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In the Swedish Psychoanalytic Society, interest in the many and different aspects of the relationship between psychoanalysis and neuroscience has been steadily growing, as shown by the increasing activities of the original Body-Mind Study Group and its members. During the spring of 2000 three of the Society's scientific meetings have been devoted to the special theme of “psychosomatics.” On March 13-Marianne Lerner, Stockholm, gave a paper on the subject, based on her book on psychosomatics. On March 24 Rosine Debray, Paris, presented a paper on “Work with Psychosomatic Disturbances in Children,” and on May 22 Iréne Matthis, Stockholm, gave a paper on the “Metapsychology of Affect.
In the meantime the Body-Mind Study Group is working its way through “The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain” by Terrence Deacon. It is a laborious but rewarding task. In connection with questions raised related to the construction of language, Jan Anward, Professor of Language and Culture at the University of Linköping, was invited to the group. He gave an exemplary presentation of the subject, based on studies of aphasic patients. In addition, three new study groups have been inaugurated, all of them with 10 to 15 participants meeting on average once a month.
One new group, chaired by Iréne Matthis, is devoting a specialized study to the work of Luis Chiozza, Buenos Aires, on the relationship between somatic diseases and unconscious processes.
Another group is studying the neurobiological aspects of infant development, reading “Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self” by A. N. Schore and “The Developing Mind” by D. J. Siegel. This is a cross-disciplinary group with neuropsychologists and experimental psychologists as well as psychoanalysts among its members. It is chaired by Magnus Kihlbom.
A third group, led by a member of the philosophical faculty of the University of Linköping, is studying the problems of
reduction, qualia, the meaning of and referencing