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The chairman of the panel, Daniel Widlöcher, opened by introducing first the panellists and then the topic. He spoke briefly, overviewing the role of cognition in contemporary psychoanalysis, highlighting several of the current controversies on the international psychoanalytic scene, and then turned the proceedings over to the panellists.
The first speaker was Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber. She presented a paper titled 'Changes in cognitive-affective problem-solving in five psychoanalyses'. The topic she took up was her conception of a cognitive science-based model of intrapsychic processes. This might be thought of as an alternative to the structural model of psychoanalysis, since she posits new intrapsychic regulatory structures that accomplish similar ends to the ego, id and superego.
Cognitive science is the name given to a relatively new hybrid body of method and thought that has emerged from the interface of cognitive psychology, linguistics, philosophy and neuroscience. Cognitive scientists concern themselves with (latent to psychoanalysts, unconscious) complex cognitive/affective configurations, such as memory, wishes and overdetermined decision-making processes. Yet, there has been only limited dialogue between these two fields with so much evidently in common, and that are so clearly poised to exchange ideas and methods.
In order to contribute to this dialogue, Leuzinger-Bohleber first distinguished between 'on-line' and 'off-line' research strategies in psychoanalysis. An on-line strategy is one in which the primary data is gathered from the processes in the clinical situation. An off-line strategy is one in which the data gathered within the clinical situation is explored with the help of outside, divergent technologies. The crux of the difference, therefore, is the technology of measurement, whether it be native to or imported from outside of the clinical situation. She went on to suggest that an on-line strategy is most useful when one analyst com