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As this journal was founded in 1999, and the 20th Congress of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society took place in 2019, this year seems a fitting time to celebrate the 20th anniversary of neuropsychoanalysis. The celebration was kicked off by an in-depth interview of Oliver Turnbull by Christian Salas in our previous issue. In what follows, other members of the neuropsychoanalysis community share some personal, social, and theoretical reflections on the importance of neuropsychoanalysis since the founding of the journal and the Society. Through personal histories, remembrances of the “pre-history” and development of the neuropsychoanalysis community, and discussions of concepts and findings that have emerged at our congresses and in these pages, a nuanced landscape of our vital, interdisciplinary project emerges. – The Editors
My wonderful and enriching journey in neuropsychoanalysis began sixteen years ago at the University of Cape Town when Professor Mark Solms walked into our first postgraduate lecture as trainee clinicians and proclaimed that we were about to learn a unique, yet fundamentally important approach to clinical neuropsychology. The dictum that I heard back then was underpinned by the following two key tenets, which clinical experience has subsequently shown me are crucial if one is to correctly understand, diagnose, and ultimately assist brain-injured patients.
First, the relatively novel (in the neuropsychology world at least) hypothetico-deductive approach dictates that, rather than merely measuring a patient's functions quantitatively and at face value using standardized tests (in short, a purely psychometric approach), the clinician must instead aspire to answering a clinical question by generating and then systematically excluding hypotheses in order to test and explore patients’ neurocognitive functions. In doing so, s/he can reach an accurate and practically meaningful clinical impression based on testin