Despite their distinct theoretical and methodological frameworks, the two fields - psychoanalysis and cognitive neuroscience - nevertheless converge on the idea that a large part of psychological functioning eludes consciousness. While psychoanalysis conceives of the unconscious as dynamic, conflict-ridden, and meaningful, neuroscience views it as a set of non-conscious neural processes....
In this paper I propose a model of the fundamental components of psychoanalytic psychotherapies that I try to explicate with contemporary theories of the Bayesian brain and the Free Energy Principle (FEP). I first show that psychoanalytic therapies require a setting (made up of several envelopes), a particular psychic state and specific processes (transference, free association, dreaming, play,...
In this paper, we propose a clinical approach to the counseling of distressing subjective paranormal experiences, usually referred to as anomalous or exceptional experiences in the academic field. These experiences are reported by a large part of the population, yet most mental health practitioners have not received a specific training in listening constructively to these experiences. This...
La compréhension des états mentaux est un élément fondamental de la plupart des psychothérapies. Nous présentons dans ce travail une méthode originale, appelée micro-analyse, dont l’objectif est de préciser la description et la modélisation des états mentaux dans le cadre des psychothérapies psychanalytiques. Cette méthode reprend les principes de l’analyse cognitive et permet de préciser le...
The replicability crisis in psychology has been influenced by the results of nine experiments conducted by Bem (2011) and presented as supporting the existence of precognition. In this paper, we hope to show how the debate concerning these experiments could be an opportunity to develop original thinking about psychology and replicability. After a few preliminary remarks about psi and scientific...
The term "retroactive avoidance" refers to a special class of effects of future stimulus presentations on past behavioral responses. Specifically, it refers to the anticipatory avoidance of aversive stimuli that were unpredictable through random selection after the response. This phenomenon is supposed to challenge the common view of the arrow of time and the direction of causality. Preliminary...
In this regard, even if the neurobiological functioning of the brain is different from the symbolic processing of a computer (Varela et al. , 1991), it might be relevant to conceptualize psychological activity as a Turing machine. For example, Dehaene (2014) assumes that this type of machine offers “a fairly reasonable model of the operations that our brain is capable of performing under the...
Sigmund Freud a œuvré pour démarquer la psychanalyse de l’occultisme, notamment en expliquant les rêves, dits prophétiques, par des processus inconscients. Mais son attitude à l’égard de l’occultisme évoluera progressivement avec un intérêt croissant pour un « noyau de vérité », qu’il rattachait à la télépathie. Cela le conduira, notamment en 1925, à reproduire, avec sa fille Anna et Sandor...
In 2011, one of the authors (DJB) published a report of nine experiments in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology purporting to demonstrate that an individual's cognitive and affective responses can be influenced by randomly selected stimulus events that do not occur until after his or her responses have already been made and recorded, a generalized variant of the phenomenon...
Anomalous or exceptional experiences are uncommon experiences which are usually interpreted as being paranormal by those who report them. These experiences have long remained difficult to explain, but current progress in cognitive neuroscience and psychoanalysis sheds light on the contexts in which they emerge, as well as on their underlying processes. Following a brief description of the...
In 2011, one of the authors (DJB) published a report of nine experiments in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology purporting to demonstrate that an individual’s cognitive and affective responses can be influenced by randomly selected stimulus events that do not occur until after his or her responses have already been made and recorded, a generalized variant of the phenomenon...