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Correspondences can be sought among mental, neuropsychic, and computational approaches to human meaning to inform the domain of language, which above all is the medium and metier of our psychodynamic therapy. Similar correspondences have been found in the domains of object recognition (Forrest, 1991) and of action and creation (Forrest, 1994).
In particular this article samples the implications of recent work in brain imaging, computer language, and paleolinguistics for clinical work and theory, to suggest that more extensive efforts may yield more comprehensive syntheses. The goal is to encompass an improved knowledge base about language so that our higher order psychoanalytic conceptual assemblies become more scientifically grounded.
A new convergence-zone model of the basis in brain for language, newly observable by functional brain imaging, emphasizes the participation of more anatomically distributed essential language areas. As many scientific observers of language previously suspected, language is assembled from components stored as attributes rather than as total unified representations or gestalts.
This new brain model invites the interest of all of us in the language-based profession of psychotherapy. Language can no longer be considered the transparent medium of conveyance of our patients' wishes, conflicts, and dreams. Like goldfish, we have not been conscious of the water in our psychoanalytic bowl.
Instead, a number of new considerations will invite our detailed attention, under the rubrics onymic, neuropsychic and dynamic. In particular, a new brain model of dynamic conflict is required, and it is potentially directly observable in simultaneous functional activations.
Next, the languages that computers use will be described, together with the difficulties that computers have comprehending human language, which gives us a new appreciation of the