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Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy 9(2), 121-131, 1995
This paper attempts to tackle some of the issues present in the relationship between the theories of a psychology of mind and the theories of neuroscience. The ancient and seemingly-unsolvable mind-body problem may find a more fertile ground for debate through pragmatic clinical presentation than pure metaphysical and philosophical discussions. Some aspects from the psychoanalysis of a subject suffering from a rare genetic abnormality, and a brief vignette from the life of a psychiatric institution, are presented and discussed, to exemplify some of the complexities present at the interface between the psychic and biological domains.
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy 9(2), 107-120, 1995
This paper reflects on the place of psychoanalytical thinking in a scientific context in which mental illness is increasingly being reduced to physiological and chemical factors. A small series of neurological patients with severe emotional disturbances is presented, in order to demonstrate that emotional symptoms can be neither described nor explained in physical terms. Even in cases where an organic aetiology is indisputable, physiological factors can only be invoked to explain somatic symptoms and the physiological correlates of mental symptoms. The mental symptoms themselves can only be understood psychologically.
International Journal of Psycho Analysis 76, 315, 1995
In the self-examination that followed a patient's suicide attempt, the author was worried by three features which he had observed in an earlier suicide attempt by another patient: (1) the father had not featured in the analysis as much as would have been expected, (2) the suicide attempt occurred during a period when the time and place boundaries of the analytic setting were in jeopardy, e.g. t