Drives, Affects, Id Energies, and the Neuroscience of Emotions Response to the Commentaries by Jaak Panksepp

The neural analysis of emotions is slowly approaching adolescence—full of hope and passion, with some telltale signs of scientific maturity. On the other hand, the discipline of psychoanalysis grew up too rapidly, and it must now consider whether its precocious growth skipped over some critical developmental stages. Although psychoanalysis has traditionally shared a much deeper and broader perspective on human emotionality than neuroscience, the latter now has the tools for generating a more compelling scientific view of the basic emotions and the infrastructure of the id than was ever possible for Freud or his intellectual descendants. Although Freud always believed that psychoanalysis needed to be grounded on the natural functions of the brain, psychoanalytic and neuroscientific approaches to the study of mind have kept their distance for the better part of the twentieth century. Some investigators, including those represented in the present interchange, are now ready to challenge and to mend those old schisms. This will be an important undertaking if the resulting endeavors help us better understand the foundations of human nature—to clarify the essential neuropsychological abilities that are provided for us as birthrights. To make progress on this problem, there has to be some type of reasonable, empirically based specification of the basic emotional values (i.e., id structures) that are genetically created within the normal human brain. It is now evident that there are more innate systems within the mammalian brain than those devoted to the provisioning of nourishment and sexual passions, as early psychoanalytic thought prescribed. The clarification of the various basic emotional feelings within the human brain/mind can set the stage for a lasting science of human nature and an elucidation of its intrinsic values.

First, let me admit to some impatience with the slow and tortuous pace with which the study and discussion of emotions has been proceeding in modern p