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Dear Editor,
In our article, we argued that at the core of neuropsychoanalysis there is a conflict between psychoanalytic and mainstream (neuro)science conceptions. If neuropsychoanalysis adopted the mainstream view of neuroscience, i.e. if it resigned the ‘cornerstone’ (the Freudian mental unconscious), psychoanalysts would probably to a large extent lose interest in neuropsychoanalysis. In our article, we explicated the consequences of the other alternative: in so far as neuropsychoanalysis leans on the Freudian idea of a causally efficacious unconscious that does not become reduced to neurophysiological matters, there is a serious disagreement with the views of mainstream neuroscience. In this issue, neuropsychoanalysis cannot avoid taking sides: it either leans on the Freudian conception or does not.
From the scientific viewpoint it is not crucial to dispute about what polls say about how popular neuroscience is among psychoanalysts, what Freud (who has recently been appointed even a co-founder of neuropsychoanalysis) said a century ago, whether or not one (Blass and Carmeli, Talvitie and Ihanus) is positive enough towards the endeavour of neuropsychoanalysis, and whether one has read the right neuropsychoanalytic texts.
In his letter, Dr Gilbert Pugh starts with heavy labelling rhetoric (“the nihilistic stance”, “factual errors”, “unwarranted assumptions”), positioning us altogether against creative interdisciplinary endeavours. Perhaps through our mirror neuron systems, we were disappointed to see that our arguments for the need to focus on the core conflict and openly explicate the premises of neuropsychoanalysis were thus evaded and displaced.
Apart from particular psychoanalytic topics, the interests of neuropsychoanalysis are tied to the general question concerning the relation between psychology and neuroscience (or psychological and neurobiological explanations). Each viewpoint has its scope and limits, and outside psychoanalysis we find lively debates aroun