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Dear Editors,
The paper by Blass and Carmeli (2007) calls for comment on the scientific and epistemological questions it raises. The authors start out by complaining that the neurosciences are invading what is really the field of psychoanalysis and warn psychoanalysts that ‘the application of neuroscience to psychoanalysis rests on unwarranted inference that may have a significant negative impact on the way psychoanalysis will evolve in future years’ (p. 20). They justify this by highlighting the fact that psychoanalysis and the neurosciences play on two different—separate—epistemological fields. Finally, they take aim at analysts ‘who are not trained in neuroscience or necessarily immersed in findings to conclude that, indeed, neuroscience is relevant to their work’ (p. 20).
I am quite willing to share this last worry, but I do not feel that neuroscientific observations pose any threat to psychoanalysis. In fact, they can enrich it by providing an anatomo-functional backing for the events and functions on which the psychoanalytical theory of the mind is based. Naturally, a lot depends on what use psychoanalysis makes of neuroscientific findings. We are not talking of neuroscience ‘taking over’ psychoanalysis, or of psychoanalysis using the same methods as neuroscience. The ideal situation would be a form of co-operation, where we take from the neurosciences whatever is useful to extend and consolidate psychoanalytical theories. In apparent contrast to their argument, however, the authors themselves say, ‘we do not in any way question that all mental phenomena necessarily require a biological substrate’ (p. 21).
I find it obvious that, if the neurosciences show ‘that there are memories that cannot be recollected, then psychoanalytic theory cannot maintain that they can be, and consequently cannot develop a clinical theory of cure that rests on recollection’ (p. 22). But this does not seem so clear to the authors, who specify that ‘objective recollection is not necessar