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This blockbuster issue of Neuropsychoanalysis is packed with examples of the theoretical generativity of neuropsychoanalysis, which may have far-reaching clinical consequences. A series of pieces in this issue provide stimulating food for thought, and fertile ground for new work.
Our journal has a tradition of publishing Target Articles that stimulate the kind of interdisciplinary dialogue that is necessary for developing neuropsychoanalysis. Typically, an experienced researcher, clinician, or theoretician addresses a body of work, or specific clinical or research question, with great depth and breadth. The Target Article is then responded to by a group of expert commentators, followed by a response from the author. See, for example, the masterful Target Articles on the social origins of interoceptive inference by Katerina Fotopoulou and Manos Tsakiris (2017), an integrative model of autism spectrum disorder by William Singletary (2015), and evolutionary and developmental biology by Myron Hofer (2014), to name but a few examples.
In this issue, we have a variation on the typical format, in the Target Article by Mark Solms entitled “New Project for a Scientific Psychology: General Scheme.” In this piece, Solms produces something new by revising, on a line-by-line basis, Sigmund Freud’s “Project for a Scientific Psychology: General Scheme” (1895), which Solms calls the “ur-text” of neuropsychoanalysis. In Freud’s original piece, which remained unpublished during his lifetime, Freud began to sketch an over-arching model of the brain and mind, but could not pursue it to completion, due to the nascent or nonexistent technologies in neuroscience. Solms takes developments in affective and computation neuroscience – especially ideas from Jaak Panksepp and Karl Friston – to flesh out and update Freud’s model, producing a landmark work that we believe will be a major contribution to psychoanalytic theory and history. To provide some social and scientific context, our co-editor