Neuropsychoanalysis

Neuropsychoanalysis represents a synthesis of psychoanalysis and modern neuroscience. It is based on Sigmund Freud's insight that phenomena such as innate needs, perceptual consciousness, and imprinting (id, ego and superego) take place within a psychic apparatus to which "spatial extension and composition of several pieces" can be attributed and whose "locus ... is the brain (nervous system)".^[1]

Neuropsychoanalysis emerged as an interdisciplinary field of research after technological advances made it possible to observe the bioelectrical activities of neurons in the living brain.^[2] This allowed to differentiate where, for example, the need for food begins to show neuronally, in which area of the brain the highest performance of conscious thinking of the ego is focussed (s. frontal lobe), and that the department of the limbic system can permanently store (imprint, 'learn') the experiences partly initiated by the ego itself. The fact that experiences are stored in the brain structure in a retrievable way was already suspected by Freud in 1895 when he described this imprinting process as “a permanent alteration following an event”.^[3] This assumption basically formulates the old philosophical thesis that the memory of living beings at birth is similar to a blank slate (on which ‘experiences’ are soon engraved more or less deeply) and characterises the main function of the superego.

The results of neuropsychoanalysis confirm Freud's three instances model of the soul (s. its technical elaboration in Metapsychology^[4]) Despite this advantage for psychoanalysis resulting from the technical possibilities of today's neurology, many analysts express reservations: knowledge about the anatomical structure of the brain cannot replace interpersonal dialogue and free association in psychoanalytic therapy; the organically precise localisation of the three instances in the brain contributes nothing to the understanding of dreams. Neither does it shed light on the instinctive behavior of the various innate needs of the id nor on the natural social interaction of the original Homo sapiens, as Freud noted when he lamented the lack of primate research. Without findings about the social structure of our genetically closest relatives, his hypothesis of Darwin's primordial horde (as presented for discussion in Totem and Taboo) cannot be tested and, where possible, replaced by a well-founded model. Because of this deficiency in contemporary science, Freud felt compelled to leave his metapsychology in the unfinished state of a Torso^[5] and to call once again for the future development of primate research in The Man Moses.^[6]

Apart from this, other critics of the neuropsychoanalytic approach point to the subjective colouring of the emotionally expressed needs or individually experienced traumas that are examined in the sessions of clinical psychoanalysis and claim that this cannot be fully reconciled with the objective nature of the findings of a scan of bioelectrical brain activity.^[7]

Proponents of neuropsychoanalysis counter this criticism by pointing out that Sigmund Freud himself was once neuroanatomist before he developed psychoanalysis, and further argue that research in this field has finally proven that the psychodynamic activity of the mind is inextricably linked to the neuronal activity of the brain. Indeed, advances in the imaging capabilities of modern technology have made it possible to study the brain's neuronal activity during a dream experienced during sleep, for example, the message of which is then deciphered using the tools of psychoanalysis. Proponents, therefore, point to the ability of current research to capture both the subjective content of psychic phenomena and the objectively given structure of the neuronal network in order to enable a better overall understanding and holistic healing methods through findings from both areas.^[8] Neuropsychoanalysis therefore aims to bring psychoanalysis, a field that is often seen as more humanistic than scientific, under a common umbrella that contributes to the wealth of knowledge it has gained.^[2]