Discussion of the Structural Model in Relation to Solms' Neuroscience-Psychoanalysis Integration: The Ego

I take on this task with some trepidation and awe, but also with some delight insofar as I read Dr. Solms' extensive review of modern neuro-science in relation to psychoanalysis and Dr. Karen Kaplan-Solms' case presentation, and I have been stimulated to think about a broad array of questions that have always troubled me. The question raised in Solms' paper is, how the human mental apparatus might be represented in the tissues of the brain (p. 331). He then points to Freud's notion of terminal points of knowledge with respect to the psyche and the brain and inquires again which psychoanalytic model could correlate with which neuroscientific model, using Freud and Luria as the primary bases of his thinking. Regrettably (or fortunately, as your vantagepoint dictates) we have in Freud both a neuroscientific and a psychological theorist of the turn of the century, who came to the conclusion “if it existed, (that is, some idea of where consciousness lies) … it would at the most afford an exact localization of the processes of consciousness and would give us no further help toward understanding them” (p. 332). This cautionary statement seems to block out any further inquiry toward the end of integration of mind and body. And here Solms bravely has entered into the foray to say, in effect, “that was said unto you of old, but I say unto you now ….” He