Abstracts EACD/ Panel Neuropsychoanalyse
A) Theoretical section
1. Mark Solms, Capetown
From Freud and Luria to Neuropsychoanalysis, via the Clinical Method
Mark Solms will review the relationship between Freud’s psychoanalytic method and
the classical hypothetico-deductive method of clinical investigation in internal
medicine. Then he will review Luria’s relationship with psychoanalysis, and show how
his approach to neuropsychology emerged from the traditions of classical behavioural
neurology combined with psychoanalysis. Lastly, Solms will show how Luria’s work
created the breakthrough into neuropsychoanalysis.
2. Elisabeth Brainin, Vienna
The Body and the Mind in the Course of Childhood Development
The Ego is foremost a bodily ego, (Freud, 1923), it is the bodily experience which
moulds the formation of the Ego, the psychic apparatus in the child. This is to show in
the following examples and theoretical reflections. The child’s awareness of body and
Self is centred on it’s bodily experiences embedded in his experiences of object
relations to the care-takers.
3. Gerald Wiest, Vienna
Freud and Neurology – Hierarchies in Mind and Behaviour
The history of the sciences of the human brain and mind has been characterized
from the beginning by two parallel traditions. The prevailing theory that still influences
the way current neuroimaging techniques interpret brain function, can be traced back
to classical localizational theories, which in turn go back to early phrenological
theories. The other approach has its origins in the hierarchical neurological theories
of Hughlings-Jackson, which have been influenced by the philosophical conceptions
of Herbert Spencer. Another hallmark of the hierarchical tradition, which is also
inherent to psychoanalytic metapsychology, is its deeply evolutionary perspective by
taking both ontogenetic and phylogenetic trajectories into consideration. This article
provides an outline on hierarchical concepts in brain and mind sciences, which
contrast with current cognitivistic and non-hierarchical theories in the neurosciences.
B) Clinical section
4. Zsofia Kovacs, Vienna
„Alone and without nobody“– loss of „Self“
Psychoanalysis of a boy after TBI
The inner world of the neurological patient is the topic of psychoanalysis. What
happens, when the patient fails to “recognize” himself and also his objects? What is
the dynamic background of this phenomenon? This talk covers the first months of the
patient’s recovery in a hospital setting and throws light on the development of
psychic/mental structures during psychoanalysis. It shows how unconscious
processes “exploit” body and mind and how their understanding and interpretation
enhances the general rehabilitation process. The clinical process has a sound
theoretical fundament based on Freudian psychoanalysis and its development by
Luria towards today’s neuropsychoanalysis. It shows how important it is to overcome
a symptom-oriented approach in neurorehabilitation by listening to the other side:
the patient’s subjectivity. It paves the way for real interdisciplinarity of cognition,
emotion and behaviour considering conscious and also unconscious aspects.
5. Kobi Tiberg, Tel Aviv
Confabulating in memory and perception: Reality and fantasy following brain
damage
Confabulations are false memories produced without conscious knowledge of their
falsehood and are frequently associated with prefrontal brain damage. Traditional
neuropsychological explanations of confabulation attribute these symptoms to
cognitive deficits such as impaired control of memory retrieval or impaired
temporality. However, recent studies demonstrate that confabulations are biased by
motivational and emotional factors, and suggest that impairment in retrieval control
and inhibition due to prefrontal damage may generate excessive influence of emotion
on memory. In a neuro-psychoanalytic framework some cases of confabulation due
to prefrontal damage seem to represent a shift from 'reality principle' to 'pleasure
principle' ways of thinking. This process will be demonstrated in the paper with
examples from clinical and neuropsychological testing material. I will further suggest
that the process of replacing objective material with subjective experience can also
be seen in the domain of visual perception, in patients with right hemisphere
perisylvian damage. This will be demonstrated with examples of ways in which these
patients perceive and interpret Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) pictures, and
explained according to Solms's theory of narcissistic regression following right
perisylvian damage. Finally, I will suggest ways of working with confabulatory
patients in psychotherapy, based on integrative, neuropsychoanalytic understanding
of their symptoms.
6. Gabriele Wesenauer, Vienna
On development within psychoanalytic progress - being seen and seeing,
being heard and hearing
In this paper I would like to consider aspects of how psychoanalytic theory can
contribute to the endeavours in the area of psychotherapeutic work with multihandicapped children, based on case vignettes. Understanding within a protective
analytic relationship represents a specific way of trying to change disturbing,
unconscious psychic dynamics - and in trying to help in the treatment of even those
children with severe disabilities.