Neuropsychoanalysis最新文献

{"title":"Primacy of affects in human development: Discussion of Otto F. Kernberg’s “Some Implications of New Developments in Neurobiology for Psychoanalytic Object Relations Theory”","authors":"L. Hoffman","doi":"10.1080/15294145.2022.2053191","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2022.2053191","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this commentary of Dr. Kernberg's important paper I highlight the importance of affects as motivators, particularly the SEEKING system. I question the utility of libido and aggression as the two superordinate constructs. And, I suggest incorporating defensive operations and defense mechanisms.","PeriodicalId":39493,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychoanalysis","volume":"24 1","pages":"31 - 34"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49122794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"SEEKING turns into will: Case report of the reconstruction of the self after a left medial frontal injury","authors":"Lisandro Vales, Daniela Flores Mosri","doi":"10.1080/15294145.2022.2048684","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2022.2048684","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper presents the psychotherapeutic process with an 18-year-old patient who suffered severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) due to a gunshot wound that caused a left medial frontal injury. The case suggests how the social withdrawal and lack of initiative in the patient, which corresponds to the “energization” type, may relate to a dysregulated SEEKING system. Furthermore, this feature may be a physiological correlate of Freud’s concept of “drive”. This case intends to contribute hypotheses to comprehend the psychological functions of the left perisylvian convexity. The analysis of the psychodynamic psychotherapy sessions raises the hypothesis that there was a decrease in the activity of the SEEKING system because of a deficit in the “energizing” function of the ego, which regulates the cathexis of representations that lead to initiative and interest in the surrounding world. It is hypothesized that this function may operate as a defense against the challenge of facing the discomfort and difficulties caused by the TBI. The importance of psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy and work on emotional systems is raised, especially as regards the SEEKING system in the new subjective experience and restructuring of the patient’s self throughout the therapeutic process. New meanings help the patient decrease the intensity of feelings of frustration, anxiety, and confusion.","PeriodicalId":39493,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychoanalysis","volume":"24 1","pages":"87 - 101"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48797866","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The neuropsychobiology of yes and no","authors":"Luba Kessler, R. Kessler","doi":"10.1080/15294145.2022.2056071","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2022.2056071","url":null,"abstract":"In his article “Some Implications of New Developments in Neurobiology for Psychoanalytic Object Relations,” Kernberg (2021) applies neurobiological insights to psychoanalytic drive theory, placing it within the continuum of human motivation from biology to psychology. He revisits and revises the psychoanalytic theory of dual drives and the formation of the dynamic unconscious mind in view of the recent neuroscientific findings of affective brain systems – particularly considered through the formulations of Kleinian object relations theory (Klein, 1946). The main thesis of the article assigns a primary motivational role to the affective brain systems and their expression within the matrix of object relations. This commentary finds (1) emphatic agreement with the formulations of the main thesis but (2) disagreement with its wider premises, namely those related to the concept of the drives.","PeriodicalId":39493,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychoanalysis","volume":"24 1","pages":"35 - 38"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49371221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Acting out and enactment: An effort at clarity","authors":"Eric C. Bettelheim","doi":"10.1080/15294145.2022.2053190","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2022.2053190","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Acting out and enactment are terms in widespread use colloquially and in psychoanalytic psychotherapy to describe patient and therapist behavior. Both terms are poorly defined in the literature and have varied in interpretation as theoretical frameworks have changed. The advent of relational and inter-personal therapeutic approaches has blurred both the distinction between talking and action established by Freud and the boundaries of clinical practice. A review of the history of both terms reveals their core meaning as transgressive; by one of the analytic pair or by both, respectively. Behavior violating therapeutic boundaries and the analytic attitude, including those triggered by countertransference, are important indicators of repressed trauma as Freud originally thought. His retreat from the seduction theory led to the confusion of acting out with transference and to later authors confusing enactment with countertransference. Traumatic memories are uniquely stored and difficult to recover and characterized by hypofunction in the default mode network and hyperfunction in the central executive and salience networks leading to their behavioral expression in acting out and enactment in contrast to verbal expression. Thus understood these forms of behavior can make an important contribution to the “talking cure.”","PeriodicalId":39493,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychoanalysis","volume":"24 1","pages":"71 - 85"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41330988","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Toward a “Project for a Scientific Psychoanalysis:”","authors":"Y. Yovell","doi":"10.1080/15294145.2022.2056908","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2022.2056908","url":null,"abstract":"Dr. Kernberg’s current contribution (Kernberg, 2021) is a welcome effort to re-examine and revise some fundamental aspects of psychoanalytic theory and technique in light of emerging data from the cognitive and affective neurosciences, by one of today’s most distinguished psychoanalytic theoreticians and clinicians. This attempt is refreshing, since during the last fifty years, and perhaps even earlier, psychoanalysis all but ceased to formulate and discuss amendments to some of the basic tenets of its metapsychology. Metapsychology, a term