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Translations of summary
In their paper “The case for neuropsychoanalysis” Yovell, Solms, and Fotopoulou (2015) respond to our critique of neuropsychoanalysis (Blass & Carmeli, 2007), setting forth evidence and arguments which, they claim, demonstrate why neuroscience is relevant and important for psychoanalysis and hence why dialogue between the fields is necessary. In the present paper we carefully examine their evidence and arguments and demonstrate how and why their claim is completely mistaken. In fact, Yovell, Solms, and Fotopoulou's paper only confirms our position on the irrelevance and harmfulness to psychoanalysis of the contemporary neuroscientific trend. We show how this trend perverts the essential nature of psychoanalysis and of how it is practiced. The clinical impact and its detrimental nature is highlighted by discussion of clinical material presented by Yovell et al (2015). In the light of this we argue that the debate over neuropsychoanalysis should be of interest to all psychoanalysts, not only those concerned with biology or interdisciplinary dialogue.
1. We are very grateful to Avi Kenan for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
1. We are very grateful to Avi Kenan for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
Notes
1. We are very grateful to Avi Kenan for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
2. We should add here that the suggestion that the analyst should provide the patient with neuroscientific findings is consistent with a stance that Solms presented in a debate with Blass in 2008. Pressed by the audience to offer an example of the implications of neuroscience within the analytic setting, Solms responded that if a patient claimed to recall his birth we could tell him that based on the neuroscience of memory this could not be the case.
3. It should be stressed here that it could be the case that two very different disciplines could meaningfully contribute to each other. This would depend not on sharing the same subject of study in the sense of observing the same physical entity, but of sharing the same aim, the same research question. A historian and a physicist could share the question of when a fire occurred in ancient times. The historian may be reading ancient scrolls and the physicist may be studying physical abnormalities of rocks. The physicist, however, cannot inform the historian of the meaning of the scroll, the ideas that it conveys (unless it was a scroll on physics).
Here it is important to note that there is a fundamental way in which the analyst seeks meaning that differs from the way the historian does, which makes some other disciplines inherently irrelevant to analysis, where they may be relevant to the historian seeking meaning. The analyst does not seek merely to understand the patient's meanings; he seeks for these to unfold in the analytic setting. So while the historian may rely on the physicist to date the scroll and this might be relevant to the understanding of its meaning, the analyst does not actively collect all available information (e.g., through home movies, school records, interviews with family members, surveillance) in order to figure out what the patient means. Gathering such external information would interfere with the analytic process of discovering meaning.
In any case, even the historian need not learn about physics or develop a dialogue with the physicist, as it is not physics per se that contributes to the historian in understanding the scroll by providing its date. Similarly, given the kind of information that neuroscience could provide, there is no more need for the psychoanalyst to be in dialogue with the neuroscientist than it is for him to be in touch with other practitioners involved in collecting data about the patient's life (e.g., a private detective).
In this context itis important to note that we have never denied relevance in the other direction, namely, of psychoanalytic understanding to neuroscientific research (counter to Bernardi's claim, Citation2015, p. 744). It is relevant because at times neuroscience does not only describe and explain things on the biological level but tries to connect between biology and psychology. The relevance of psychoanalysis to neuroscience is however, another matter unrelated to the one we are discussing in the present paper and unproblematic from our perspective. Depending on the kinds of statements they wish to make we agree that neuroscientists should study psychoanalysis.
4. Similarly in his paper on “Screen memories,” he questions whether “we have any memories at all from our childhood: memories relating to our childhood may be all that we possess” (Citation1899, p. 322). It should be noted here that Freud was quite clear that the possibility of recalling events is severely limited, whether or not they were registered in a way that would allow for this. In The interpretation of dreams he affirms at one point that early experiences of childhood are “ ‘not obtainable any longer as such,’ but were replaced in analysis by ‘transferences’ and dreams” (Citation1900, p. 184); and in his study of the Wolf Man he explains that “& so far as my experience hitherto goes, these scenes from infancy are not reproduced during the treatment as recollections, they are the products of construction” (1918, pp. 49–50). More generally, Freud's thoughts on the role of “repetition” in the transference (Citation1914) and “construction in analysis” (Citation1937) express his awareness to the fact that recollection cannot always be expected.
5. This is not to deny the fact that at times in life factual information is helpful.
6. This would also spare the analyst the need to update Ms A if new and contradictory findings to emerge.
7. As noted earlier, clearly outside of the analytic setting we often relieve anxiety through information and consolation. However, because of the unique characteristics and aims of analysis to do so within analysis is a very different thing.
8. After this connection is determined psychologically neuroscientists may try to find its biological correlates, but once again this would be post hoc and would not contribute to determining the connection or understanding it.
9. That is, Yovell, Solms, and Fotopoulou make use of the notion of mindbrain to explain the necessity of neuroscience to psychology and cite many authors in this context. They don't, however, adequately argue for the existence of such an entity as mindbrain or that it is psychoanalysis’ subject of study.