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I read Mark Solms's commentary with deep appreciation and thanks. Such dialogue is precisely what I hope will arise out of these papers. As the commentary makes clear, linking neuroscience and psychoanalysis opens new frameworks for discussing different analytic views. This is one way neuropsychoanalysis can advance psychoanalytic discourse.
I emphasize again that these papers aim to link Lacanian concepts and neuroscience—not to disprove other theories in favor of a Lacanian view. I therefore welcome Solms's points, as I believe these are genuine avenues of productive dialogue. I will briefly touch on these points, not to remedy the disagreement, but to render the questions as precise as possible, in the hope of facilitating future work.
Solms's clarification of his use of “instinct” and “drive” affords me a similar opportunity. This is especially important, because analytic schools define terms differently. I am grateful to Solms's clear differentiation between drive and instinct in relation to Panksepp's systems. Solms defines drive as the “measure of the demand made upon the ego for work”1 (p. 769) and instinct (an innate prediction) as the inborn motor response to the drive-demand. In contrast, what I refer to as drive includes the ever shifting motor aim (i.e., predictive) component—not demand alone.
I am following Freud's model (1915), in which drive consists of source, pressure, aim, and object; the particular motor pathway (i.e., the aim) is part of drive's anatomy. Of note, the aim and object fail to remove the demand and are sensitized to repeat this failed attempt (see parts 1 and 2). Following Zupančič (2017) and Johnston (2005), I recognize that there may be any number of particular drives—what matters is this formal