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Recently, a prominent neuroscience researcher described how she strengthened her last grant proposal: She threatened to write yet another book on consciousness if her grant were turned down. There is, indeed, a huge number of books on consciousness. But the present volume stands out in its tone of humility and its emphasis on conveying controversy without the usual attendant confusion.
It may be most helpful to question how this volume adds to what has already been established by the psychoanalytic method. For example, it is now generally accepted in the neurosciences that much of mental life is unconscious. What is missing from neuroscience is the dynamic unconscious, which goes beyond the autonomic or “zombie” unconscious, limitations in working memory, and the preconscious—areas that appear to be quite readily accepted by many current researchers in academic psychology and neuroscience. Freud proposed over 100 years ago that functions, rather than being localized, were more likely distributed in the brain in what more recently have been termed pathways or networks. However, neuroscientists are only now beginning to understand the important corollaries of repression, conflict, and compromise, as they become increasingly aware of parallel and alternating processes. In addition, the contribution of psychoanalytically informed child studyand treatment is increasingly accepted, but there continues to be a strong tendency to disavow infantile sexuality and the profound impact of the environment on brain and personality development.
Current neuroscientific ideas of networks and signal traffic point to the utility of the psychoanalytic concepts of intensity, regulation, and balance of drives—all essential in considering the impact of overstimulation (trauma, primal scene). The idea of interacting mental structures is only beginning to be investigated in studies using PET scans and measurement of magnetic fields within the brain, which are not reviewed in this volume.
Fre