Linking neuroscience and psychoanalysis from a developmental perspective: why and how?
Lisa Ouss-Ryngaert, Bernard Golse
Journal of physiology, Paris December 2010 DOI: 10.1016/j.jphysparis.2010.09.005 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that neuroscience and psychoanalysis should be linked, using child development and child psychiatry as key sources, and proposes that this rapprochement enables new understandings of embodiment of mind, consciousness, and attachment, a "double reading" of symptoms, and new experimental paradigms including structural brain changes following psychotherapy. The authors contend that clinicians must be aware of advances in each field, and that new neuroscience findings will change how psychoanalysts think and treat patients. |
Abstract
This paper aims to develop the rational to support why and how we should link neuroscience and psychoanalysis. Many of these points are derived from child development and child psychiatry. Neuroscience investigates developmental questions in a different way than psychoanalysis, while psychoanalysis itself has shifted towards new developmental paradigms. The rapprochement between neuroscience and psychoanalysis allows a new understanding of some concepts, including embodiment of mind, consciousness and attachment. The "double reading" paradigm allows a better understanding of symptomatic configurations. Linking neuroscience and psychoanalysis may improve treatments and result in new experimental neuroscientific paradigms involving changing the research object, changing the state of the research object, and investigating the structural changes in the brain following psychotherapy. The last aim is to create an epistemology of the articulation between the theoretical frameworks through phenomenology, "complementarism" and neuropsychoanalysis. We argue that it is necessary for clinicians to be aware of the advancements in each field. This is not only an epistemological question; we assume that new findings in neuroscience will change the way psychoanalysts think and approach treatment of their patients. We hope the present research will contribute to change the way that neuroscientists think and will provide new options to their set of experimental paradigms.