Introductory Lectures on Neuropsychoanalysis; Lecture One; Part 3; How the Mind Functions, " What has Neuroscience Done to Psychoanalysis?"

Many psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists today are wondering, "What has Neuroscience done to Psychoanalysis?" They are afraid it is ruining it, or taking it over, or destroying it. That the data of neuroscience will somehow harm the data we have learned from 130 years of psychoanalytic observation. I am not one of those analytically oriented psychotherapists who believes such. I am of the camp that believes that psychoanalysis is a science but it is a science of human subjectivity. It studies the mind as the mind can be observed and understood during the process of psychoanalysis. Neuroscience is an objective science. It studies the brain and the various ways the brain can be researched using scientific techniques such as brain imaging, etc. But studying how the brain works also lends insight into how the mind functions. This is because the brain and the mind are not two separate things. They are two different ways of perceiving the ONE mental apparatus--objectively from the outside (brain), and subjectively from the inside (mind.) This is a monistic view as opposed to a dualistic view of the brain/mind. Neuroscience has taught me this truth. ( It was also Freud's position.) It is called dual aspect monism. This approach to the mind/brain undergirds the interdisciplinary field of neuropsychoanalysis. It combines modern neuroscience with contemporary psychoanalysis. The creator and leader of this field is the South African psychoanalyst and neuropsychologist Mark Solms, PhD. I have been fortunate these last few years to learn a great deal from him and others within this field. Neuropsychoanalysis began in 1999 and continues through today. There are two Advisory Boards guiding the new discipline. One consists of psychoanalysts interested in the brain and the other consists of neuroscientists interested in the mind............ I first met Mark Solms at a meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association in 2017.( I was a psychotherapy associate of APSA. Solms would later become the Science Director of APSA.) He spoke about this interdisciplinary field and I was captivated by his presentation. I had studied evolutionary biology and psychology for several years, and had learned a great deal from both fields about our homo sapien evolution. I had also discovered Solms' book, Beyond Evolutionary Psychology. Upon reading it I realized Solms agreed with Frank Sulloway's view in his book, Freud: Biologist of the Mind, where he writes that Freud very much integrated Darwin's Evolutionary views into his creation of psychoanalysis. Once I understood Solms' view of evolutionary psychology, I wanted to try and understand his view of neuropsychoanalysis as well. I had read his book, The Brain and the Inner World, but not having a neuroscience background, could not fully grasp it. I decided to email Mark Solms directly with a few questions . Surprisingly to me, he wrote me back with his answers! This began a consultation process that has gone on now for four years (2020-2024), where Solms has been consulting with me on neuropsychoanalysis/psychotherapy. while at the same time I have been reading his writings, and trying to practice neuropsychoanalytic therapy myself. Since 2020, I have heard Solms speak several more times, have read his major books, studied his key papers, and have listened to a number of his lectures. We have also become colleagues and friends. The reason I like Mark Solms is that he is the first neuroscientist that I have known who is also a Modern Freudian psychoanalyst. Thus he can speak both languages--neuroscience and psychoanalysis. He is bilingual in this way. I have not been bilingual in this way and likely never will be. My mind can understand psychoanalysis but it struggles to understand neuroscience. This is because I do not have a neuroscience background. But Mark Solms does, and he is great at integrating both fields and speaking both languages. By the way, he is also the official new editor of Freud's Complete Works! As he himself says, " He knows Freud very well. Better than anyone he knows!" So when I first heard Solms speak and later listened to his Lockdown Lectures on," A Practical Introduction to Psychoanalysis", I knew I had met the right person. He was exactly what I needed to try and understand and use in my psychoanalytic therapy practice, what additional knowledge neuroscience had discovered about the brain and thus the mind. I might also add, as I did in the beginning, that I agree with these findings and believe they should in the future be integrated into psychoanalysis/psychotherapy.................... Thus, I am going to write only briefly here about Modern Freudian psychoanalysis/psychotherapy. I am going to write more about what modern neuroscience has added to psychoanalysis/psychotherapy about the mind/brain. I will first look at, How the Patient's Mind Functions." I will next explore," How the Patient's Mind Develops." And finally I will write about," How to Treat the Patient's Mind." This will be new material for many psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists who have not studied neuropsychoanalysis, and it will be brand new information for mental health professionals who are not familiar with neuropsychoanalysis. Hopefully these lectures will help any mental health professional who reads them become a more effective clinician....... We begin with " Motivations/Drives/Basic Emotional Needs".