychoanalytical Association.
Metapsychology is that aspect of a psychological theory that discusses the terms that are essential to it, but leaves aside or transcends the phenomena that the theory deals with. Psychology refers to the concrete conditions of the human psyche, metapsychology to psychology itself.
Wish fulfillment is the satisfaction of a desire through an involuntary thought process. It can occur in dreams or in daydreams, in the symptoms of neurosis, or in the hallucinations of psychosis. This satisfaction is often indirect and requires interpretation to recognize.
Sigmund Freud is considered to be the founder of the psychodynamic approach to psychology, which looks to unconscious drives to explain human behavior. Freud believed that the mind is responsible for both conscious and unconscious decisions that it makes on the basis of psychological drives. The id, ego, and super-ego are three aspects of the mind Freud believed to comprise a person's personality. Freud believed people are "simply actors in the drama of [their] own minds, pushed by desire, pulled by coincidence. Underneath the surface, our personalities represent the power struggle going on deep within us".
Dream consciousness is a term defined by the theorist of dreaming science J. Allan Hobson, M.D. as the memory of subjective awareness during sleep.
Aikaterini Fotopoulou is a psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist who is a professor at the University College London Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology. She is the co-founder and Treasurer of the International Association for the Study of Affective Touch and the President-Elect of the European Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Society. She is also a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and past co-chair of its International Convention, and the past President of the Psychology Section of the British Science Association. Fotopoulou was the past Director of the London Neuropsychoanalysis Centre, Secretary of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society and coordinator of the London Neuropsychoanalysis Group.
The theories of Carl Jung are grounded in his evolutionary conception of human brain evolution. This had led to a resurgence of research into his work, beginning in the early 2000s, from the perspective of contemporary neuroscience. Much of this work looks at Jung's theories of a genetically inherited 'collective unconscious' common to all of humankind. This hypothesis was postulated by Jung in his efforts to account for similar patterns of behaviour and symbolic expression in myth, dream imagery and religion in various cultures around the world. Jung believed that the 'collective unconscious' was structured by archetypes - that is species typical patterns of behaviour and cognition common to all humans. Contemporary researchers have postulated such recurrent archetypes reside in 'environmentally closed' subcortical brain systems that evolved in the human lineage prior to the emergence of self-consciousness and the uniquely human self-reflective ego.