Continued dialogue on the Oxford-style debate from the 15th Annual Congress of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society, New York City, 2014

“This house believes that neuroscientific terms must never replace psychoanalytic ones.”

Introduction

The first issue of last year's volume of Neuropsychoanalysis (17–1) published the arguments of the four speakers who participated in the Oxford-style debate held during the 15th neuropsychoanalysis congress in New York City: Ariane Bazan and Richard Kessler for the motion, and Lisa Ouss and Nikolai Axmacher against the motion. The four speakers had two rounds in the actual debate, but they also had the chance to share their ideas in writing and carefully read one another's a year and a half later. Time seems to have strengthened their original thoughts. Ariane Bazan goes back to the clinical work in psychoanalysis, to emphasize how neuroscientific terms can never replace psychoanalytic ones without the risk of it not being psychoanalysis anymore. Richard Kessler found more examples of a dialogue that does not lead to neuroscientific terms replacing psychoanalytic ones. And Nikolai Axmacher goes back to the roots of psychoanalytic terms in the neurobiology of the nineteenth century, suggesting that psychoanalytic concepts naturally go together with neuroscientific ones. The speakers reply to one another with the understanding that this debate is still open, and will probably remain so for many years to come, due to the complexity of the matter.