Introductory Lectures on Neuropsychoanalysis/Psychotherapy; PREFACE; "My Project to Ground Psychoanalytic Theory in Evolutionary Biology"

 Before I knew Mark Solms' neuropsychoanalysis, I had sought to ground my psychoanalytic theory in evolutionary biology. ( I was not alone in doing so. Many analysts were seeking to do the same).  This Preface summarizes my integration.                                                        

 I learned during those years that what  is true of the mind at the psychological level, is true of the brain at the biological level. ( I later discovered from Solms that this was the philosophical view of  Dual Aspect Monism. See Spinoza and  Freud--as well as Mark Solms).             

We are homo sapiens, who biologically by evolutionary design, are motivated to survive and reproduce. These motives of survival and reproductive success are distal motives that we are not aware of consciously, and we do not feel them. We learn about them through our knowledge of evolutionary biology and psychology, but we do not experience them subjectively.

In order to aid in our survival and reproductive success our minds evolved other motives that are proximal. Proximal motives we do feel.  We experience them subjectively. We experience pleasure whenever we do anything that enhances our survival and reproductive success, and we experience unpleasure (Freud's term) when we do anything that does not enhance our survival or reproductive success. Take LUST (sex) for example: We do not consciously have sex because we want to have reproductive success and make sure our genes are carried into the next generation. We engage in sex because it is feels pleasureable (the proximal/conscious motive.) But the reason evolution made sex pleasurable is to encourage us to engage in it, in order to have reproductive success, and make sure our species survives generation after generation.

These experiences of pleasure and unpleasure are a function of the psychological level of the mind. But the  mind and its feelings are also a function of the brain.

As young children,  we first learn to do what is pleasurable and to avoid what is not. We have to adjust psychologically (mind) to our family environment. What ever in it feels good, gives us good thoughts, or rewards certain actions with positive survival and reproductive success, we do. Whatever does not provide these  pleasureable  feelings , we avoid. This is how we adapt to our family situation and to our immediate cultural environment.                       

These psychological adjustments  go beyond what is innate, and help form our personalities and make us who we are. And most of this forming of our personalities takes place before we are 10 years old. However, we are always being formed by what is innate and part of our biological nature, combined with what is learned and part of our nurture.

This is why I believe psychoanalysis must be grounded in biology. If not, psychoanalysts will fail to attend adequately to our innate biological givens, which in psychoanalysis are called DRIVES. Through my readings in evolutionary biology, I have come to see the importance of grounding psychoanalysis in its  parent discipline of biology. When  we learn  evolutionary biology, we obtain knowledge about the unconscious distal motives underneath the proximal felt motives of consciousness.

In my own theory of psychoanalytic therapy,  I am now integrating the contributions of biology. Unfortunately, in my view, some psychoanalysts and psychotherapists do not believe in the necessity of such integration.  To me this position refuses to accept that as homo sapiens we are a species of primates. We are mammals, and we share much in common with all mammals-- our closest cousin being the chimpanzees. As primates  we have biological drives that are mammalian, and if we do not take this aspect of a nature into account, we do not get a complete picture of ourselves as modern humans. (Freud knew that we needed to borrow knowledge from biology to truly understand the drives). 

Therefore, for me, in order to provide our patients with the best possible psychotherapeutic experience,  we need to know the biological sciences as well as the psychological sciences. And we must allow this knowledge to contribute to our understanding of the mind/brain that we have learned from psychoanalysis. That is why I continue to advocate for all analytically oriented therapists to ground their psychoanalytic understanding and treatment in evolutionary biology.

As I stated at the beginning of this Preface, the integration of psychoanalysis and evolutionary biology came before I knew the work of Mark Solms. These lectures will show how I have expanded this evolutionary biology  integration with  the further integration of neuroscience, which follows  the direction Mark Solms pioneered in his creation of neuropsychoanalysis.