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P.C. In this special issue on the relationship between psychoanalysis and neuroscience, the Editorial Board of the Rivista would like to hear your perspective based on your years of research.
A.I. Neuroscience and psychoanalysis share a common object of study: the brain/mind. However, they approach it from different “viewpoints”: psychoanalysis studies the mind by exploring it through other minds, whereas neuroscience studies the brain through the biological processes underlying mental functionings. Neuroscience can provide that empirical validation for psychoanalytic theories that Freud longed for, as he considered biology a field of limitless possibilities, from which we still await the most surprising explanations. Psychoanalysis has evolved in dialogue with biology through the conceptual reworking of its paradigms while each field maintained radically distinct perspectives and competencies. The relationship between psychoanalysis and neuroscience should be understood in terms of “mutual relevance”, where each discipline, while preserving the specific methodologies of its scientific status, engages in a dialogue that allows psychoanalysis, in particular, to participate in contemporary scientific discourse and find validation for its insights, which have often anticipated concepts that neurobiology is now confirming through experimental evidence. In recent years, neuroscientific research has identified several points of contact with psychoanalysis, providing a morpho-functional basis for specific mental functionings on which psychoanalytic theories are founded. Specifically, neuroscience is exploring areas that have traditionally been a prerogative of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is fundamentally a theory of affects, and neuroscience has expanded its investigation into affective-emotional processes, focusing on the role of early relational exchanges that are essential for developing brain circuits. Even at the foetal
* Professor Emeritus of Clinical Psychology at t
* Professor Emeritus of Clinical Psychology at t