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This capacious collection of fourteen articles, plus an introduction by Jon Mills, argues that every psychoanalyst must take a position on the mind-body problem. The ancient body-soul division has been reformulated, the language of “soul” largely dropping by the wayside, according to Mills, because of its religious connotations. Diverse notions of mind take up the slack. Every analyst assumes some sort of relationship between self-reflexive thought (mind) and bodily instincts (body). The exact details vary tremendously. Too often these foundational ideas are not made explicit, despite their importance. This volume makes them explicit from a wide range of starting points.
The first and last articles in the volume demonstrate the breadth of arguments. In the first chapter, Mills presents his Critique of Materialism (pp. 14-45). He argues that a “bio-neurochemical-physiological” approach is necessary but not sufficient to account for mental functioning (p. 4). Such an approach can never explain lived experience. Even non-reductive materialism, which he sees as the most robust, does not directly address the question: Is the mind merely brain? (p. 15). Materialists err in their conceptions of causation, relying on outdated positivist traditions (p. 21), as does cognitive science's focus on only what can be measured. Despite the denial by some materialists that their theories preclude free will, its possibility is dramatically reduced (p. 24). In the end, all materialist positions are reductive because none meet the standard of explaining “freely self-directed constituting agency” (p. 28). Mills' alternative vision, Psychic Holism, is “belief in the multifarious existence and interdependence that comprise the individual's relation to the world and life” (p. 39). Recent developments in physics support Psychic Holism, including the “momentous discovery of the energetic stratification of material interactions” (p. 29). Anti-materialists will find Mills' essay refreshing.
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