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Many of us in the neuropsychoanalysis community take a “dual-aspect monist” position (Panksepp, 2005), seeing the brain and the mind as two different perspectives on the same system. We observe the brain from the objective side – for example, looking at its structure (how the neurons are physically organized and connected) or looking at its function (how and when those neurons fire). We observe the mind from the subjective side – perceiving our own mental life or empathizing with the internal mental life of another. But fundamentally these observations are about the same system, complex as it may be. Therefore, understanding the physical dynamics of the brain – its genetic, neurochemical, connective aspects – can be informed by appreciating the subjective dynamics of the mind – its consciousness, wishes, fears, and expressions. And conversely, perspectives on those subjective dynamics can be enriched by an understanding of how physical parameters may constrain or amplify mental processes.
Happily, many researchers and clinicians are starting to move in this direction. Perspectives on brain circuits or neurochemicals do not have to exist in isolation from perspectives on environment or subjective emotional life, as they so often have in the past few decades. In this issue, excellent examples of this development are two articles that address topics – autism spectrum disorder and sexual desire – that are often attributed solely to neurochemical or structural processes. What is productive about the neuropsychoanalytic approach, we suggest, is that the neurochemical and structural components do not have to be rejected in order to also consider the subjective side of things, but rather can be better understood when linked with mental processes, both conscious and unconscious.
The Target Article in this issue, “An integrative model of autism spectrum disorder: ASD as a neurobiological disorder of experienced environmental deprivation, early life stress and allostatic overloa