Neurodevelopmental psychoanalyst (or more simply, neuro-psychoanalysis) Allan Schore was interviewed a little over a year ago at the Simply Freud site. Schore offers the single greatest unification of Self Psychology (derived from neo-Freudian ideas), attachment theory, neurological development, and therapeutic interventions.
His Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self should be required reading for all counseling students.
Read the whole interview.
Allan Schore
Although some of his theories are still hotly debated, Sigmund Freud, (May 6, 1856 – September 23, 1939) is widely regarded as a trailblazer in the realm of psychiatry and psychology. The Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist, who was allegedly the first to offer a comprehensive explanation of how human behavior is determined by the conscious and unconscious forces, is regarded as the founder of psychoanalysis.
Along with the “talk therapy” that remains the staple of psychiatric treatment to this day, Freud popularized, among other notions, such concepts as the psychosexual stages of development; Oedipus complex; transference; dream symbolism; Ego, Id and Super-Ego; and the one that has become part of colloquial English more than any other psychiatric term – the Freudian slip.
Dr. Allan Schore is on the clinical faculty of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, and at the UCLA Center for Culture, Brain, and Development. He is author of three seminal volumes, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self, Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self and Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self, as well as numerous articles and chapters. He is Editor of the acclaimed Norton Interpersonal Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology. His Regulation Theory, grounded in developmental neuroscience and developmental psychoanalysis, focuses on the origin, psychopathogenesis, and psychotherapeutic treatment of the early forming subjective implicit self. His contributions appear in multiple disciplines, including developmental neuroscience, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, developmental psychology, attachment theory, trauma studies, behavioral biology, clinical psychology, and clinical social work. His groundbreaking integration of neuroscience with attachment theory has led to his description as "the American Bowlby" and with psychoanalysis as "the world’s leading expert in neuropsychoanalysis."
Q: In a posthumously published work entitled Project for a Scientific Psychology, Freud tried to relate his psychological theory to neuro-anatomy and physiology but abandoned the project completely. Can you tell us why he chose not to develop this line of inquiry?
A: In the summer of 1895, Sigmund Freud became obsessed with the idea of writing an article in which he would directly link the operations of the brain and the functions of the mind. This goal seemed to be within reach, as in the previous two decades Freud had worked as a practicing neurologist. During this period, he had published over 100 scientific works. These contributions, during the seminal "golden age" of neurology, culminated in 1891 in his volume On Aphasia. His ideas about this condition and about the brain systems involved in language are still cited in today’s neurological literature. In 1893 to 1895, Freud transitioned from brain to mind in his work with Breuer. In the spring of 1895, he had completed the final chapter on psychotherapy for Studies on Hysteria. It was in this very time period that Freud thought it was in his capacities to integrate his extensive knowledge of brain anatomy and physiology with his current experiences in psychology and psychopathology in order "to furnish a psychology which shall be a natural science." He referred to this ongoing work as "Psychology for Neurologists."
Initially, Freud was confident and even elated that a solution was at hand. Breuer observed that during this time Freud’s intellect was "soaring at its highest.’’ By October, he finished the work in two notebooks totaling 100 pages. This short essay set forth, for the first time, a number of elemental constructs that would literally serve as the foundation, the bedrock of psychoanalytic theory. In this remarkable document, Freud introduced the concepts of primary and secondary processes; the principles of pleasure-unpleasure, constancy, and reality testing; the concepts of cathexis and identification; the theories of psychical regression and hallucination; the systems of perception, memory, unconscious and preconscious psychic activity; and the wish-fulfillment theory of dreams. It also contained the seeds of Freud’s developmental theory and a neuro-physiological model of affect generation.
In order to construct a systematic model of the functioning of the human mind in terms of its underlying neurobiological mechanisms, Freud had to deduce the existence of certain brain mechanisms that were not yet discovered. For example, he described the essential function of "contact barriers," yet Sherrington introduced the term "synapse" only two years after the "Project" was finished! And he referred to the critical activity of "secretory neurons" in the brainstem, yet the biogenic amines of the reticular core of the brain were not discovered until well into the 20th century.
Within one month after finishing the Project, Freud’s enthusiasm totally collapsed and he repudiated the work, and never wanted to see it again. After Freud’s death it was finally published in 1950 under a title devised by Strachey, "Project for a Scientific Psychology." It is now thought that the ideas generated in this work, many of which were incorporated into the seventh chapter of The Interpretation of Dreams, represent the source pool from which he later developed the major concepts of his psychoanalytic model. And yet, according to Sulloway, Freud "never abandoned the assumption that psychoanalysis would someday come to terms with the neuro-physiological side of mental activity."
Q: Along with Mark Solms, you’ve been credited with breathing new life into Freud’s theories with your research in the area of neuro-psychoanalysis. Can you tell us what neuro-psychoanalysis is and how are you bridging the gap between Freud’s subjective view of the mind and your objective analysis of the brain?
A: In a 1997 article in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, I suggested that the time was right for a rapprochement between psychoanalysis and neuroscience. This rapprochement has allowed for the emergence of modern neuro-psychoanalysis, and has returned to the seminal questions introduced in the Project that lie at the core of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis has been called the science of unconscious processes. Neuro-psychoanalysis is thus the branch of neuroscience that deals with the relationship between the mind, especially the unconscious mind, and the nervous systems. Notice I say the "nervous systems" and not "the brain," because the neuronal systems that rapidly process bodily-based information at levels beneath conscious awareness are located in both the central nervous system and the autonomic nervous system.
During the 1990’s, one hundred years after the Project and the centennial of the birth of psychoanalysis, neuro-psychoanalysis experienced an intense revitalization. In 1994, I published Affect Regulation and the Origin of theSelf, exploring the neurobiological underpinnings of developmental and clinical psychoanalysis. In parallel, throughout this "decade of the brain," the investigative tools of neuroscience were greatly expanded - advances in neuro-imaging technologies greatly enhanced the study of brain/mind/body functions. And developmental psychology and emotion research were now producing experimental data research that were directly relevant to psychoanalysis.
No comments:
Post a Comment