The Psychoanalytic Post

This paper is focused on the theory of drives, particularly on its economic model, which was an integral part of Freud’s original formulation. Freud was aiming to make a link between the psychic energy of drives and the biophysical rules of nature. However, he was not able to develop this model into a comprehensive system linking the body and the mind. The further development of psychoanalytic theory, in various attempts to comprehend the theory of drives, can be described as taking different…

CONCLUSION: Our findings reveal that there is some psychoanalytic literature providing insight into the psychological dynamics and treatment of patients with BD. Elaboration of this literature may help improve our understanding and provide more accurate and comprehensive descriptions of the intrapsychic and interpersonal dynamics of these patients, yielding potentially valuable information for clinical and research purposes, particularly with regard to reducing interpersonal conflict, and…

What do neuroscientific visualizations of mental functioning depict? This article argues that neuroscientific imaging from Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s pen and ink drawings onward falls within the mimetic tradition, that dealing with the artistic representation of reality. Cajal’s iconic images of pyramidal neurons and glial cells surprisingly suggest a non-realist approach to picturing the brain and the mind that opens a new methodological link between humanities and neurosciences. In it, aesthetic…

Stories hold an important role in the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. Their power derives in part from the fact that humans are biologically programmed for storytelling. Stories foster connection with others, socialization, and identity formation. They are integral to all psychoanalytic theories of therapeutic action, and their telling is therapeutic in itself. Psychoanalytic theoretical paradigms can be considered stories, as well. A positive outcome of analytic treatment has the…

The large majority of studies shows that girls develop their language skills faster than boys in the first few years of life. Are girls born with this advantage in language development? The present study used fNIRS in neonates to investigate sex differences in neural processing of speech within the first days of life. We found that speech stimuli elicited significantly more brain activity than non-speech stimuli in both groups of male and female neonates. However, whereas girls showed…

The neuropsychoanalytic approach solves important aspects of how to use our understanding of the brain to treat patients. We describe the neurobiology underlying motivation for healthy behaviors and psychopathology. We have updated Freud’s original concepts of drive and instinct using neuropsychoanalysis in a way that conserves his insights while adding information that is of use in clinical treatment. Drive (Trieb) is a pressure to act on an internal stimulus. It has a motivational energic…

The author contemplates the nature of symbolic function and reviews the most important theories on the topic, proposing developments of thought. While it has variously been argued that the symbols appearing in dreams and insanity are the same as those that occur in art, religion and folklore, symbolism has never been approached systematically. Freud came across symbolism during the 1910 to 1916 period, and he suggested it had an innate origin. Though psychoanalysis has analysed the nature of…

The notion of intersubjectivity has achieved a primary status in contemporary psychoanalytic debate, stimulating new theoretical proposals as well as controversies. This paper presents an overview of the main contributions on inter-subjectivity in the field of neurosciences. In humans as well as-probably-in other species, the ability for emotional resonance is guaranteed early in development. Based on this capacity, a primary sense of connectedness is established that can be defined…

The sense of self has always been a topic of high interest in both psychoanalysis and most recently in neuroscience. Nowadays, there is an agreement in psychoanalysis that the self emerges from the relationship with the other (e.g., the caregiver) in terms of his/her capacity to attune, regulate, and synchronize with the emergent self of the infant. The outcome of this relational/intersubjective synchronization is the development of the sense of self and its regulatory processes both in dynamic…

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