The Israeli Forum for Psychoanalysis and Neurology

The forum was established in September 2000 by and for professionals from different disciplines within the human service professions. It is comprised of persons interested in designing and operating a permanent forum of learning on the interrelationship between psychoanalysis and brain and behavioral sciences. The intent is to study the emotional, mental, physical, and bioneurological components from both perspectives, fully keeping in mind the uniqueness of each. The desired yield of this enterprise is the creation of a common language for discourse and thus better comprehension of the interrelationship between the two, and the promotion of further investigation of neuropsychoanalytical issues. The assumption is that this will pave the way for advancements in the science of human behavior and will improve the lives of people, thus contributing to advancing humanity within society, in line with the mission of these professions.

The group consists of approximately 15 members who attend monthly evening meetings (alternating between Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem) as well as more extended meetings, where participants are expected to present lectures on a topic related to the annual program.

This year the subject was issues of the self viewed from a psychoanalytic and a neurological context. We examined the concepts “self” and “agency” from our various points of view, striving to define their primary core modules. We completed a list of primitives (elementary building blocks) of the concepts. We will continue our work using research material, and we hope to be able to present the result at next year's scientific meeting.

At the same time we have been discussing a procedure of scientific research called “the cave—virtual reality,” where we try to compare the differences and the similarities to the concept of transference/counter-transference, using aspects from both neurology and psychoanalysis.