When listening to a patient and experiencing the work on the psyche that he or she is doing as an individual and we are doing together, what is actually happening? Is there something involved besides our brains that cannot simply be reduced to the operation of the nervous system? What is the mind, the conscious or the unconscious, and what is their origin? With advancements in cognitive brain research, new answers have been found to these eternal questions about the relationship of mind and body, mind and brain; however, these answers give rise to new questions, thus generating new constructs.

In psychoanalytic circles, there is also increased interest in this problem, which Freud, in his own time, touched upon before turning his attention primarily to consciousness and the development of the structure of personality.