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To the editor:
I read with interest B.H. Clarke's paper, “A Cat is Not a Battleship: Thoughts on the Meaning of ‘Neuropsychoanalysis,’” and appreciate his focus on critical challenges that exist on a philosophical level in applying findings about the brain to psychoanalysis. As a practising psychoanalyst who has some interest in these matters, I appreciate, in particular, the non-antagonist tone of his contribution, a tone that has been unapologetically abandoned in similar contributions on the topic. Clarke invites dialogue and my comments are made in that spirit.
Clarke observes that subjectivity cannot be eliminated from our perspective on “objective” neuroscientific research:
… in coming to interpret and understand the findings of systematic research, any number of possible perspectives might be brought to bear, and the findings will be interpreted in any number of different ways. … objective study is framed by interpretive activity … (Clarke 2018, 440)
One such interpretation is that an unbridgeable gap exists, one that cannot be closed without making a “bloody mess” (Clarke 2018, 434). Another, as Clarke notes, is that as neuroscientific research becomes more sophisticated the gap cannot only be bridged but done away with—a “monadic” solution where brain findings are the final arbiters of subjective reality. Yet another interpretive stance is one of “loose juxtapositional toggling back and forth” where interpretation depends upon the concepts/phenomena being juxtaposed (Clarke 2018, 430). Our metaphors express our subjectivity: are we regarding one elephant or two … is the analyst the artist who need not know about the chemistry of the paint he uses (Blass and Carmeli 2007) or an art restorer (Sandberg 2016) where such knowledge can be helpful?
Clarke posits:
Only when we properly understand what a neurobiological explanation can and cannot explain, and when the differences between realms is clear, can the findings of neuroscience be evaluated as potentially relev