Towards an Anatomy of the Unconscious

In this paper I present a preliminary model of how the human mental apparatus, as we conceive of it in psychoanalysis, might be represented in the tissues of the brain. Since this is our first approach at something unknown, it goes without saying that the model I will present is subject to substantial revision. It is based on neuropsychological knowledge concerning the cerebral organization of human mental functions, which was derived primarily from clinical observation and systematic investigation of the mental symptoms that are caused by localized brain lesions, using general neurological and psychological methods. General neuropsychological knowledge of this type cannot be simply translated into psychoanalytic terms. Or, at least, such a translation can only be of value as the first step towards a truly psychoanalytic neuropsychology. A truly psychoanalytic neuropsychology must be based upon psychoanalytic methods of observation and investigation of the mental symptoms caused by localized cerebral lesions. We have only just begun this enormous task (Kaplan-Solms & Solms, in press). In all likelihood our perspective on these problems will therefore alter radically as we continue to test our hypotheses against clinical reality. But excessive caution should not prevent us from pausing at this point, to gain a first, schematic perspective on what our efforts have yielded thus far. The aim of a general overview of this sort is for us to take our bearings for the research which still needs to be done, if we are going to properly rejoin psychoanalysis with the neuroscientific field from which it emerged almost one hundred years ago.

The first problems that we faced when I began this series of lectures were theoretical and methodological ones. Once we had decided to attempt an integration of our psychoanalytic conception of