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The Psychoanalysis/Neuroscience Workshop of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute reconvened in the Fall of 1999. Our group read and discussed Solms (1997) prior to the seminars and lectures given by Dr. Mark Solms. His visit became the occasion for inviting members from all three of the psychoanalytic institutes in Boston to participate in our workshop. The study of, and debate over, Dr. Solms's ideas was lively and rewarding. For example, following his lecture, there was a debate about the relevancy of REM generating structures for the process of dreaming. Equally helpful was the future direction he provided us with. As a result of our discussions with him, we have decided to sponsor a lecture series. Researchers of a variety of subjects within neuroscience will be invited to talk to our workshop, the larger psychoanalytic society, or both. Under Dr. Greatrex's leadership, we have been organizing this program for the upcoming academic year. The topics will include: dynamic systems theory; affect and motivation; and the biology of consciousness.
While planning for our future, we have been fully engaged in the present. Our monthly meetings resumed in February 2000. Dr. Gerald Stechler talked on dynamic systems theory. He presented his own digest of the work of Ilya Prigogine (1997). He explained that to envision any system, complex or simple, one must artificially imagine that it is closed, or else there are no limits to the parameters that must be considered. Once having arbitrarily “bounded” a system, certain properties can be studied. Of greatest interest are the perturbations that lead to positive feedback loops that in turn eventuate in bifurcations. This is the path toward complexity. Dr. Stechler utilized many examples, including that of ants crossing a barrier through one or the other of two openings. Accidental drifts toward asymmetry, e.g., a chance occurrence of a greater number of ants passing through opening A, may lead to a shift in the system