The Embedment-in-the-Brain-Circuitry Phenomenon: Implications for Psychoanalytic Treatment

The primary purpose of this article is to elucidate the phenomenon of the seemingly purposeless embedment of mental material into the brain circuitry. Although such material originally may have had some purpose, it appears to persist beyond the time when it was necessary. For reasons unknown to the individual, it persists indefinitely, possibly throughout life. Such cognitive material appears to have a life of its own and spins around in the brain circuitry long after it has served some function. Psychologists and psychiatrists have not given this phenomenon the attention it deserves, especially as a contributing factor in the development and perpetuation of psychopathology. This phenomenon also has important therapeutic implications. I refer to this process as the Embedment-in-the-Brain-Circuitry Phenomenon (EBCP). I discuss the implications of this phenomenon for our understanding of imprinting, Freud's “psychopathology of everyday life,” post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociation, the obsessive-compulsive disorder, and sexual fantasies and proclivities. Finally, I focus on the therapeutic implications of this phenomenon, especially with regard to the prognosis of psychoanalytic treatment when the EBCP is playing a role in the formation of the patient's symptoms.

Imprinting in Lower Animals

Ethologists use the term imprinting to refer to a response pattern that develops in the earliest hours of life, arises under very specific circumstances, and cannot be extinguished by subsequent