Commentary on: “Functional Neuroimaging—Can It Contribute to Our Understanding of Processes of Change?”

The article by Beutel & Huber nicely summarizes the state of the art of functional brain imaging with psychotherapy and the possible contribution by psychoanalysis. In the conclusion, they argue for the need to investigate how subjective experiences-that is, mental states—from a first-person perspective interact with neuronal activity as observed from a third-person perspective. This raises a methodological question that is especially relevant for investigating the neurobiologi-cal basis of psychodynamic therapy. Psychodynamic therapy involves various psychodynamic processes that are accessible only in subjective experience in first-person perspective (or by introspection in second-person perspective) while they are not observable in third-person perspective. If we want to understand the neurophysiological basis of psychodynamic therapy, we are therefore confronted with the problem of how to link first- or second-person-perspective-based psy-chodynamic processes and third-person-based neuronal