Research Digest

The Research Digest will be a regular feature of Neuro-Psychoanalysis, providing summaries of selected research reports which have a bearing on psychoanalysis and neuroscience. These will allow the reader to keep pace with recent developments in areas of interest, and seek out the appropriate journal for articles of special interest. Many of the reviews will be designed to match the theme of the issue in which they. appear, so that most of this Digest is devoted to recent publications on affect. In addition, the Digest will review other articles which are not linked to a particular theme, but which will be of general interes—hence the Kandel article reviewed below.

Kandel, E. R. (1998), A new intellectual framework for psychiatry.  Am. J. Psychiatry,  155: 457-469. This article is a strongly argued critique of the current relationship between psychoanalysis and neuroscience—written by one of the world's premier neuroscientists, who also has a background in psychoanalysis. The impact of this piece might be measured by the fact that the paper is reputed to have generated more letters to the editor than any other article in the recent history of the American Journal of Psychiatry. Eric Kandel argues that psychiatry in general, and psychoanalysis in particular, has much to gain from interdisciplinary work with neuroscience. Yet there are those in psychoanalysis (a field he describes as lacking a “scientific culture” [p. 467]) who resist such moves: claiming that an interest in the biological substrate of the mental apparatus is premature, or reductionist. Without such a rapprochement, Kandel argues, psychoanalysis risks missing the “remarkable scientific revolution” (p. 467) that is in the midst of transforming our understanding of the biology of mental processes. However, Kandel's criticisms are not one-sided. He also stresses the important role which psychoanalysis has to play in this interdisciplinary work: When it comes to investigating the mental appara