Introductory Lectures on Neuropsychoanalysis/Psychotherapy Lecture One, Part 1, " How These Lectures Came to Be"

These Eight Lectures are written  for mental health professionals who wish to learn the theory and practice of neuropsychoanalysis/psychotherapy.

The lectures consist of four lectures on theory,  and four on technique. The four theory lectures deal with how the mind functions when the patient presents for treatment, as well as how the patient's mind developed in childhood. The four technique lectures explore how to apply this theory to the practice of neuropsychoanalytic psychotherapy (from here out when I speak of theory I will use the term neuropsychoanalysis. When I speak of practice I will say neuropsychoanalytic psychotherapy. I make this distinction because I myself am a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, and a Clinical Fellow of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society).

These lectures are the culmination of my thirty years of experience in conducting psychoanalytic psychotherapy,  and supervising LPC Interns and Residents in this form of treatment. I began in pastoral psychoanalytic psychotherapy ( which was at time heavily influenced both by Ego Psychology and the Interpersonalists). I next  moved to Modern Freudian analytic therapy. From there I began to integrate biology into my orientation. Finally, all of my biological integration culminated in my discovery of neuropsychoanalysis.

I have  always sought to integrate new theory and practice into my work (especially biology). Sigmund Freud attempted to do the same, but in his time biology was not a mature enough science for him to do so successfully. Today, thanks to the maturing of the biological sciences and especially the new methods of research in the neurosciences, we are able to begin to fulfill Freud's dream of bringing neuroscience and psychoanalysis together. This is the aim of the interdisciplinary field of neuropsychoanalysis and the goal of these lectures as well.

In these lectures you will note that I often cite the work of Mark Solms, the South African psychoanalyst and neuroscientist who created neuropsychoanalysis. I have sought here to integrate what I have learned from Solms into my own Modern Freudian psychoanalytic orientation. So, though I rely on Solms to a degree, these lectures are my own.

After reading several of my Blog Posts on neuropsychoanalysis, Mark Solms asked me in February of 2023,  if I would be interested in writing an introductory text on neuropsychoanalysis. I replied to him that I did not want to write a book at this point, but I would like to increase the readership of my Blog," Plain Words from an Old Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist"(calanmeltonw.blogspot.com). Solms thought this was a good idea. So I set out to promote my Blog writings on various psychoanalytically informed Face Book pages.

Michael Benn, also a South African psychoanalyst, read some of my posts on the Facebook Page where he is the administrator -- Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy . After his reading and the positive feedback of other members of the Page, he asked me in February of 2024 to publish my posts to his Facebook page. I accepted his invitation and posted on his Page on twenty one consecutive Thursdays starting in January of 2024. These Introductory Lectures on Neuropsychoanalysis are the result of these earlier Blog Postings. I want to thank Michael Benn for asking me to post on his Facebook page.

I further want to thank Mark Solms for his clear and precise presentation of neuropsychoanalysis that I discovered in his three lectures during the Covid Pandemic (2020) lockdown entitled," A Practical Introduction to Psychoanalysis." Those lectures inspired me to learn more about neuropsychoanalysis. From those lectures I went on to listen to a number of Solms' online lectures, read his books, and his major papers. I further consulted with him for four years. I dedicate these Introductory Lectures on Neuropsychoanalysis to Mark Solms as my way of thanking him for his knowledge, inspiration, and encouragement that resulted in my creating these lectures.