originally coined by Freud (1898a), came to mean the theory behind the theory – what Rapaport (1959; quoted in Erwin, 2002, p. 339) defined as “a fragmentary – yet consistent – general theory of psychoanalysis, which comprises the premises of the special (clinical) theory, the concepts built on it, and the generalizations derived from it... named metapsychology.” Throughout the century since it was published, Freud’s structural, tripartite model of the mind (Freud, 1923) served, at times implicitly, as a common metapsychological basis for almost all discussions about theory and technique that have taken place among the psychoanalytic community, and within the main corpus of psychoanalytic literature. Object relations theory, attachment theory, relational approaches, and self-psychology have all transformed and diversified many aspects of psychoanalytic technique, and have all made numerous contributions to psychoanalytic theories of motivation and development (Kernberg, 2001; Mitchell & Black, 1995). However, they have left some of Freud’s structural formulations of the mind essentially unaltered. If metapsychology amounts to theories about the structure of the human mental apparatus on the one hand, and about the nature of the forces which act upon it, its inherent motivational systems, and its ontogenetic development, on the other hand, then psychoanalysis has made important revisions and diverse amendments to the latter, but did not seriously attempt to re-formulate or refresh the basic structural model laid down by its founder a century ago. By and large, rather than revise the existing model or offer something new, the main body of psychoanalytic thought largely endorsed Freud’s tripartite model of the mind “as is.” In my opinion, part of the explanation for this persistent lack of change stems from a state of affairs that has alsobeen the reason for the emergenceof neuropsychoanalysis, aswell as for its value to psychoanalysis today and tomorrow. As discussed by Solms (2000), Freud the neurologist and neuroscientist was intimately and deeply familiar with the neurobiology and neuropathology of his time. His metapsychology thus reflected the impact that this knowledge had on his thinking and theorizing upon the psychoanalytic data that began to emerge from his clinical encounters in the consulting room. However, despite his favorable interdisciplinary starting point, or perhaps because of it, Freud was pa","PeriodicalId":39493,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychoanalysis","volume":"24 1","pages":"67 - 69"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43212107","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Drives dependent on neuronal systems in animal and human brains","authors":"D. Pfaff","doi":"10.1080/15294145.2022.2054464","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2022.2054464","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Well-studied physiological mechanisms for relatively simple instinctive behaviors like sex and aggression are unlikely to have secondary roles, subservient to affect systems. Adding psychoanalytic ideation does not advance their understanding. However, concepts of the dynamic unconscious may find parallels in current day neuroscience.","PeriodicalId":39493,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychoanalysis","volume":"24 1","pages":"51 - 53"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48826446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comments on Otto Kernberg’s “Some Implications of New Developments in Neurobiology for Psychoanalytic Object Relations Theory”","authors":"N. McWilliams","doi":"10.1080/15294145.2022.2054019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2022.2054019","url":null,"abstract":"Freud famously hoped that once brain-research techniques had advanced significantly, neuroscientific concepts would replace his hypothetical constructs and metaphors for the human psyche. In 1914, for example, he stated that “all our provisional ideas in psychology will presumably some day be based on an organic substructure” consisting of “special substances and chemical processes” (Freud, 1914, p. 78). Research on the brain is now sufficiently advanced that such a day may be quickly approaching. Otto Kernberg has greeted that research warmly here, with this thoughtful consideration of the implications of contemporary neuroscience for psychoanalytic theories and treatments. For at least three reasons, Kernberg is an excellent person to address this question. First, he is temperamentally integrative, as evidenced by the fact that at a time when ego psychology and object relations theories were rigidly polarized, he synthesized them in ways that liberated psychoanalysis from an increasingly stale controversy (e.g., Kernberg, 1976). He has integrated scholarship in personality with literatures on group and organizational psychology (e.g., Kernberg, 1998). And he has persistently urged psychoanalytic institutes to expand their curricula to include material from academic disciplines outside the usual canon (e.g., Kernberg & Michels, 2016). His knowledge of relevant theoretical and empirical literatures is encyclopedic. Second, Kernberg’s thinking is original, independent, and skeptical of conventional orthodoxies. Despite the resistance of some colleagues to diluting the “pure gold” of “classical” analytic technique, he has developed innovative methods for treating borderline conditions and severe personality disorders (e.g., Caligor et al., 2018; Kernberg, 1975, 1984). He has recurrently critiqued conventional models of analytic training (e.g., Kernberg, 1986, 1996, 2000, 2014). In contrast to analysts who insist that psychodynamic artistry does not lend itself to scientific investigation, he has conscientiously subjected his own innovations to empirical scrutiny (e.g., Levy et al., 2006). When scientific study has controverted his beliefs, he has taken the unusual step of publicly recanting them (e.g., Kernberg, 2003). Third, and most relevant here, Kernberg feels strongly about establishing and maintaining the scientific status of psychoanalytic theories, especially theories about technique for serious psychopathology. In this essay, he integrates current neuroscience with his decades of clinical experience, empirical investigation, and theorizing. He reviews evidence for affects as primary motivational systems, investigates the neurobiology of the child’s emerging awareness of self and other, confronts the controversial notion of a death drive, and summarizes the evolution of the dynamic unconscious. In the process, while finding support for some Freudian ideas, he challenges and suggests revisions to others. Finally, he explicates in both