Discussion of Hughes’ “There’s No Such Thing as a Whole Story”

Abstract

The discussion of Elizabeth Hughes’ essay “There’s No Such Thing as the Whole Story” seeks to argue that a biopsychosocial perspective can flesh out understanding of what occurs at the level of discourse by adoptees. Underpinning such discourses, it is argued, is an experience-dependent view of the embodied mind. From this perspective understanding of the unconscious is situated biopsychosocially and includes aspects of how an autobiographical sense of self (Damasio, 2011) is embedded in memory.

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Notes on contributors

Viviane Green

Viviane Green, M.A., is a registered practicing psychoanalytic psychotherapist (British Psychoanalytic Council, Association of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapists) working in English and French with children, adolescents, and adults. She was recently appointed Foreign Expert by the People’s Republic of China to develop training for mental health professionals in China. She is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck, University of London, and Program Manager for the MSc. and Diploma in Psychodynamic Counseling and Psychotherapy with Children and Adolescents. She has published widely, including, as editor, her book Emotional Development in Psychoanalysis, Neuroscience and Attachment Theory: Creating Connections (Brunner-Routledge, 2003).