You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
This little book takes on the giant task of summarizing hundreds of significant findings in the clinical and basic neurosciences. It accomplishes this as well as any other book, with the added benefit that it is compact and quite readable. In his foreword, Mark Solms echoes Hartmann's efforts toward developing psychoanalysis as a general psychology: “Psychoanalysts who fail to assimilate the new knowledge will be increasingly marginalized both scientifically and professionally, and will be unable to participate in this important intellectual revolution.” Reviewing neuroscience is not the same as assimilating, but the ample and excellent references will provide further information for those who are motivated.
The chapters are based on a series of articles previously published in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. They proceed from brain development, as shaped by genes and environment, through the active construction of the perceptual processes subserving memory and emotion, to the impressive achievements of the human mental apparatus: laterality and consciousness.
The terms can be confusing at times, as they are used in the very different contexts of neurobiology, neurology, cognitive psychology, and psychoanalysis. Examples are structure, integration, and the plethora of terms in basic and clinical memory research. Experimental paradigms differ greatly from the analytic situation.
I will summarize a few of the key points. The connections between individual neurons and between larger groups and modules change with experience. Repetition may be necessary. Conflicts may arise from compromises between opposing entities; for example, between the rapid but crude early mechanisms of learning and generalization (necessary for survival), and the later-developing, more selfreflective mechanisms that can exert only limited influence over the former. Another example is the conflict between “low-road,” automatic motor programs that are acquired early on, and “high-road,”