Psychoanalysis and neuroscience. Friends or enemies?

Abstract

Neurosciences have experienced tremendous development in the last decades. Research on genetics, structural and functional neuroimaging advance at a frantic pace. At the same time, psychoanalysis as a whole has been in decline, reflected in a reduced influence on culture, academia and mental health. However, there are some optimistic signals pointing to a slow but steady recovery. Three factors among others have contributed to this changing situation: interest in personality disorders, attachment theory and links to neuroscience. The approach to neuroscience has been especially contested among us, and some colleagues distrust these advances and take refuge in more familiar approaches to clinical work and research. There are also colleagues who maintain a naive view of neuroscience, expecting confirmations it can never provide. Some interesting ideas in psychoanalysis today come from projects involving neuroscience – or at least taking advantage of a research methodology more usually applied to natural sciences, and overcoming the methodological problems often found in traditional psychoanalytical papers. This rediscovery of nature and science in psychoanalysis should be considered not as a deviation from our core field, but rather as a return to the attitude of discovery and risk-taking our discipline once showed, and lost.

Keywords:

• neuroscience
• methodology
• organization
• history
• dualism