We present a neuropsychoanalytic experimental paradigm for demonstrating psychodynamic conflict. The strategy is threefold: to manipulate awareness of emotional stimuli that activate the psychodynamics of participants diagnosed with a pertinent psychological disorder; to compare their neurobiological vs. experiential responses to those of healthy participants; and to correlate the former patterns of neural activation of the diagnostic sample with attending patterns of behavior that are indicative of conflict. Behavioral experiments based on the paradigm have generated findings that are consistent with a theory of psychodynamic conflict. An ongoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study is comparing the scans of phobic, counterphobic, and healthy participants during exposure to masked and unmasked phobic stimuli. If the predicted patterns of neural activation of the phobic groups correlate with corresponding patterns of behavior, it will link brain and behavior in the demonstration of psychodynamic conflict.