neuros","PeriodicalId":39493,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychoanalysis","volume":"24 1","pages":"43 - 46"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49373442","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A revised top-down theory of the mind: Commentary on Otto Kernberg’s “Some Implications of New Developments in Neurobiology for Psychoanalytic Object Relations Theory”","authors":"C. P. Fisher","doi":"10.1080/15294145.2022.2054854","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2022.2054854","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This commentary on Otto Kernberg’s paper, “Some Implications of New Developments in Neurobiology for Psychoanalytic Object Relations Theory,” proposes that psychoanalytic object relations theory has implications for research in neurobiology, in addition to the implications of new developments in neurobiology for psychoanalysis, which are addressed by Kernberg. The commentary considers Kernberg’s recommendations for revisions in psychoanalytic drive theory and the theory of the dynamic unconscious, in relation to identifying and enumerating the drives themselves and the development of the dynamic unconscious. The commentary also addresses the topics of conflict, the death drive, therapeutic implications, and neurobiological concepts of object representations in the brain and mind. There are apparent tensions between Otto Kernberg’s view of self-object-affect relations as “building blocks of the mind” and Mark Solms’ view that “all our relationships with the external object world are, at bottom, driven by our libidinal needs.” This commentary explores that apparent tension and finds that it frames a generative dialogue between psychoanalysis and neuroscience. The commentary ends with a suggestion for neuropsychoanalytic research connecting object representations with brain mechanisms. Previous work by Otto Kernberg on the topic of mourning is juxtaposed with neuroscience research by Mark Solms, Peter Freed, and their respective colleagues.","PeriodicalId":39493,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychoanalysis","volume":"24 1","pages":"21 - 24"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41324068","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The promise of affective science to advance psychoanalytic object relations theory","authors":"R. Lane","doi":"10.1080/15294145.2022.2056909","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2022.2056909","url":null,"abstract":"It is an honor and a privilege to comment on Dr. Kernberg’s landmark article. I met Dr. Kernberg personally 45 years ago as a senior medical student when he gave a visiting lecture. I greeted him afterwards and told him that I had a long-standing friendship with a close friend and colleague of his, the now late William Grossman. We shared a moment of connectedness through Bill that I have not forgotten, and I felt elevated by making a real connection with someone who was already a leading figure in the field. I share this anecdote to illustrate that I know Kernberg to be a legendary leader in psychoanalysis for over a half a century, someone who may arguably be the foremost authority on borderline personality disorder in the world. From that perspective, evaluating Kernberg’s contribution, including its pros and cons, feels somehow inappropriate. Who am I to pass evaluative judgement on the most recent thinking of a legend? This brings to mind the question of how advances in psychoanalytic theory take place. Psychoanalytic treatment is a unique context for observing and exploring the nature of the human mind, including its conscious and unconscious elements. The field of neuropsychoanalysis aims to realize Freud’s vision of understanding the mind based on its neural underpinnings. And yet in order to be considered knowledgeable enough to comment on the nature of the mind in psychoanalysis from a neural perspective, one must ideally have vast experience as a psychoanalytic practitioner. Following from the long tradition of Freud as the ultimate authority in the field, I believe the field only takes seriously highly experienced, blue-ribbon psychoanalysts as suitably knowledgeable to propose changes in psychoanalytic theory. It is for that reason that Kernberg’s article proposing fundamental changes in our conceptualization of drives and the dynamic unconscious based on neuroscience is to be so warmly welcomed. I agree with the broad outlines of Kernberg’s new ideas. I agree that we should revise our concept of drives to be fundamentally based on affect systems; I believe that a revision of our concept of the dynamic unconscious in light of advances in neuroscience is very much needed; I applaud the developmental perspective that he offers and broadly agree with the basic notion that behavior and fantasy are based on representations of self, others and the affective connections between them. There are many, many other statements and comments in this paper with which I agree, too numerous to mention. I think neuropsychoanalysis is fortunate that Kernberg has shared his perspective with us. I believe it really helps advance the idea that psychoanalytic theory can be updated by the integration of clinical experience and neuroscientific knowledge. Given the traditions of the field, and Kernberg’s enormous stature, other psychoanalysts are likely to follow his lead. We are therefore seeing progress in the making. As welcome as this is, it is also import","PeriodicalId":39493,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychoanalysis","volume":"24 1","pages":"39 - 42"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46042466","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Consciousness, splitting, and the dynamic unconscious: Commentary on Kernberg","authors":"S. Boag","doi":"10.1080/15294145.2022.2054463","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2022.2054463","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Otto Kernberg presents a sophisticated approach integrating neurobiology and object relations and calling for revisions to both drive theory and the dynamic unconscious. This commentary briefly addresses Kernberg’s revision of drive theory before focusing upon his theory of splitting and the dynamic unconscious. Although Kernberg’s theory of affect systems, conflict, and the dynamic unconscious provides an important contribution, there are nevertheless several gaps in his theory that require addressing before being able to fully assess his proposal.","PeriodicalId":39493,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychoanalysis","volume":"24 1","pages":"13 - 16"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47266808","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}