Psychopathology, Memory Editing, Talk Therapy: Philosophy of Medicine on the Body–Mind Frontier

Abstract

Medical history of psychopathology is, to some extent, the history of the overlapping traditions of Cartesian-Platonic dualism and physical reductionism looking for a taxonomic middle ground by means of diagnostic constructs. Building on such liminality, Freud first showed that traumatic memories could well be made of pure fantasy, a mind-only construct of experience, and still act traumatically on the patient’s body. Under that sway, Freud and Janet came to intentionally modify their patients’ memories to cure “hysterical” dysfunctional behaviours by means of hypnosis. The metaphorical practice of “writing new words in the human soul” has been adopted as a clinical device since the early days of psychotherapy, as the meaning of past experiences was clinically approached, verbally and emotionally negotiated, to remove somatic symptoms. Working on memory at the interdisciplinary level, we here show that what is nowadays referred to as the abstract mind, or psyche in medicine, is the historical precipitate of quite a unique cultural construction, resulting from the porous liminality between religious domain, philosophical theory and scientific method. We hereby address psychopathology, the philosophy of medicine and the frontiers between memory and fantasy—besides those between body and mind—to suggest how psychoanalysis can be considered more as a hermeneutic than as a science, or otherwise, how hermeneutics can be appreciated as a scientific, medical and therapeutic tool. Memory itself is addressed on the threshold between consciousness, organic life and intergenerational potential.